Favourite Highlights from 2019
What a ride 2019 has been! I might be a little late in the game for doing a round up, but it’s still January, so I’m pretty sure it counts. Here are a few of my amazing favourite things that I experienced in 2019 with a few pretty pictures as well! 😀
- Moved into our Dream Home (+ small town living)
Even though we purchased the lot for our home in June 2018, most of the construction didn’t start until December 2018/January 2019 – and we finally moved in on a sunny day in June 2019.
While our home was being built, we tried to come out to visit it every week. It became our little weekend ritual that we’d grab a few coffees and head out to see what progress had been made throughout the week. During the framing stages, everything was open and we were able to come in and walk through the house, making plans as we went. It is so surreal to think that we’ve now been living here for 6 months, and those plans we made with our coffees in hand are now coming to life! I’ve already moved my office from one room to another, we’ve purchased some new furniture, and now that things have calmed down from the holidays, I’m looking forward to focusing more on decorating projects!
- Travelled – Maui, Banff, Tulameen
Since 2019 was the year of our house, we tried to scale back our travelling just a little bit. Tried being the key word there (lol). We still managed to fit a warm vacation and a cold road trip vacation in, with a few notable day trips as well.
In February, we took off to Maui with a few friends of ours who’s family has a condo in Kihei. To be honest, Hawaii was never on Jess or my’s radar – but the timing (and the cost – hello seat sale!) was perfect, so we decided to go. Now I can’t shut up about the place and we are already planning to visit again in 2020. It’s magic guys, pure magic and I was so, so wrong to ever doubt visiting.
For our 6th wedding anniversary in September, we set off on a 6 day road trip from Hope – Revelstoke – Emerald Lake – Lake Louise – Banff – Invermere/Radium Hot Springs – Osooyoos and home again. Lake Louise has been a bucket list trip for me, and it was beautiful and magical and everything I dreamed it would be. We had a blast and took so many pictures along the way – I’m hoping to blog more about this trip soon.
And lastly, we did a few backroad trips – my favourite being to the little town of Tulameen, located near Princeton, BC. We took the forest service road that connects the Coquihalla Summit to Tulameen, then when we left, we drove out to Princeton to make one big loop home.
- Accepted as a Speaker at ALT Summit 2019
In 2018, I attended a 4 day creative conference in Palm Springs called ALT Summit. It was my first real large conference, and my first time in Palm Springs and I had a blast. Connecting with other creatives who were willing to share information and learn from others was an eye opening experience, and I was blown away by the support of total strangers in such an incredible setting.
This year, I applied to be a roundtable speaker for the 2020 conference in March, and through the help of you guys and my friends on IG, my pitch moved from the submission round (where votes are taken) to the shortlisted round! From there, ALT Summit organizers picked the best ones that suited the conference, and scheduled them in to be presenters. In October, I received the golden letter that let me know I had been accepted! I’m stoked to begin prepping my presentation and I’ll be giving it twice during the conference this year.
- Attended a Milestone Handmade Trade Show
I’ve been a maker in business for the past 6 years, so I’ve experienced my far share of shows, fairs, markets, etc. Every year though, I applied for one special handmade trade-style show; Make It Vancouver. Every year, I just missed being selected (I was waitlisted a number of times) but never had the chance to attend. In 2019, I was finally excepted and given the chance to be a vendor! It was incredibly exciting, but also stressful at the same time. I think I reworked my booth design 10 times before finally deciding on a layout. Spoiler alert – the show did not go as well as I had hoped it would (keeps ya’ humble guys), but I learned so much along the way that I don’t regret doing it one bit.
Also – those cute Christmas ornaments were new for 2019, and they will be making a strong comeback in 2020!
- Landscaped Our Front Yard
Sometimes, when you have a busy or stressful year, it can be easy to forget the smaller things that you got to do. Buying a new build house is no joke, and each step seemed to bring it’s own stress and challenges, but when I stop to really take in all that we got to experience, there really are a lot of good in there as well!
Due to time constraints, our landscaping hadn’t been started when we moved in, so we had to wait a few months for it to get completed. It became a really exciting thing to work with the landscapers and design what we wanted to do. A certain budgeted amount was included in our purchase price, and we just paid the difference for the work that we wanted done. Then, we were off to Minter Country Gardens to pick out the plants we wanted to finish up the look ourselves. This was such a great project that Jess and I got to do together, and because it seemed like it was so long in the making, it was really exciting to see it all come together – especially when the grass was finally laid down!
Fun fact – there is a big rock in the corner of our front yard, that was on our lot when construction began. We used to sit on it when we came to visit the house, so we had asked the landscapers if they could keep it and they moved it to exactly where we wanted it. Such a special memory!
If you’ve gotten this far – you are amazing and I want to hear about your 2019 Highlights! If you’ve written a post about it, drop your link below or just share a little in the comments. Would love to know what you are proud of going into 2020!
Till next time,
