Happy 2020. WOW. Who else can believe it? I had seen this template floating around Instagram and thought I’d give it a shot. This decade has been absolutely monumental for me and my family, so I thought it’d be fun to jot down a few notes and share a few of my favorite snaps from each of the years. This was the decade that built my career, my family, my friendships, and most importantly ME, as a wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, and businesswoman. I am so grateful for all the high of high and lows of lows. So, let’s dive in!
First, a quick synopsis:
2010
This was the year I got my first promotion and moved from my whirlwind life in Kansas City to my company’s corporate headquarters in Minnesota. I went from a big city to a small city where I knew no one and this year was pretty hard for me. I was still so young [only 22 and onto my second position and city of my professional career]. I did some travelling to kill the time [like to CO and Chicago] and the one real high this year was that I became an aunt for the first time! I made a LOT of mistakes this year, both personally and professionally, but I didn’t know it was all setting me up to have the biggest year to date in the next year.
2011
Ah, 2011. I could write a book [or two] on you. My life flipped upside down and inside out in all the best ways this year. I left my life in MN to flee to OH, which I thought would be yet another whirlwind time and place, but life had other plans. I started the year with an awesome trip to Istanbul with my dad, followed by a move to Cincinnati, meeting some of my very best friends, having the most EPIC summer ever, meeting this guy Mike online at *just* the right time in my life, traveled to Ireland to visit a very good friend in her new, coming home and falling in love, and landing a job at a company that would come to help shape me in the upcoming years. 2011 was by far one of the best years of my life and the start of a grew few years to come.
2012
2012 would prove to be another epic year. I moved in with Mike, won Rookie of the Year for all of L’Oreal in my first year there at a conference in Florida, made a ton of more memories, traveled a bunch with Mike [both domestically and he joined on a family vacation to Mexico], turned 25, and learned and grew a lot.
2013
2013 started with an engagement, traveling, having my sister and her family come visit, tons of wedding planning, and ended with us buying our first house! I knew the best was yet to come and tons of good times rolled in 2013.
2014
This. This was an awesome year. This was a year where everything was fun and exciting and new and felt really about *us*. We started the year with our bachelor and bachelorette parties, followed by an epic wedding, an even more epic honeymoon in Italy and Greece, and when all the wedding madness died down, I started this little corner of the internet!
2015
2015 was a year that was full of highs but also where some lows started to creep in after a euphoric couple of good ones. We traveled a lot [Mike’s first trip to India, my trip to Mexico for a dear friend’s wedding, and my trip back to Chicago for my 10 year high school reunion] and had fun on the surface, but deep down was a longing to start a family that just wasn’t coming true yet. This was a year, looking back, that I’m grateful for both the good and bad times.
2016
This year was the year that would wholly and completely change both me and us. While it started with a bit of fun with a feature on me on InStyle.com, it would continue on in unexpected ways. In January, we started a round of fertility treatments after a year of unsuccessfully trying to have a baby. We were elated that it worked on the first try! By March, we were pregnant. But from there would start a pretty horrific journey for me. I blogged about it here, here, and here, which would eventually culminate to this. My experiences with infertility, hyperemesis, PPROM, bed rest, emergency c-section, and the NICU are ones that I will surely never forget but we are also so grateful that Dillon came out ok. The end of the year was us spent trying to navigate our new life at home after a whirlwind year of anything but.
2017
This was a year purely spent navigating the first year of parenthood, going back to work for me, Mike landing a new job, and just trying to keep everything afloat. It started with a full page feature in Cincinnati Magazine in January for me! After a few hard first months with Dillon, by Spring, a corner had turned and things were starting to get easier and more fun. By the end of the year, we celebrated his first birthday and all felt a bit of a weight lifted. I even got to stand beside my best friend as she got married and celebrate Dillon’s first birthday! It was a trying year in it’s own ways, but after our year in 2016, it felt sweet.
2018
2018 was when I finally started to feel like myself again. The last 2 years had taken a toll on my mind and body, and I started to put an emphasis on health and wellness and I was feeling positive. We traveled a bit [me to Arizona for a friends’ bachelorette, our family trip to Austin, Vegas with my dad and sister, me to New York, family trip to Wisconsin, Christmas in FL]. I also made a big mental step and knew it was time for a change for me professionally. In the fall I started interviewing, and on Christmas Eve while we were in Florida, I signed the contract to my new job that would start in 2019. 2018 was a year of big shifts for me and I knew it was setting me up for good things.
2019
2019 has brought a lot of change and a lot of growth, both for me professionally and my family. I started my new job, we did a ton of travelling [including Mike and I’s first real solo trips to Napa and Vegas, a trip to Chicago to celebrate my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary, and our epic Christmas trip to India], and a lot of just finding the beauty in our every day. It was really a great year to round out an incredibly monumental decade!
Wow, there you have it. My story over the past TEN years. And while this post is lengthy, it doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface on what all I went through. The immense bursts of joy and nights spent crying on the bathroom floor. But what I DO know now, is that every single step of it was worth it. I’m so hopeful and excited for the future and I hope you are too. Thanks for reading!
