Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2014!!!  I just returned from a completely lovely trip to FL with S.  We flew up to Jackson, MS to meet up with my brother D and his girlfriend B and we then made the 13 hour drive down to the family's townhouse.  We drove through the night, so it wasn't the easiest of trips, but it was worth it to get to spend some extra time with the family!  The weather wasn't phenomenal, so we were only able to hit up the beach twice over the course of the week, but we still had a blast hanging out with the rest of the family, eating my Grandma's incredible cooking, doing a girls' craft afternoon, and of course doing some post-holiday shopping!

D and S skim boarding at the beach

My mom reading to the girls

My Texas Star mosaic from our girls' crafting trip

We spent New Years Eve at the bowling alley again with a big group of family.  We all had fun bowling, eating pizza, and drinking beer together while we cheered for all of our strikes and spares and boo-ed all of the near misses and splits.  At midnight we had a champagne toast and I finally got my first NYE kiss from S!

The massage train at the alley - gotta keep those shoulders loose!

Grandma kicking ass on the lanes and B glowing in her signature fluorescent garb

So thankful I got to ring in the New Year with family!

 So what are my plans for the upcoming year?  I don't really make "New Year's Resolutions" because those are associated with the breaking of goals.  But some of the ways I'm starting out 2014 include:

• Start exercising again.  I fell off the wagon after the Germany trip and never really got back on.  S and I have decided to give p90x a try this month, and my goal is to exercise 3x/week minimum.
• Speaking of Germany,  I promise to get the rest of my pictures from the trip posted to the blog.  
• Food wise, January has been deemed "Pescatarian Month"!  S and I are going to forgo all meat and poultry and also work on reducing our processed wheat flour, sugar, and dairy intake (the "white foods") in an effort to detox a bit.  I have been gathering a bunch of pescatarian-friendly recipes here on Pinterest and will be sure to post updates on how that is going!  
• S and I also want to try to get more restaurants crossed off our list in the city.  I'm going to be moving in with S about mid way through the year when my lease is up and we want to take advantage of the easy access of having a place in the city while we can.

So those are the short term plans.  As the year progresses, I'll be sure to keep you updated on other events/obsessions/sucesses as they happen.   2013 was a fantastic year, so here's to another one in 2014!

(top picture from here)