2015 Retrospect

I’m the only one awake in my house on the first day of 2016. As I sit here in the quiet of my living room, I figured there was no better time to count down my top 5 moments from 2015.

IMG_35695.  Exercising consistently…for half the year
My goal was (obviously) to workout consistently for the whole year. That didn’t happen. But…I did exercise regularly for half the year and frankly, that’s better and more often than I’ve ever done in my life. So, I’ll take it as a win. And maybe in 2016 I’ll exercise 75% of the year.

 

IMG_74404.  Rebrand ACS
Checked something off my professional bucket list – I project managed ACS through a much needed rebranding. It went quickly and I’m extremely satisfied with the end result. I have hopes that this new look for ACS will help our brand resonate better with the community, but primarily with the youth we serve. Our new tagline, Strength through support, was the top pick of tagline options among the youth clients we surveyed. We chose this for them.

IMG_56513.  Watched Nolan build and develop friendships
Building friendships when you’re three is challenging. One minute you’re best friends. The next, you’re not playing with each other. It’s been so fun and fascinating to watch. He has a great group of friends at school (and their parents are fun for us to hang out with too!). And our neighbors have awesome kids too. My hope for Nolan is that we can try to maintain friendships even after they all go their separate ways (whether it’s heading off to Kindergarten or moving). Until then, it’s fun to watch the cute, silly, and chaotic moments between them all.

IMG_04312.  Spent time with family and friends
We are blessed with a great group of family and friends. Lots of quality family time in this year – in many locations, too! San Jose, Marina, Seaside, Monterey, San Diego, Honolulu… Perhaps one of my favorite moments this past year was having my immediate family and Ryan’s immediate family all together on Thanksgiving.

IMG_4152 1. Traveled to Europe
This. This was amazing. I planned this trip for so long and had been wanting to go for years, but traveling to Europe (with my two favorite people) for my 30th birthday was by far the best part of 2015. We travelled to beautiful places. We fumbled our way through ordering food from people who only spoke French or Italian. We saw the world together as a family. People thought we were nuts for wanting to do this trip with a three year old, but I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way. I hope our future is full of traveling, discovery, and more adventures like this with my favorite people. Bonus: getting my first passport stamp on my actual birthday.

Happy New Year! May 2016 be filled with too many amazing moments to choose just five from 🙂

Unemployment

The start of my unemployment hasn’t been too shabby – errands, extracurricular fundraising work (read: church capital campaign I’m chairing), Netflix, household chores, cooking dinner, and reviving the blog.

You may notice my last real post was in July of 2013. Essentially with the job I took last summer, I pretty much failed at the work-life balance thing and nose dived off the tightrope. *splat*

Lucky for me it’s a new year – the perfect time for making changes! I’m starting fresh. No job lined up yet, but I’m not worried. I have some promising leads 🙂

Here’s to a healthy and happy 2014!