I may only be 25(soon-to-be 26), but I’m convinced 2018 was my year. I got engaged to my best friend, worked/witnessed some pretty cool sporting events, worked another year in my dream job, got a pet turtle, traveled the country and the world and of course, I married my best friend.
If you follow me on Instagram you saw me post a snippet of my year in an Instagram Story review. If you don’t follow me on IG, what are you waitin’ for?!
I saw a lot of people complaining on social media about how everyone was posting end of year reviews, but you know what? WHO CARES! If you don’t want to see it, keep scrollin’. There’s also a handy-dandy mute/unfollow button. Anyway, it’s okay to share your successes from the past year. In fact, I feel like it’s a necessity.
I enjoy looking back at my year to cherish the memories I made and benchmark my goals and successes to plan for the next year. I think so many people go about their life day-to-day and just are. I try to live each and every day. I want to make a life, not just have a life. So, here is the life I made for myself this past year!
January
- I kicked off 2018 at a Front Office Sports networking event at TopGolf. It was pretty cool because I got to use a Twitter Mirror and I didn’t even know those things existed!
- In an in-the-moment decision, I decided to stick around Atlanta after a Girls on the Run coaches training to explore the 2018 National College Football Championship festivities.
- Another sports thing, sorry y’all! I got to rock my Kent Bazemore(He’s a fellow ODU Alum) jersey at an Atlanta Hawks game where I enjoyed a tasty meal of… fried cricket tacos!
February
- The first weekend of February I headed to Quantico to see my then-boyfriend for my birthday/Valentine’s Day and… HE PROPOSED!
- Two weeks after that Jett came down to Georgia. He got to take in an Atlanta Gladiators ECHL hockey game where I was working on their game day social staff to stay busy during baseball offseason. We also did some wedding planning and started our registry.
- After years of dying to go to Spring Training I finally made it! I met up with my high school bestie who lives in Florida and we experienced some of the theme parks before heading over to a Braves Spring Training game.
March
- I asked my besties to be my bridesmaids! Read about my bridesmaid proposals here.
- I volunteered to work at the NCAA Sweet 16 and Elite 8 in Atlanta. I was having college basketball withdrawals from my days of working in Allen Fieldhouse at KU!
- Jett got a few days off and came to Georgia. We continued registering for wedding gifts and got to go to our first Braves game of the season!
April
- I finally got to spend an Easter with my fiancé!
- I began my second season working for the Atlanta Braves Triple-A baseball team, the Gwinnett Stripers!
- Jett graduated from TBS. Both of my parents met up with us in Quantico for dinner and the next day I went dress shopping with my mom, sister and future Mother-In-Law.
- Jett had some time off after graduation and got to spend it with me in Georgia again.
May
- All I did in May was work. Lots and lots of baseball y’all.
June
- One of our couple friends from Navy Baseball got married in Florida! Jett and I got to have one of our first solo vacations together since our trip to Philly for the 2016 Army-Navy game.
- Jett and I headed back to Texas to meet with our wedding vendors. We finally saw our wedding venue, selected our florals and got to do a cake tasting! We also met and booked our wedding photographer and got our engagement pictures done.
- The Stripers staff went to Atlanta to watch baseball as a fan versus work! If you haven’t been to SunTrust park, you’ve gotta put it on your list. They have a cool development called the Battery around the ballpark with a brewery, restaurants, bars and shopping.
July
- I crashed Jett’s family vacation in Florida without him. His family was in town for a weeklong vacation and I went down the first weekend. Jett went down the day after me and stayed for the 4th of July and his brother’s wedding. Unfortunately, I had to work but at least I got to catch some fish and adopt a pet turtle!
- I flew up to DC to volunteer at the 2018 MLB All-Star weekend. Jett and I did a bunch of fun things like go to the Zoo and race in a Color Run 5K. My dad also came up to DC from southern Maryland to hang out with us for a bit.
