Let’s start with the B I G stuff: this year I got engaged to my best friend, which was obviously the highlight of my whole year. After nine years of dating, I can’t wait to be this one’s wife in 2018… although fiance has a pretty great ring to it. I also moved *again*– this one I hope to grow into with SD and our future family. A little more space and a whole lot more time & energy have gone into making this house a home, not only for a girl (and her dog) but a boy, too. I’ve closed out the year one happy gal– planning a wedding (with the greatest team of all time at Shelly Fortune Event Design) and decorating a fresh and sparkly new home (with the sweetest duo alive– Maple and Murphy Design).

As for travel: we started the year out in Aspen, Colorado with my family: our favorite ski town. We went to Nashville and Memphis to cheer on the wildcats during March Madness. Then to Disney World in May with Sam’s family, which was where we took photos to announce that my future brother and sister in law were expecting. We spent the 4th of July on a boat in the Exumas, Bahamas, which turned out to be the coolest, most fun and relaxing week of the year. For the solar eclipse in August we were on the beach in Marco Island, I read three books that week sitting in the sun– my kind of trip. I got to spend Fashion Week with one of my besties (Madi Messer of Sweet Tea With Madi) in New York City, where we squeezed in lots of shopping, pasta and diet cokes in between shows and meetings. I rounded out the year traveling for my ‘day job’  at the beaufort bonnet company to Charlottesville, Virginia and Naples, Florida with a few of my favorite ladies.

While I’ll never say no to a week or weekend away, some pretty fun things happened right at home this year! We celebrated Sam’s 26th birthday at a John Mayer concert, I *successfully* kept the gender of my niece a secret for a whole month while planning a gender reveal party, I spent countless summer nights sitting around a fire with family, friends and lots of s’mores, we walked, hiked, celebrated, laughed… and best for last, welcomed my little niece, Callahan June, right in time for Christmas.

2016 was a year of growth for me and 2017 really showed the fruits of that labor– 2018 has big shoes to fill, but I have no doubt it’ll surpass all of my expectations. Here’s to day 1.