1. When I was 5, I was picked out of the audience at Radio City Music Hall's Christmas Spectacular to dance on stage with the rockettes. I went back stage, was dressed in a winter coat and put in a sleigh with Santa, pulled by live reindeer as the rockettes danced around us. It's crazy, and true.
2. On my 18th birthday I opened my Colgate University acceptance letter. It sat in the mailbox (covered by snow) until we were able to dig it out on January 26. The gift that keeps on giving.
3 (and 4). Skydiving over the Swiss Alps with Mendham and Colgate friends in 2006. So AWESOME I did it twice!
5. Spiral swimming with sea lions in the Pacific Ocean off of the Galapagos Islands
6. The day I read this quote for the first time: The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience. - Eleanor Roosevelt
8. In 2004, spending the day at Caffe Florian in Venice, Italy with @kristintheiss @LRAlexander, @just_float and a bunch of people from the Sichuan province in China clapping and singing to the music. Then, returning to the same spot 4 years later with Kris and my sister.
9. A history lecture by long time Mendham High School teacher Mr. Huff about thinking in terms of "us" and "we." History is not about "them" - it's about us as a global community that is interconnected across time and geography.
10. Putting my hand on a tree in the old growth Amazon Rainforest, and keeping it there for a minute as I closed my eyes.
11. As a 10 year old at Disney World, riding Spash Mountain 10 times in a ROW, just before 10pm closing, with none other than my Uncle Mark.
12. Sitting next to my parents, watching my sister sing beautifully in front of thousands of people at Colgate in October '09.
13. Sneaking off of a cruise ship to swim in the Mediterranean sea at midnight and feeling the big waves deep blue waves roll against me...one of the first times I admired the ocean.
14. Realizing that friends and family are what this is all about - and making a commitment to live that way among flickering candles at a Mendham Antioch, and holding my best friend's hand as I said it.
15. Every Buonocore Christmas Eve party, for the past 24 years.
16. As a second grader, spending hours on my bedroom floor with my mom, creating a science report about orca whales, and making a paper mache globe to show everywhere that my favorite animal lives in the world.
17. Seeing orca whales in the wild for the first time, standing in the pouring rain in the middle on the Pacific off of the coast of the Alaska.
18. Every time I've laughed.
19. Teaching in Tanzania: discovering Chica Chica Boom Boom, one of my favorite childhood books, on the shelves in the classroom, and listening to the kids memorize the lines as I read over the next 3 months.
20. The first time that I saw a full rainbow, over Keuka Lake.
21. Making this list, and remembering how lucky I am.
22. Watching a lion pride in the in Serengeti National Park.
23. November 20010, an email pops up that I've been accepted to StartingBloc. And I felt the kind of adrenaline rush that only happens when you feel like the world's doors are all about to open for you.
24. Quite possibly the most fun, most fulfilling, happiest moment of all. This picture is worth 1000 words.
25. Moment #25 and beyond: when I remember that we can do anything when we put our minds to it, and don’t give up.
1 comments:
I cannot stand how much I love that video of us in Venice. It's so terrible, but I haven't thought about that night in a long time. That was definitely one of my most favorite moments in all my travels.
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