2012: A Year in Review

Happy New Year/'s Eve (depending on what time zone you're in!) everyone! I meant to put this post up earlier today, but ran out of time...but since I still have a little time left in 2012 here on the West Coast, I wanted to go ahead and share before we start a new year!

It's hard to believe that it's the last day of 2012. I know it's super cliche and everyone says it but this year has really gone by SO fast. However, when I think back over all that's happened, we really have managed to pack a lot into the past twelve months! It's fun to look back and reflect over the memories from the past year, so I decided to put together a little recap of some of the highlights from 2012: 

 January

We moved to Tahoe and settled into our new place
I got a new job as a recruiter
I visited the Grand Canyon
 
 February
We started eating Paleo
We took a weekend trip to Portland
We spent a lot of time skiing! 
 
 March
We went to San Francisco for the weekend
I went to visit my sister in NYC and surprised my parents
We had college friends come visit and we went to Napa


April
My parents came to visit Tahoe
We started to see significant progress from eating Paleo
We spent Easter in Tahoe with new friends 

May
 Cam's parents came to visit and we went to San Francisco 
We took a trip to Yosemite
We went to Chicago over Memorial Day weekend for a wedding

 
June
I attended my first blogger meetup
 We spent the month home in Tahoe and enjoyed the beautiful weather
We celebrated our third wedding anniversary

July
 We went to Michigan for 10 days and celebrated 4th of July
 We went to the Celebrity Golf Tournament in Tahoe
We spent a long weekend in Bend, OR with Cam's family (and went to Crater Lake!)

 
August
 We went to Carmel and Big Sur
I changed up my blog design!
We went camping in the Redwoods

September
 We spent Labor Day weekend in NYC with my sister
My parents visited Tahoe again
My sister-in-law and I both ran in events for the Lake Tahoe Marathon Weekend

October
 We went to San Francisco for a bluegrass festival
We spent a long weekend in Oregon for Cam's 26th Birthday
Lola turned two (and I made lots of fall desserts!)

November
 We spent three days in Istanbul, Turkey!
We spent eight days in Israel (those post are coming in January!)
I had lots of lovely guest bloggers fill in while we were on our trip and I reflected on what I'm thankful for

Our Christmas card this year

December

I turned 26
We had an ugly sweater party/enjoyed holiday fun in Tahoe
  We spent a time in Oregon/Michigan for Christmas (more on that soon!)

A lot of the posts that I highlighted in this list were travel-related, as that's definitely a big part of our life. I love that this blog gives me a space to preserve all these memories we're making, as well provides a way to share photos of our travels with family and friends. However, looking through the 200+ posts (crazy!) from this past year, I also really enjoy seeing the little slices of our everyday life--the meals we've made, the random pictures of Lola, and rereading what was happening at a certain points throughout the year. These little things might not seem like a big deal when compared to a big vacation, however, they are the stuff that truly make the year and it's great to be able to record those details too.

At this time last year, I had never set foot in Tahoe. Cameron and I were anxious/excited about our impending move and had no idea what to expect. We started the drive from Cam's parents house in Oregon on New Year's Day last year and arrived at our rental house in Tahoe on Jan. 2nd (we split the drive into two days), totally unsure of what we'd find.

Tomorrow, we're going to make that same drive from Oregon to Tahoe, except now we're driving back home. To a place that we've lived for a full year now. A place that we've both grown to love. A place that has caused us to grow in so many ways this year. A place where we've made wonderful friends. A place where we've had ups and downs, joys and triumphs. A place where we've really seen our marriage continue to strengthen. A place where I wasn't sure I could adjust to living as it was so different than what I was used to, but now really enjoy (although I still wish Target was little closer!). And although I know it won't be home forever, I am thankful for the experience of getting to live in such an incredibly beautiful place.

Over the past few years, I've sort of known what milestones would be coming. We had set dates to look forward to--our wedding, Cam finishing grad school, him starting a rotational program that moved us to South Carolina, making the decision to rotate out to Colorado, making the decision to rotate out to Nevada and move to Tahoe. All things that were planned and had set time frames that we knew they were going to happen. That's not to say there wasn't stress or uncertainty involved, but we sort of always had a "next step" we were looking forward to. Now we're at a point where I'm not sure what the next step is. What our next move will be or when/if that will take place. At this point we are sort of just going with the flow, and I can honestly say that I have no idea what the coming year will hold.

And I'm pretty excited about that.

Bring it on 2013.