I'm Back and a 2025 Recap

Hi there, it’s been a minute! 2025 was the single biggest year of change for me. Tom proposed on January 31^st, 2024, we were married June 21^st, and we found out that we’re expecting our daughter in late April 2026! I’ve always dreamed of being a mother and am so excited to meet our baby girl in a few short months. She has been the single best surprise and blessing of our lives.

However, that first trimester of pregnancy had me dragging with nausea and food aversions. I had a pretty steady diet of Cheerios, baked potatoes, bread, and crackers through the beginning of the fall. If it was a carb, it was my friend. If it was chicken, it was not my friend. The smell of coffee, which I used to love, completely grossed me out. If I exercised, I immediately felt sick. If I felt sad and stressed, I felt even more sick. I was still writing and working as a substitute teacher and was fortunate that the physical symptoms popped up most in the evening.

Once I hit that magical 12-week mark, things started looking up. The grocery store didn’t gross me out, I was cooking with meat and vegetables again, and I felt more energetic and confident. A couple of weeks later, I caught the flu, and it was the worst I’ve ever felt. There’re body aches and then there’s the bed touching me hurts. It took 3 weeks to fully feel like myself again, but we were grateful that baby girl was healthy through it all.

A couple of weeks after my flu recovery, Tom and I spent Thanksgiving in Saipan (another small US territory just a 30-minute flight away) with three of his coworkers and their families. It was so nice to spend lazy days out by the pool with my virgin pina coladas. We visited historic sites from World War II, ate some surprisingly amazing pasta and pad Thai, had turkey and mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving, and enjoyed a dinner show.

Right after we got back from Saipan, I took a two-week solo trip to Virginia to spend time with my family. Being away from my family during my first pregnancy has been hard, and I’m so grateful for the quality time we had together and for the many FaceTime calls that keep us connected in between.

Once I was back, it was a flurry of preparations for Christmas and Tom and I’s last trip as a couple before our baby girl is born. We spent Christmas in Guam and left for a week-long trip to Japan on the 27^th. We visited Kyoto for the first time and are excited to return in the fall or spring to see the trees in all their glory. We spent the second half of the trip in Tokyo, and because it was our third visit, we felt so much less pressure to “do it all, see it all, and experience it all.” We re-visited some of our favorite places and checked new things off our list, but we spent each day with only a loose idea of an itinerary. As someone who feels the need to have a clear plan when traveling, this was an adjustment for me, but the many closures for the New Years holidays and being pregnant made that flexibility so important.

Over the course of the year, I visited the Netherlands, France, England, the States, Saipan, and Japan. I never imagined that I would get to travel so widely in my life, let alone in the course of just one whirlwind of a year. I’ve discovered that I love to travel, and I especially love to eat while we do. I love to experience new places through long walks and curious exploration as well as the satisfaction of a well-researched and planned day. We haven’t gotten our official orders for next year yet, but it looks like we’ll be moving to Okinawa. Travel is going to look different with a baby, but we’re excited to more thoroughly explore Japan over the next couple of years.

I’m currently looking back at my goals for 2025 and wanted to do a recap of what was accomplished, what changed, and what I’m looking toward in 2026. While there were weeks where I had to really slow down this year, there was also so much growth to celebrate.

1.       My first goal was to read 50 books, and I ended the year with 54 books! I found a lot of authors and books that I enjoyed, and my top ten favorites for the year (in no particular order) were:

The Favorites

The Woman Who Fooled the World: The True Story of Fake Wellness Guru Belle Gibson

Wild Dark Shore

Atmosphere: A Love Story

Broken Country

The Listeners

North Woods

The Frozen River

The Things We Leave Unfinished

Every Summer After

I’m hoping to read 50 books again this year, but I know the number will probably be lower with a newborn. My first book of 2026 was In the Likely Event by Rebecca Yarros, which is my third modern romance by her in a row. I have two more of her books lined up, and I’ll honestly be sad once I get through her backlist.

2.       My goal was to exercise 3 times a week. I ran my first and only 5k before our wedding, and while I was one of the last people to finish, I was so proud of myself for putting in the time and effort to even be able to finish. I enjoyed yoga and took a lot of very long walks while Tom and I traveled. However, pregnancy turned me into a couch potato, and I’m just getting back into exercise again. We walked so much in Japan, and while my hips and knees are sore, it felt good to be out and about again. The heat and humidity in Guam discourage me from working out outside, but I am hoping to walk on the treadmill at the gym for as long as I’m feeling up to it. Once our baby girl is born, I’m looking forward to taking her out for walks inside and during the cooler parts of the day. One of the perks of our upcoming move is that we’ll hopefully be in a neighborhood with sidewalks that will make being out and about a bit easier!

3.       My goal was to schedule one fun activity every week, and we certainly packed in a lot. From trivia nights at breweries to trying our hand at pickleball to joining a book club, I found ways to get out of the house and to stay social. Of course, that wasn’t always consistent based on how I was feeling. I’m looking forward to enjoying date nights with Tom for the next couple of months, but between a newborn and a move, I have no set expectations for what our social lives will look like in the spring, summer, and fall.

4.       I wanted to be able to call myself a writer, and I’m so proud that I’ve been paid and published multiple times this year! When someone asks what I do, I now say that I’m a freelance writer, and it feels amazing. I was published multiple times by The Guam Guide and wrote about moving to Guam and local businesses. I wrote about balancing classic and modern literature in the classroom for FictionMatters, and it was one of the pieces I was the proudest of. I wrote about visiting Guam for Space A travelers for Poppin’ Smoke, and celebrating the holidays overseas and being stationed in Guam for Soldier’s Wife, Crazy Life. There’s so much more I want to write about, and I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had. My mom always said to write about what you know, and I’ve found that there’s been a real demand for that.

Looking to 2026, I’m hoping to spend more time working behind the scenes on my fiction writing and to continue writing about my life and travels.

5.       My last goal was to cook 3 new recipes a month, and while I didn’t strictly track that, I know I tried a lot of new dishes this year. From chocolate crinkle cookies to beef stroganoff to banana muffins to sushi bake, I’ve found a wide variety of new favorites that I’ll be adding into our rotation.

My overarching goal for 2026 is to have a healthy rest of my pregnancy and to take good care of our daughter and myself during those critical first few months.

Some other favorites from 2025 include:

1.       Disney related podcasts, especially Ear Scouts and The Dis-List

2.       Hadestown

3.       Eating cheese, chocolate, fish, and strawberries around the world

4.       Jeopardy

5.       Apparently listening to “The Skye Boat Song” 81 times

What can you expect over the next few months?

I’m hoping to catch up on my long backlog of travel writing and book reviews. I have some pieces ready to go about Disneyland Paris and our first few days in London, so you should be seeing those soon. The book reviews will probably be a mix of the longer form I usually write as well as some shorter reviews that round up multiple, similar books at the same time.