We bought a house : And quickly started deconstructing it. We spent the first 10 weeks of home ownership sleeping either in sleeping bags in our kitchen or on our mattress in the living room. We looked for houses for almost 2 years, made 5 different offers and competed against 8-45 other offers each time. We’re very happy where we landed and are excited for the day that renovations are complete 🙂
I got a new job : After 3 years at Precoa I decided to shift from corporate events to agency events. In July I started working for the Revelry Group, a marketing agency focused on food, beverage and hospitality brands located downtown. I love working downtown but don’t love the commute. I used to drive 5 min to work and now I drive 15 min to a bus station and ride a 25 min bus down to the office. The bus ride provides a nice way to wind up for the day and wind down on the way home. Since I get car sick easy, I can’t do much on the bus ride but I can listen to podcasts and audio books!
We took several road trips :
- Southern Utah National Parks – We flew to Salt Lake in the spring for a friend’s wedding and arrived a few days early so we could road trip down to Arches, Canyonlands, and a few state parks. We borrowed my sister’s little car (Nissan Versa) and somehow managed to sleep in the back. It wasn’t exactly comfortable but one crammed night was the price to pay to see a full sky of stars and a breath-taking sun rise in the middle of Canyonlands.
- Iceland Ring Road – 8 days driving around Iceland in a gutless Dacia Duster was INCREDIBLE. Iceland is unbelievable. We camped in the car every other night, trading off with Airbnbs. Camping on a black sand beach, hiking on a glacier, trying ice climbing for the first time, riding Icelandic horses – so many memories I hope to never forget!
- Banff / Yoho National Park & Icefields Parkway – The weekend before I started my new job we took off for Canada! We had been wanting to visit Banff for a while and made an impulse decision to go while I had a few days off between jobs. We split the 11+ hour drive up into two days spent a couple days exploring then drove home. Banff is very popular but we were more impressed with Yoho and the Icefield parkway. The spectacular views made sleeping in the car for 3 nights worth it. Imagine driving along a beautiful mountain highway and looking behind you to find a massive, majestic glacier!
- Olympic National Park – Since we aren’t long distance hikers, we’re able to explore the highlights of national parks and a few short hikes in a long weekend. Olympic NP is really easy to explore because there is a highway that drives all the way around it. We (again) camped in the car so we were able to stop and sleep whenever and wherever we got tired. Hurricane Ridge had an incredible view and we loved hiking through one of the only rain forests in the US.
- Morocco – Lucas, me and two friends from Precoa spent 10 days driving around Morocco and were BLOWN AWAY! We knew there would be beautiful rug shops and bustling markets and delicious food but we didn’t plan on seeing such a vast array of inspiring landscapes. In an effort to experience as much of Morocco as possible, we stayed in a different Airbnb every night and drove SO MANY MILES. This was quite an exhausting (but incredible!) trip.
In some ways, we bit off more than we could chew in 2017… my health barely kept up but the adventures we’ll cherish forever. We wouldn’t change 2017 for anything but we will take a few life lessons with us… like the importance of a lazy weekend at home every once in a while… and try to implement them moving forward.
2018 we’re comin’ for ya!