2018 in review

As we get closer to the end of the year, I wanted to look over what my goals and visions were for this past year and see what came to fruition. Remember how fun our Goal Setting Gathering was this past January?! I was blown away when I sat with my vision board for a bit and really absorbed how amazing putting my goals into vision. Some of these images and thoughts seemed so impossible and so big. I can’t even begin to describe how cool it is to look over this vision board and see literally everything that I felt like was so unattainable come to reality.

1. I wanted to focus on traveling this year as family. I wanted to make camping a priority specifically. This year we spent almost a week at Newport Dunes and had one of our best family vacations yet. The girls rode bikes for hours, Erik and I unplugged a bit and we just soaked up the summer sun. We also had been saving and hoping to get a travel trailer at some point in our future. We have been renting trailers up to this point which we found a bit limiting financially. We were eager to get our own and be able to adventure whenever we wanted. Last month, we found a perfect trailer and snatched it up! We are off to our first camping getaway in a couple weeks. We have at least four more trips on the books for 2019 in our cute little trailer.

2. Marriage was a huge focus for me this year. I wanted to build our marriage up on a foundation of love, consistency, faith, investing in each other and simplicity. With two kids and a lot of changes in our personal world it was getting hard to stay connected and keep our relationship easy and consistent. This year has blown me away in our marriage. I feel like the work and dig in we committed to has paid off ten fold. Not without a huge amount of prayer, humility and grace.

3. Our home projects were on my list this year. I firmly believe that your home should be your safe place. It should reflect all your favorite things and give you energy. We finished our built in, living room, fireplace, chicken coop and dining room this year which really changed the whole feel of our home. It’s such a happy, cozy place for me.

4. I made 2018 my year of strong connection with the girls. We have always been really close but as they get older I want to make sure I am all theirs and they know it. I wanted to continue to build our bond stronger and stronger. We have had so many fun adventures, hard lessons, belly laughs, sparkles and snuggles this year.

5. Self care and self talk is a struggle for most of us girls right?! I’ve always been confident but as I settle in to my mid thirties I wanted to lean into myself and grow. I wanted to tap into what made me anxious or stressed. I wanted to try and learn about what motivates me and what makes me stop in my tracks. What makes me beyond giddy or super content. I wanted to make exercise in some form a regular habit and did so by rejoining my favorite gym T3 Fitness. I dove into self growth podcasts, bible studies and books.

6. I wanted to learn photography this year. Now, I can't claim any real talent in this arena but I did really get some new skills under my belt. I learned how to work my fancy DSLR for the most part and learned how to edit in Lightroom. I still have super long way to go but made some major progress this year.

7. Lastly, I wanted to host. I wanted friends and family around our table. I ended up hosting around 10 different fun soirées with my friends this year and loved every second.

2018 Goal setting gathering

It's a sparkling fresh new year and time for new goals and dreams!  One of my best friends is a major promoter of vision boards.  I make pretty thorough goals for myself throughout the year but never have made a vision board.  We thought how fun would it be to do our vision boards together and have a couple more of our favorite ladies play too.  It became a thing!  Goal Gathering!  I like a name for get togethers!  

We kept our gathering small and intimate with just 4 of us.  I put together a Charcuterie board with yummy snacks and we sipped on mini Chandon splits.  

A couple of the girls have done intense courses on goal planning for their businesses and helped create a format for both our big goal lists and our vision boards.  We broke down the goals into categories.  

Here is how it looked: 

Family: to encompass anything family or relationship related.  This would include family camping trips, quality time with each child, date nights or getaways with your hubby, lunch dates with parents, special notes and coffee dates with friends, etc. 

Spiritual: faith based goals like incorporating a daily devotional into your morning routine, attending a women's bible study, making Sunday's a priority to attend church, read faith based books, etc. 

Physical: this could be the obvious like getting back to the gym or cleaning up your eating.  This category could also be things like bleaching your teeth regularly,trying that new haircut you have been eyeing, doing weekly at home masks or practicing yoga daily.  

Educational: this category could be business related or personal development related.  I am going to take an official photography class to learn more about my camera.  You could make it a goal to go back to school, attend conferences in your field or reading educational books like biographies or biz books. 

Business /Work: this category can include your work goals for promotion or even little goals like keeping your office drawers organized regularly.  

Material things: this is a bigger category.  This would include the material things or projects you are aiming to gain or finish in the year. This category can also include getting debt free or adding to your savings. Some of my material goals this year are to add built ins and a powder room to the house.  I also want to create my garden this year.   

Then you get to my favorite part!  The vision board making!  I am super visual person and really get inspired by beauty.  We chose our most powerful goals for the year and found inspiring images for each from Pinterest.  We all found the most inspiration from pins we have already gathered on our boards. We then  used Canva.com  templates to upload our images and create our beautiful vision boards.  

I hope you are more than inspired throughout the year to attain your goals and dreams!  I am a huge goal setter and believe in 1, 5, 10 year goals!  I'd love to see your vision boards too!  If you create one add it to Instagram and tag me in it! Cheers to a gorgeous 2018!