I get it, everyone is over this year. So many deaths, the election, sadness everywhere. I think every year is like this, but we are getting older and the celebrities that pass away are ones that we recognize, that we grew up with. With social media and the ability for everyone to have a loud voice whenever they feel like it without necessarily facing consequences they once would have, things are meaner and spread faster. 
I took a while the other night to go through our year and for us, it treated us pretty good. I miss doing my daily gratitudes, so I wanted to at least share a few moments I was especially grateful for – although it’s impossible to get everything. I hope you’re able to take the same time in the next few days to reflect on the good and help encourage a wonderful new year.

This was an epic night on Jan. 1 last year. We rented a house in the Catskills and went to sleep early, drank wine, sat by fires, did puzzles and went for hikes. We are repeating this again this year and I’m so excited. It just seems more fitting for us to celebrate far away from the city in the woods without TV’s, phone service or distractions.

Winter storm Jonas. It lasted 24 hours and then the snow melted, but we had a blast walking across the street to our friends’ apartment, making snow cream and making the three block trek to get pizza from the only place open in the tri-state area. You can read the full story here (and get the snow cream recipe.)

We escaped the cold and went to Costa Rica with six of our best friends. We floated in giant flamingos that we named, we ATVed on the beaches, we took a sailboat on the ocean. It was perfect – even if half our team ended up with some sort of sickness during the trip. I recapped our highlights in this post if you need some more warm weather pictures.

We walked 40,000 steps and made it from the northern most subway stop on Manhattan all the way to Battery Park in one day. It was a beautiful day and it was pretty awesome knowing that we could cover this much ground in one day.

We spent a weekend in New Orleans with our best friend, Katie. It was so fun getting to explore a brand new city and take in all the history and colorful houses. There was so much live music and entertaining people watching. I hope to get back again soon.

We started decluttering our apartment in the spring knowing that we would be moving at the end of summer. We found so many fun things that had been hiding in closets. This hat on Quincy was one of my favorites and since we were getting rid of things, I had to at least snag a photo of it.

This picture is out the front window of our house in St. Paul. We spent a week in April fixing every last thing in that house and getting it ready to list on the market. It was rainy the day that we left, so there was no champagne on the front steps, but we walked away knowing that it would bring someone else lots of memories. We accepted an offer within 24 hours of listing it and toasted with lots of champagne on the day of closing.

We made a secret escape to Vermont after a bit of a breakdown. The stress of the trip home and all the things happening with the house, it was a little too much, so we snuck away the following weekend to a little town in Vermont. We spent the weekend hiking, sitting by this fire, drinking beers near the giant fire in the hotel lobby and binging on HGTV.

We met our birthday buddies in Philadelphia and drove them to Shenandoah National Park for our birthday weekend. We hiked, drank cider, explored caves and ran through fields (literally). See all the pretty pictures by clicking on the full road trip recap. Sharing a birthday with friends is so awesome because we all get to celebrate ourselves and each other. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so loud or sang in a mini van quite that much.

In early June, we got back to Minnesota to celebrate the wedding of our friends, Rick & Leah. It was a few hours from the twin cities, so the day after the wedding, we had some time to kill before our flight, so we snuck in a ride on the ferris wheel at Betty Dangers in Minneapolis. It was the most perfect day to be on a ferris wheel with my favorite person.

4th of July weekend was one for the books. We had a friend staying with us and we took her all over the city with the mission to eat and drink everything awesome. While there were so many things I consumed that weekend, this cheese tower with the mimosa flight is impossible to top. I attempted to recap all the food and drinks, but I’m sure I left some out.

I spent a weekend in Nashville to celebrate one of my favorite people in all the world, Emma, for her bachelorette party. I got in a night early to meet my friend, Kendra. There was so much girl talk, inappropriate words, wine and singing. So much singing. You can read about how I got recognized in the Nashville airport by reading these moments.

We met our friends in Boston to celebrate their pregnancy and share one of our favorite cities with them. We shared some of our favorite places with Brent & Kirsten and explored a bunch of new ones. We ate at an Italian Restaurant in the North End where our server accurately predicted that they would be having a boy.

We took the ferry to Provincetown that same weekend and revisited the spot that we got engaged. I love everything about that little sea town.

Looking at these makes me realize how many weekend trips we snuck in this year. It’s no wonder that we have spent the last few months enjoying a little more time at home. I’ll post the second half tomorrow… Stay tuned 🙂
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