Well this is day 8 (sparatically) that I’ve been home all month. Here’s hoping I can recap everything that’s happened. 

Let’s start with Thanksgiving. Surprise!! I went home 🙂 I just can’t stay away from my family that long. What was I thinking moving 17 hours away?! Oh yeah… I really like flying.

It was your typical O’Hara Thanksgiving. A ton of food, me sneaking pieces of fresh carved turkey from the island before dinner gets served, Nana rolls and lots of mashed potatoes. Followed by a nap on the couch.

Mom & Dad ended up buying a wagon so they could take Nugget Trick or Treating while at their house. IT HAS CUPHOLDERS.

The biggest news was that Philippe & BigSeester are EXPECTING AGAIN!!

Princess Kerns due June 2016!!! I’m already saving up my vacation days to get home for her.

The family decided that since I wouldn’t be home (VA or LA) for my birthday (more on that later), we were going to celebrate early. So on to Medeival Times we went! HUZZAH!

Not a bad way to celebrate your 27th birthday! 🙂

I also had a teensy surprise in store for the fam bam. Since I left on pretty good terms with the Redskins, I was able to finagle some tickets to the post-thanksgiving game against the Giants. A family rivalry for sure. (it was even worse when the Redskins played the Eagles recently, Mom and I wouldn’t tell Dad who we wanted to win).

The outcome wasnt favorable for the Giants 🙂 and I was happy to be able to reconnect with a couple of favorite co-workers. Lots of changes happening in that organization, just reconfirms my decision to move on when I did. However, I always seem to miss championships. I’m always a year off! I was with the Flying Squirrels the middle year between SF Giants World Series championships (no ring for me there), and this year – the year Captain Kirk plays like an ANIMAL to clench NFC East division champs!

An uneventful flight back to NOLA gave me just enough time to sleep in my own bed, unpack, repack, and jump on a 5:50am flight to my 3rd home – JAMAICA!

It started with our STAR Awards – This is where the company/BDMs invite their top producing agents from all over the country to a couple days of fun, sun and drinking.

Basically a recognition & celebration of all the hard work they’ve put  in the past year. Everyone arrived Dec 3rd and the party started with an All White, New Orleans syle soiree!

Pizza of course came first. Hangry BDMs are no fun to be around.

I was also finally  able to reunite with my trainee bff’s! It was a long year, but WE MADE IT!

The next few days were full of resort site inspections to see all the new and fabulous things happening, more parties and lots of excitement.

I had never experienced a “silent party” before, but it has now become my new favorite thing. Imagine yourself having a solo dance party in your house – blasting music, acting a fool – then put that into a public space where everyone is wearing headphones with 3 different music channels and flipping back and forth between them.

The headphones’ channels have cooresponding colors so you CAN see what your friends are listening to and switch to hear the same thing and jump in together to do the Wobble, or soulja boy, or any other white person dance. OR you can just look like a crazy person dancing to the beat of your own drum. SO. MUCH. FUN!

We also had a heartwarming, give-back opportunity by joining the Sandals Foundation at their Christmas party for the kids of local schools in the Whitehouse, Jamaica region.

Its always a good time when you get to play with these kids, show off your non-existent soccer skills, and give them toys/school supplies for Christmas.

You may or may not find yourself playing soccer or standing next to Grammy Award Winning Artist Maxi Priest….

Who of course was the big surprise guest entertainment after our STAR Awards Ceremony. This is the big HUZZAH party celebration for the year. The time where you get to put on your most elegant dress, and float around on a cloud to recognize your agents for all their hard work.

I managed to find BigSeester managed to find the GREATEST dress while we were in New York in October.

I’M BATMAN!

I also had to borrow mom’s shoes so the dress wouldn’t drag on the ground too much. I’m short. shut up.

The only thing is… when you’ve been walking around in the heat & humidity of Jamaica for a few days, your feet tend to swell up. And when your mother wears half a size smaller shoe than you, you take said shoes off under the table at dinner and can’t get them back on when you have to stand up at the end….. shit.

I managed to shove my sausage feet back into them for about 10 minutes then decided it was time to change for the Maxi Priest concert.

After all the agents left, It was time for what all the BDMs had been waiting for. No, not the Global Sales meeting in particular, but time to hang out with each other!

And when I say “hang out” I mean trudge around all the resorts on the western and southern coast (7 total) of Jamaica all day, have one hour of recouping before another evening of fun and drinking. By this point my liver hates me. Oh did I mention I lost my voice the first night? That was fun trying to communicate all week.

The final night of the trip (which lasted a week) was the awards for the company employees. It was a Gatsby theme and oh man did they go all out!

Yes those are trapeeze artists hanging upside-down pouring Champagne as we entered.

I lost it at the end of the night. With fighting the sinus pressure, no voice, and hardly any sleep (honestly, we were up from 6am-3am most nights for the week straight) my body had had enough. You ever get to that point where you’re like “why the hell am I crying? and why can’t I stop?” yeah. that was me. But the trip still wasn’t over. nooooo no. I was headed to Miami for another 2 days of ‘training’ in the corporate office. whoopee.

Did the traveling finally end when I got home late that Friday night? HA. you’re funny. NO. I got a short weekend home to unpack, throw my clothes in the washer, and you guessed it…. REPACK.

I hate packing & unpacking. They’re my two least favorite things to do in the world, closely following going to the dentist. But off again was Jetsetter Missy to Tampa to work for 2 days with my teammate there, and then to Charlotte, NC to work with my other teammate. I didn’t get much of a birthday unfortunately. I was stuck in a car at 8:15am driving 1.5 hours to a meeting, sitting through that meeting, driving 1.5 hours back for a lunch meeting (Outback, I did get birthday dessert), and then in the airport till I arrived in Charlotte at 11pm. woo. hoo.

Charlotte was better, I at least got a beer and to confirm I still am a pretty terrible bowler. It took me 3 games to warm up and finally win the last one. I also was able to connect with an old friend and we raced our way to Christmastown U.S.A!

While in Charlotte I decided it was time to make a change. So yes… I cut all my hair off.

Okay okay, I’ll get to Christmas at home now. Deep Breath……

I had purchased my flights for the holidays back in August, but received a funny e-mail saying my 5pm flight on 12/22 had a time change…. to 12pm! Woo hoo getting home earlier!

The Christmas traditions ensued; cookie making, we added TopGolf to the tradition, Christmas Eve service, dinner & dessert at Nana & D-Tom’s, Waiting patiently at the top of the stairs Christmas morning, taking turns opening gifts, Fondue lunch/dinner with EVERYONE, and enjoying the spectacle that is Nugget.

So I joked with mom when I sent her a pin from Pinterest a little over a month ago saying “you have 48 days till my Birthday to make this”. I’m surprised & not surprised that she did. No, I will never grow up, I will forever want to be a Mermaid.

I also might take the crown of “coolest sister ever” for giving baby brother a video drone. I can’t wait to see what he’s able to do with it!

Our last adventure of the year was Dad’s gift from Mom. Which we all got to jump in on. That’s right…. Star Wars: The Force Awakens in IMAX 3D, at the Udvar Hazy center (one of my favorite places ever)!! The screen is 60 feet tall!!

Now, as I scramble to finish up work for 2015 and prepare for 2016 I look back on the little stories I’ve been able to share, truly grateful for each and every one, and wishing everyone who reads this far (I now it was a long one) a safe and Happy New Year! I’ll be spending mine here in New Orleans before Blitz starts up and I drive up to Huntsville, AL to start year 2.