Happy Holidays 2024!

Over a year has passed since our surprise move to Florida and I dare say we’ve settled in nicely. As I mentioned, we managed to find a cute, turn-key house only one day after the search began thanks to our fabulous realtor. We’ve made new friends, had many visitors, got through Hurricane Milton, and splashed around in the pool on hot days. So many hot days. OMG it’s freaking hot here in the summer.

Thankfully, we got our money back from the world cruise debacle because Mike had the foresight to put each of our payments on credit cards. So, thank you, Amex and Chase, for having awesome customer service and refunding us without issue. Others weren’t as fortunate. To my knowledge, the cruise operator still hasn’t repaid the customers who wired cash directly to them.

And so that’s why earlier this year the FBI came to visit us in our cute new house: to ask us what we know about the management team over there. Of course, we told them everything we could and tried not to act nervous or weird. Towards the end of our interview, one agent mentioned he had read this very blog! I was so surprised and delighted that I responded by asking a FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATIONS AGENT how he had found my published-on-the-internet Substack blog… So. Embarrassing!

As of this writing, we don’t know of any charges that have been filed but they have continued to pursue the case. We also don’t know if anything will really happen if they do file charges against Miray. And now the new administration is likely to change the FBI’s leadership and priorities, so we’ll see what happens. Other than hoping others are made whole, we are putting the whole thing behind us.

So for us, that’s pretty much that. We spent our year getting the house set up, celebrating several awesome milestones, and trying to stay cool.

In 2025, we want to continue to focus on staying healthy, traveling even more, hanging out with family and friends, and exploring Florida on road trips. There’s a lot to learn and see!

As we close out 2024, Mike and I would like to wish everyone reading this a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season and year ahead.

We have learned a lot in the last year or so, not least of which is to be adventurous, be smart, and be flexible when things appear to be going sideways. It’s probably meant to be in the end.

Happy Holidays!

Julie and Mike