2018 Highlights

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At the end of 2017 we deemed 2018 the “year of the exterior.” We were originally referring to the need to fix the exterior of our house, but as we reflect on this year we’ve realized the theme has proved to be more widely applicable.

Highlights:

• Owyhee River: In April we spent 5 days on the Owyhee River. We had been looking forward to the trip for months so our expectations were high but the trip experience was better than we could have imagined! We picked the last week available to go and ended up being the only trip on the river this year due to weather. The other outfitters canceled all of their trips, our week included, so we were the only group on the river. The scenery is inspiring, the weather was perfect (warm even!), we didn’t have to fight other groups for the best camping spots, and no one got bit by a snake! Also, since I was sick (basically all year) I got to be chauffeured down the river in an oared boat and didn’t have to man my own kayak. This trip was a blessing in so many ways and truly unforgettable!
• Painted the house: When we first started renovating the inside of the house my dad found a brand new paint sprayer online for a great price. We knew it would come in handy with the interior of the house and ended up using it on the outside too! We waited until the 4th of July weekend paint sale at Home Depot and tackled the mighty project of painting the house exterior.
• New roommate! My little sister Cami chose to spend her summer (April-Aug) break in Portland with us instead of staying in Provo. We sold her on the trip out with free rent/groceries and higher wage potential. She got a job as a CNA in less than 24 hours of trying and made a lot of friends here. It was fun to have more energy in the house and extra nice to have additional hands to make dinner : ) Because we were all working during the day and she had an active social life at night we didn’t see her a ton but we enjoyed getting to share the summer with her.
• Azores: I’m a sucker for international flight deals… back in the spring I got an email for a cheap flight from LA to the Azores. I wasn’t sure where the Azores were so I googled it and 3 seconds into my search decided we had to go! The islands are beautiful! We ended up spending a week on Sao Miguel (the main Azores island) in July and experienced a relaxing trip for the first time. Usually we plan trips to be go-go-go but this time we slept in every day, only planned one outing per day, and aimlessly drove around soaking up the beautiful, wild blue hydrangeas.
• 15 Days on the River: One of our new years resolutions was to spend 15 days (total, not consecutive) on a river in 2018. Lucas succeeded! I think I made it to 12 days. We rafted the Owyhee (5), South Fork of the American (3), Clackamas (2), Deschutes (1), Rogue (4), and North Santiam (1).
• Cranberry Bog: After contacting a dozen farmers, I found one who would let us come visit (and work in) their farm during cranberry harvest! This experience was incredibly fun, educational, and surprisingly peaceful. Maybe we’ll turn it into an annual tradition!
• Gin: Lucas had the clever idea to start a life-long game of gin. We keep track of scores in a google spreadsheet and after only a couple of months we’re already into the 3000’s. It is fun to play a quick game or two in the evening while we unwind and talk about our day or while we’re waiting for something. The nice thing about cards is you can play anywhere!
• Grand Canyon: We planned a road trip around the Grand Canyon for our 5 year anniversary in May but I was pretty sick so we postponed it and rescheduled in November when I was in better shape. We flew into Las Vegas, visited the Valley of Fire, strolled around Zion National Park, drove to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and spent a few days exploring the sites around Page, AZ. Turned out both of us had the worst colds we’ve ever had on the trip so it wasn’t the best, but we saw a bunch of beautiful sites along the way!
• One car family: After 7 years, we finally sold the corolla. The registration was up and we had been discussing upgrading the car for years so we decided to sell the car and finally get serious about the upgrade. Since I wasn’t working when we sold the car we decided to try out the one-car-family situation for a while and it turns out we like it. The upgrade is on hold again until sharing a car becomes too inconvenient. We’ll see how long we can make it last!

Honestly, 2018 has been my least favorite year yet. I felt like this year I was trapped in a body that couldn’t even keep up with daily activities let alone all of the plans I had for us. In many ways I was forced, thanks to my health, into a lifestyle that I hated. I had to stop working (both my full time job and coordinating weddings), we stopped going on weekend adventures, we put all house projects on hold, and we stopped planning for the future because we didn’t know what to expect. Ultimately the experience put me into an emotional tailspin where I had to let go of the person I wanted to be and embrace reality.

For life-documenting sake, I wanted to post about our 2018 highlights but every time I thought about it I got frustrated and thought, “there are no highlights from this year, I just want to forget it all!”

But, thankfully, writing down the highlights we’ve had this year has reminded me that even though this year was unbelievably tough, we still had several experiences that we never want to forget. We are very blessed and now that I’ve reminded myself of all the great parts of this year I can’t believe I written off the whole year as bad.

2014-2017 were increasingly unbeatably good years so we (mostly me) had high expectations for 2018. My new approach is to lower my expectations so 2019 can’t disappoint : ) Hopefully 2019 will be filled with less doctor visits and more joy-filled moments, big and small.

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