First Blog of 2012!

It's the eeennndd of the world as we know it...

It's the eeeeennnddd.....

WELCOME 2012!

So far my year has been off to an AMAZING start.

For New Year's Eve, Nick surprised me with a night at the Hyatt in Newport Beach, dinner reservations at Bandera, and a sitter to watch our munckin OVERNIGHT!

We started off at our hotel room to get ready for the evening with champagne.

The room was gorgeous (I wouldn't expect anything less in Newport Beach).

Afterwards, we headed down to the hotel lounge to have a few drinks before grabbing a cab to go to dinner (we are responsible adults).

We got to Bandera and the wait was HORRIFIC!

But we decided to wait for a table anyway and just hang out at the bar to have more drinks.

We ended up meeting a really sweet couple named Marcel and Suzy who we ended up hanging out with the rest of the evening.

Nick and I went to dinner there cause my little sister and my daddy got Nick and I a generous gift card to have dinner there, but we didn't even get to use it!

Marcel paid for the entire dinner.

I'm pretty sure it was like a 300 dollar check.

Afterwards they took us out to a bar right across the street from Bandera for New Year's festivities. 

No one would let Nick buy a single drink there because he was a Marine.

Nick's a humble guy and he insisted on buying drinks for the couple we were out with, and they were still hesitant to let him buy them a round!

It was a blast!

We met so many cool people, and it was nice to just let loose without the baby.

Thank you the best hubby in the world for the AMAZING night!

**We didn't make it to midnight because ONE of us passed out early....oops*

And lastly...

I got promoted!

I am officially a Staff Sergeant of Marines.

Here were my thoughts the day I was promoted (via my facebook page):

I never give myself any credit and never feel that I deserve good things to happen to me and after a long discussion with Nick and some Marines that have "raised me" the last 8 years of my career...I feel like the Marine Corps saw more in me than I saw in myself and just as I was losing all motivation and faith in the Corps....the Corps was there for me. So thank you to all the Marines who have inspired me, taught me, led me, and took care of me when it was at the highest points of my career and the absolute lowest. You're the reason that I'm a SSgt today :-)

I never thought I deserved to be a SSgt because I had lost so much drive as a Marine in the last year.

Everyone kept telling me otherwise, and I refused to believe them.

But I realized the day I got promoted that it wasn't about me.

It was about the Marines who saw something in me in the past who set me up for success.

It was about the Marines who gave me a chance when I thought I would for sure fail. 

It wasn't me who got me promoted.

It was the family I became a part of when I joined the Marine Corps...

So thank you....

To everyone who believed in me.

Yup...there are only TWO SSgt Romers in the ENTIRE Marine Corps!