It's New Years Eve, and I just realized that I'm part of the last group to celebrate the transition into 2015, as I'm spending the holiday out in Hawaii.  It sounds like a warzone outside because apparently Hawaiians love their fireworks tonight!  Anyway, just like the year before it, 2014 was overwhelming with adventures - both major and minor.   Some of my favorite things included getting to ski a ton, visiting one of my favorite cities - London - twice, re-exploring places I've been to gather new perspectives, and really upping my photography game.  I also beat my record and flew over 56,000 miles, and probably made a land mileage record this year as well with road trips.    

As for the 2014 resolutions, not surprisingly, I didn't complete everything I set out to do, but I hit the major ones. For the second year in a row, one of my resolutions was to take a photo of five interesting places.  This year, I was really happy with many of my photographs, so it was hard to be constrained to only five, but here they are:

1. Abandoned farmhouse in Palouse, Washington


2. Maroon Bells at sunrise outside Aspen, Colorado



3. A reflection of the Space Needle in Seattle on the exterior of the EMP building



4. Old harbor in Ghent, Belgium


5. Haystack Rock at sunset at Cannon Beach, Oregon


Sadly, the one resolution I was really hoping to keep ended up fizzling out.  I had wanted to meet up with friends I had not seen in over 2 years yet we live in the same metro region.  It seemed so silly that I was keeping up with peoples' lives over social media and not talking to them directly to hear their stories.  I was able to get together with two friends early on in 2014, but just scheduling those was super hard.  Then I just got really busy and lost track of time!  I still do want to make more of an effort in maintaining strong contact with friends this upcoming year, though I'm not going to bother with a resolution, lest I just disappoint myself again.

Finally, the other major resolution I wanted to accomplish was doing a 365 day photography project on Instagram.  While I ended up getting bored with it quickly, mostly because the photos I was taking were not as good as I felt they should have been because I was feeing pressure to take one of anything just to fulfill the daily minimum, I did finally start to really use my Instagram account and have discovered some fantastic photographers on the app that have inspired me by their compositions, destinations, and processing.  If you are curious what I posted, check out my Instagram and follow me!

So what about 2015?  I am thinking that I'm going to be resolution-less.  I still want to visit two new countries, which are already booked.  I also want to do a third round of photographing five interesting places.  My friend just told me that those can't be resolutions if I know I'm going to do them and they follow a pattern.  OK, well then I am thinking that I'm just going to let whatever happens in 2015 happen, and have fun while doing it.  Sounds like a good plan, right?

Here's to finishing out another great year in 2014.  Happy new year everyone!