Happy new year friends! I thought it would be nice to take a look back and reflect on this past year.
Buying Our House
By far the biggest moment of this year was buying our house. We spent the first few months of the year searching online, going to open houses, and just all around stressing about finding our house. We were ready to have more space and we were SO over the construction happening at our apartment. This experience was a great reminder that everything happens exactly how its supposed to. We found our perfect house at just the right time. Even though its been 6 months since we moved in, sometimes I still can’t believe its all ours. We are so fortunate to have the space to host our family for Thanksgiving for the first time, have friends and family visit, and to continue to make memories in.
Our Honeymoon
I’m so glad we waited about 6 months after our wedding to go on our honeymoon. I don’t know how people plan both at the same time. And since we both managed to get the flu the two weeks after our wedding, this definitely worked out for the best. We traveled to Salt Lake City, Jackson Hole, Grand Teton National Park, and Yellowstone. We spent a few nights in the coziest cabin in Idaho and one freezing night glamping! And we visited 4 states I never thought I’d go to – Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. This was truly the trip of a lifetime!
Weekend Adventures
2018 was the first full year that I didn’t work in retail (and didn’t spend my weekends wedding planning). This left a whole lotta room for weekend adventures. We are so lucky to live in a place with so many fun events throughout the year. In 2018 we went to The Honda Classic, SunFest, and the South Florida Fair. I traveled to Orlando a couple times. In the Spring to go to Epcot for my best friend’s birthday and in the Fall for UCF Homecoming Weekend. And we took a few trips to Miami – to see the Umbrella Sky Project and for a little getaway to kick off our month long 1 year wedding anniversary celebrations. We also celebrated our anniversary with a West Palm Beach staycation. It was like a wedding weekend recreation. We had dinner at the same restaurant where our rehearsal dinner was and spent the night at the hotel where we got married.
Starting My Blog
FINALLY! This has been a dream of mine for literally years. I’m embarrassed to say how long I’ve held myself back. I usually blamed my lack of an idea for a name for a blog but if we’re being honest it was more a fear of putting myself out there. And I purchased my domain name a little while before we got married, knowing Stanton would be my forever name (and a whole lot easier to spell than Hochsztein).
I started blogging in April and really started to tell people about it and focus on it after our honeymoon in June. This year I published 63 blog posts. My site had 1,762 visitors and 4,492 page views. I even attended my first blogger meetup! I have big plans to blog more consistently in the new year and to continue to grow into 2019.