August
- Jett’s birthday month! He came home to Georgia to celebrate. I made him a fancy double layered chocolate Oreo cake. He suggested we do a Painting with a Twist class and who am I to turn down arts and crafts when you can BYOBAS(Bring your own beer and snacks)?! Jett had also mentioned multiple times how cool it would be to work on a baseball grounds crew, so I hooked him up!
September
- Saronyra minor league baseball season! I love my job, but after 140 games, 70 at home, the offseason is a blessing.
- Now that I was done working baseball, I got to spend more time in Atlanta enjoying beer with my baseball!
- The Braves hosted their minor league teams for a summit. The Braves own all their teams and they are pretty local. It’s basically like a store that has franchises. This was the first time all of us were in the same place so it was pretty cool!
- With my weekends free again I had to get to some other sporting events in the area, a University of Georgia football game was up first on my list!
- I had the privileged of being sent to represent the Stripers at the Minor League Promotional Seminar in Des Moines, Iowa. I learned so much and met so many great people in the biz.
- September was seriously busy for me y’all. I flew straight from my work conference to my bachelorette party in New Orleans. It was so much fun. I took French class for 7 years so visiting the French Quarter has always been at the top of my To-Do list!
October
- WEDDING MONTH! But I did other things in October too…
- I went to an Atlanta United soccer match.
- The Braves made it to the NLDS and had two games at SunTrust Park that I got to go to for free! Probably one of the coolest perks of my job.
- Oh yeah, another big thing happened this month… Warrior Wife launched!
- Okay, now we can get to the big day! Jett and I got married on a Saturday and we both flew into Texas on the Tuesday night before. We made sure to spend a lot of time with our families and guests around the wedding because we wanted to focus on each other during our big day and we were about to leave on a long honeymoon.
- The first stop on our honeymoon was London. I will do a more detailed honeymoon post in the future, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss it! Jett and I saw Wicked in London on October 30th.
- On Halloween, Jett and I were in Paris and explored the catacombs. Equal parts creepy and cool.
November
- Jett and I visited Belleau Wood and drank from Devil Dog fountain. There will be more on this in the future too because it was an experience to say the least!
- When in Rome… you make pasta! Originally, Jett and I were going to spend one day in Rome and take day trips to Pisa and Pompeii but the weather was awful so we improvised and booked a pasta making class! It was the best.
- We crossed off so many items on my To-Do list on this honeymoon, like visit an ice bar!
- During our honeymoon we stayed at very cheap Air BnB’s because we knew we would be out and about. We traveled back to London for one final night before heading to the States and stayed in a more luxurious hotel. It was much needed after some of the tiny places we had stayed!
- We spent a few extra days in Texas to recuperate form our jet lag before heading back to our respective cities for the weekend to get back into a routine.
- For Thanksgiving Jett came to Georgia and we celebrated our first solo holiday as newly weds! It was also the first time either of us had cooked an entire Thanksgiving meal and we actually did really well! We also got some family photos down for our first Christmas card!
December
- My little sister graduated from VCU in Richmond, Virginia. Jett and I also got snowed in together which was pretty cool. I was supposed to leave on Sunday but all flights out of Richmond were cancelled. Of course, we didn’t find this out until after we checked out of our hotel so we had to book another room but couldn’t get in until 3pm. So, we did something we haven’t done in ages together, we went to a movie! We also proceeded to heat a can of soup in the hotel sink and eat it lukewarm, straight out of the can… Not one of our best decisions. The remade store bought cookies actually did taste pretty delicious though…
- My MilSo bible study group decorated cookies to wrap up another great year of fellowship and friendship.
- For Christmas, Jett and I went to Chicago, Wisconsin and Texas. My dad goes to Chicago every Christmas to spend it with my grandparents and we usually make our way up there too. My mom’s family all live in Wisconsin and so it’s easy to visit both sides of my family. Then we headed to Texas for the Meenach Christmas!
2018 was jam packed for us. We got engaged and married. We traveled all over the country and Europe. We were blessed to spend so much time with our friends and families. For the first time in a long time I have no idea what’s coming up next for us, but I already know it’s going to be a wild ride and I hope you’ll stick around and share it with us.
Thanks for reading and following along!
XOX Anastasia
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