New Years is seducing to me. Steeping myself in both reflections from the past year and the aspirations of the future is a sweet spot I can’t resist. Who was I this year and how am I going to be better next year?

In the spirit of reflection, I started 1:1 therapy in the summer. It’s been about 6 months now and I’m finding it to be unlocking. I know this is the work I need to be doing right now. Absurdly summed up, I am trying to figure out more of who I am and what I believe vs. what I may have been conditioned to think. An important part of this for me is trying to align my actions and behaviors with my values, especially now being a mom.

Moving on to something lighter; where did we go this year? what did we see? (Sidenote: scrolling through the home page of this here blog, I have essentially stopped posting any recipes… aside from one honorable effort this year, Mango Salsa!) Before my in-laws left after an extended stay with us, we spent a long weekend in San Luis Obispo. Cam wasn’t even 2! It is so crazy how much he’s grown and how expressive he is now.

Next we were off on our annual trip to Tahoe to celebrate our anniversary, with my dad as a special guest one of the nights so Mike and I could go on a date.

Over the summer we took our biggest trip overseas to Spain to meet up with Mike’s family (my recap posts are here and here). A few months later, we were back with Mike’s parents in Canada, complete with an amazing cottage weekend with some of our closet friends and all of our kiddos.

Lastly, not too far from home but still worth a blog post was our fun weekend away to Monterey to visit Thomas the Train and go see cars race!

In between all of the noteworthy trips, we continued to chip away at our home renovation – finally installing new carpets in both bedrooms (my biggest joy! Sayonara shag rugs!!). Cam started at a Montessori school and has learned so much, it is incredible. He seems to really love his teacher and his friends and we could not be happier about that. We’ve also been lucky that my mom has been able to continue to watch Cam 1 day/week. It’s our favorite day to have him home while we work, and for him to get in some Gogo time.

We’re both still primarily working from home. This means we spend a lot of time in our main bedroom/office, where we sleep and where both of our desks are. Every morning we have to check in on meeting schedules and who “gets the room” but, to me, these are minor inconveniences to the valuable time we get back not commuting to and from an office on a daily basis.

When we weren’t traveling in 2022, we spent most of our time just hanging around town. Cam loves “walking baby” so we often walk together – us pushing his stroller and him pushing his baby’s stroller – to get coffees, teas, and pastries; go grocery shopping or to the framers market with the wagon. We got a bouncy castle this summer and had a lot of playdates in the backyard. With things feeling more “normal” (read: pre pandemic), we’ve had some really fun times with friends actually inside their homes and ours!

Excitedly we also got a kitten, Pumpkin, towards the end of 2022. He is the cutest cat like dog ever, who actually plays fetch with us and LOVES just being in the same room as everyone. Cam is thoroughly obsessed with him. When we come home from being out, he excitedly calls out “oh, Pumpkin!? We missed you!!” Pretty cute!

Overall it’s been a stellar year. We’re well, growing, and learning. We have so much love in our families and community. The things that matter most.

I think like a lot of us, I’m not into resolutions that much anymore. However, I do like the idea of having a single word as a touchstone for what I want the year to primarily be about… I’m still turning one over in my head before solidifying it so more to come here. 😉

Happy New Year!