12.31.2015

2015 Favorites

Today, I'm linking up with Momfessionals, A Little Bit of Everything, and Grace & Love for 2015 Favorites!

JANUARY
 We rang in 2015 in Arizona with my family and soaked in the amazing weather before heading back to freezing Iowa.
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David turned ONE on January 31st! He finally started sleeping through the night and I weaned him. Life started feeling a lot more manageable after that :)
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FEBRUARY
... We endured and survived :) Winter is not our favorite. Spencer and I completed our first AND LAST Whole 30, and I have to say, I'm pretty impressed that I survived that many days without any added sugar and that I spent as much time as I did in the kitchen. #neveragain! haha At the end of the month, Spencer (and David) spent Spencer's 27th birthday in Utah for his sweet Grandpa Jack Hall's funeral. Jack and I had to stay in Iowa unfortunately because flights were too expensive.
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MARCH
My dad came to visit! And it "warmed" up to 40 degrees so we had to come out of hibernation and go for a walk! #it'sallinperspective!
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Spencer had a conference in Chicago the week of St. Patrick's Day and we all came along! Most days, the boys and I explored while Spencer had meetings but we all went to the St. Patrick's Day parade together and met for dinner every night! This is my favorite picture from the trip -----> we got photobombed plus there is a girl holding her pants instead of wearing her pants in the background. There were a lot of drunk people in Chicago that day. haha!
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Spencer's parents visited the week before Easter! We showed them all around the Quad Cities and visited Nauvoo over the weekend.
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APRIL
Easter and soccer games :)
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MAY
After almost five years of marriage, Spencer finally finished school!!! He graduated from UAB with an MHA and MBA and got hired on at Genesis Health System. I started working very part time teaching swimming lessons at our local gym.
My mom visited over Mother's Day weekend :)
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I said goodbye to a lot of Iowa friends who moved away :(
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We spontaneously met my entire family in New Orleans for a quick family vacation when James spontaneously up and moved there to do summer sales with his girlfriend. Translation: we wanted to meet the amazing girl that James followed to New Orleans ;) WE ALL FELL IN LOVE MADDIE!!!
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JUNE
I flew with Jack and David to spend a week in Arizona. I spent every other weekend with my mom three times in a row which hasn't happened in my entire adult life and it was awesome! (Mother's Day in Iowa, Memorial Day in New Orleans and June in Arizona!)
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Spencer met up with us for a week in Utah. His parents rented a cabin in Eden for a few days and we had a blast boating, hiking, and hanging out with his family!
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We celebrated our fifth anniversary in Park City, Utah - it was the first time we had ever spent a night away from our kids and it was amazing! We need to figure out how to get away more often!
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JULY
We spent most of our days at the pool, the splash pad, or biking to parks on our bike trail!
We went to Nauvoo for our Stake family day and saw the Nauvoo Pageant.
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The last weekend of July, we raced our second time in the Bix 7.
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AUGUST
We continued to run and bike on our bike trail!
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We went camping for the first time as a family of four.
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We went to the event that Spencer looked forward to all year - the Rib Fest :) And we won $500 dollars in gift cards to local businesses in a selfie competition!
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Jack started three-year-old preschool!
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September
We celebrated my 26th birthday by running a half marathon! It was Spencer's first one and he did awesome! I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to convince him to do another one, though :)
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We vacationed for a week in Sea Grove Beach, Florida!
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 OCTOBER
 Spencer had another conference in Chicago so we tagged along again! (I really get the better end of the deal when Spencer has conferences :) Jack and David's favorite places to visit were the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum (because there were so many turtles!) and the Lincoln Park Zoo. Here we all are at the zoo!
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We had a blast doing all of the Halloween things! For our church's trunk-or-treat we were the Incredibles and on Halloween Jack was a ghost and David was a puppy.
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NOVEMBER
We had our first snow of the season (the only snow worth playing in in my opinion ;), we celebrated Thanksgiving with friends, and Jack turned four and had a Paw Patrol birthday party.
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 DECEMBER
 My brother James got married on the 19th in Utah! We went to Utah for the wedding, celebrated Christmas with Spencer's family, then went to Arizona for another wedding reception.
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2015 has been good to us!  I am grateful for God's love and grace that has been present and constant during the good times and the bad.

2 comments:

  1. This year looks so fun! Happy New Year!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your year looks amazing (and really busy!) I just signed up for my first half marathon since having my baby and I am a little nervous about finding time for the long runs. Glad I came across your blog from Momfessionals. :-)
    Happy New Years!

    ReplyDelete