Wrapping It Up

It's so funny to me that I felt the urge to write a blog post today.

I looked back on when I did this same post last year...and it was one day earlier last year! I think it has something to do with Christmas getting closer and with me realizing that the year is almost over.

I've been writing a post the last few years about what my hopes and dreams for the new year are. I will share mine for 2017 in a few weeks, but I wanted to go over the ones I had for 2016 to see how things measured up this year.

My first one was to figure out where I should be serving at church. After praying about it a lot, I was approached to be a part of women's ministry at my church. It's been such a huge blessing so far and I'm excited to continue diving into my role this next year.

My second one was to figure out a way to encourage women more. And that has been two-fold this year. Obviously, my new position in women's ministry is a huge part of that. The other has been selling LuLaRoe. I love being able to help women find clothing that makes them feel beautiful and confident, and I love encouraging them to step out and try new things.

I'm still working on balance and letting go of fears. Having two jobs has definitely been something I've had to learn (and am still learning) how to balance. I'm definitely having to learn how to carve out time for the things that I need to do, as well as things that I want to do.

And now a little recap of 2016 (so far):

We started off 2016 with a little New Year's Eve gathering at our house with a few friends.

I went out dancing with some friends to celebrate three January birthdays, and my friend S.W. and I had a combined Harry Potter birthday party!

We went to Disney on Ice with our niece, and I attended a baby shower for a dear friend.

We went to Disneyland again for our anniversary!

We went to a MuteMath concert, and I saw Wicked with two friends!

We did an escape room, and celebrated Easter with family.

We went on a weekend trip with some friends

We celebrated my sister's birthday, and did a wine stroll with a couple of friends

Josh and I had a spontaneous date day that involved wine tasting, a fun lunch, and a trip to a candy factory

We went dancing (and found out a friend was pregnant), and attended a gender reveal party for another set of friends

We attended a little girl's kindergarten graduation, and went blueberry picking

We went to a couple of graduation parties, and attended our niece's ballet recital

Our friends from CO were in town!

We went to a 4th of July party with some friends, and celebrated our nephew's birthday

We had a fun day out with some friends, and Josh took me on a special surprise date

I went wine tasting to celebrate a friend's birthday, and we attended a gender reveal party for some friends

We went indoor go-carting with some friends, and I went on a planning weekend with the women's ministry team

I went to karaoke for a friend's birthday, and we went to a Labor Day BBQ with some friends

We went on a cruise with some friends!

We celebrated our niece's birthday

We went on a fun trip to Disneyland and Universal Studios

We went on a train ride with my family, and we attended a co-ed baby shower for some friends

We went to a corn maze with some friends, and went to our friend's annual Halloween party

We went to a friend's birthday party, and had our 3rd annual Friendsgiving

We went to CO to see our friends

We took our niece to see Moana, and we went to our friends' baby dedication

I did a craft night with some of the females in Josh's family, and we had a little Christmas get together at our house

We have some other fun planned for this month! I'm excited for what the rest of 2016 holds.

11.16

November was another busy month for us!

Here are some of the highlights:

We went to our friend A.G.'s birthday party! It was a lot of fun!

We had our third annual Friendsgiving with our friends. It's always so fun to get together and share a Thanksgiving meal with each other. I'm so thankful we have such great friends to spend time with.

We also took a very fun trip to see our friends in CO. You can read more about that here.

I also hosted a Gilmore Girls premiere party on the day the new episodes were released on Netflix! We watched all four episodes back to back. I loved them (for the most part). I know they've been received both positively and negatively by fans, but I was pretty happy with most of it. It also was very emotional for me to watch and I cried a LOT.

Josh's birthday in November, so we had a couple of fun celebrations for that with family and friends. We also took one of our nieces to see Moana on his birthday, which was also a lot of fun.

Some other highlights from the month:

My BCBs and I decided we hated the book we were reading and stopped reading it. I rarely ever do that, because I like to know how things end, but it just got to be a really rough read for all of us. So we are working on finding a new book for us to read together.

I had quite a few LuLaRoe pop ups, which all went really well! I'm having so much fun helping women find clothes that make them feel beautiful and comfortable.

My appointments and Pilates classes are going great as well! I'm seeing new improvements all the time and my body is constantly changing. I'm so thankful for this treatment and for how much it's changing the way I live my day-to-day life.

We had a nice, relaxing Thanksgiving. We got up and watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and I made a blackberry cobbler. We spent the day with my family and had such a good time. We ended the day by watching Home Alone with a couple of friends. It's a tradition we have observed for many years now, as I remember Home Alone being on TV on Thanksgiving every year when I was growing up.

And now it's on to December and my favorite holiday!

The Best Things in Life Aren't Things

We got to take a really fun (and much needed) trip to CO to see our friends!

We always have the best time with them...but the time passes way too quickly! It's always so hard to say goodbye when we leave.

We took a drive up to Helen Hunt Falls while we were there. We went there on our very first trip to CO six years ago. It was totally different (but still very beautiful) to experience it in the snow!

(Have I mentioned how much I love their kiddos? This was only my second time getting to see their youngest and she is just so precious. Their oldest was born when they still lived in CA and she is just the sweetest)

We played a lot of games with John and Em, and with their kids. It always makes me so happy to play games, as I grew up playing a lot of games with my family.

We started watching Stranger Things while we were there! Quite a few people had told us we would probably love it but we just hadn't taken the time to watch it. We finished it after we got home, but it was really good! I'm really looking forward to the second season next year.

These two are so sweet to each other

We also went to a distillery while we were there, and went to a couple of fun places to get drinks. We also went to a few places to eat that we don't have here (or at least local to us).

And, we saw Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them with John and Em, and Em's sister and her husband! I was so excited when I realized it was coming out the same weekend we were gonna be there. My CO bestie discovered her love for all things HP about three years ago, soon after we started our BCB group, and her sister read and fell in love with the series shortly after that. I love being able to watch movies about the things I love so much with people who love those things just as much as I do!

We also had some really great conversations. We always do every time we go out there, but it's something I cherish so much. I always feel so encouraged and challenged after our conversations.

I wish with all my heart that we lived closer to each other again, but I'm so thankful for the time that we do get to spend together.

Being Thankful in the Midst of Trials

At the beginning of this month, I debated about posting things on social media somewhere that I was thankful for.

I've done it in the past on Facebook and Twitter, where I would post each day what I was thankful for that day. A few years ago, I kept track of things on my phone and did a weekly recap on my blog. Last year I posted collages on my personal Instagram account of the people and moments I was thankful for.

I think it's such a good practice to remember the things we are thankful for. It's something I wish I did on a more regular basis and not just during the month of November.

But sometimes it's also very hard to be thankful. When in the midst of trials, when things seem like they're falling apart, when life is throwing you curve ball after curve ball.

And yet, we are called to:

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

(1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, NIV)

Wherever you find yourself this November, on this day, in 2016, I hope you are able to look around and find some things to be thankful for. Whether it's your health or the health of a loved one, your kids, your job, your home, the food on your table, your friends, your spouse, or even the fact that God still has you on this earth...I hope we can all find something to be thankful for.

This election and everything surrounding it has brought out so many negative and hateful emotions and actions in so many of us. Let's cling to love and be thankful in all circumstances, in spite of the bad stuff. Let's remember that we are called to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Let's live our lives caring for others and valuing them above ourselves.

10.16

October was another busy month for us.

I officially started selling LuLaRoe, and that has been a really fun adventure so far. I had my launch party and it was very successful!

We also took a fun little trip to our happy place and to Universal Studios to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! As someone who loves HP very much, I fell in love with the Wizarding World. I felt like I was really in Hogsmeade enjoying a nice cold Butterbeer. It was fantastic! We did Mickey's Halloween Party again, which was a lot of fun! We got to ride on everything we really wanted to do in the 8 hours we were there. And then we spent a day in Disney California Adventure. We had a great day taking our time and enjoying some things we hadn't experienced together before. It was our first time riding Grizzly River Run together (I hadn't been on it in 12 years). We also got to ride the new Soarin' and saw the sneak peeks for Moana and Doctor Strange. And we had a lovely lunch at the Cove Bar, eating "secret menu" tri tip nachos. We also went to Tangaroa Terrace at the Disneyland Hotel for dinner. We've never eaten at any of the restaurants in any of the Disney hotels, so that was a fun experience. Overall, we had a great trip and it was really nice to get away to our happy place for a few days.

 Belle and Smee

 We found a cute little Dorothy!

 Our friend S.W. was the Hatbox Ghost from the Haunted Mansion

 In front of the Hogwarts Express

 Enjoying a cold Butterbeer. We tried a frozen version as well. Both were delicious!

 On Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters. They recently changed to this from the previous version of Luigi's Flying Tires

 We wore our ponchos on the Grizzly River Run so we wouldn't get soaked. And it was a good thing we did.

Every time we've gone to Cars Land, I've always wanted to eat something out of the Cozy Cone Motel. We finally did on this trip!

We also went to our friend's Halloween party again. This year's theme was Good vs. Evil. Everyone's costumes turned out great! We always have so much fun at this party each year.

 Rey and Kylo Ren

 The Little Mermaid and Rey

 Our friend D.W.'s costume was so awesome! Two Star Wars universes collide. Boba Fett and frozen Han Solo

Some other highlights from the month:

I started reading The Last Goodnight with my BCBs. Life has been a little hectic for all of us, so this is the first book we are reading together in a long time. It's been a very interesting read so far and I'm looking forward to finishing it.

My appointments and Pilates are both going great! I've been slacking pretty hard with keeping up with Just Dance. Selling LuLaRoe has been keeping me pretty busy, so it's been hard to fit in time to exercise at home. But I know I need to keep up with it. I feel so much better when I'm doing it five days a week.

We also spent some other fun times with family and friends. It was a great month and I'm looking forward to all November is going to bring!

From our annual corn maze trip with friends