This time between Christmas and New Year’s Day is one of my favorite weeks of the year. I love that Christmas has this little extra bonus week where not many people are really back in the office, and you have another holiday coming up the very next week. But more importantly, I’ve always been a goal-setter and a life-reflector, and I love this time to think about what happened in the previous year, what I learned from it, and how I’m going to apply that to the new year. (I use Powersheets and our new year’s date night in part to accomplish this. More info on those coming soon.)
I also like to sneak in some cleaning, reorganizing, and documenting during this time. This is one of the only weeks of the year that feels slow enough to indulge in things like creating photo albums and writing in Christmas Memories Books, so I try to take advantage. But now that I have this little space, I’m so excited to use it to document our year in review! 2016 was just a walk in the park compared to 2015 (when we got married, graduated from law school, took two honeymoons, moved twice, took the bar exam, and started new jobs), and it was really, really lovely. Definitely my favorite year so far. Here is the story of our 2016.
January
I have very rosy feelings about January 2016. It was slow, snowy, and celebratory. It was a time when DC was really starting to feel like home, lots of cozy evenings were spent in our favorite bars watching football, and friendships were solidifying. I had secured the domain for this little blog over Christmas at my parents’ house, but graphic design delays, uncertainty, and not knowing what on earth I was doing held me back until our anniversary, so I’ll give a little more love to January and February for some never-before-seen snippets.
New Year’s Eve
First, we rang in the new year with our DC law school crew! We had a great dinner at DBGB followed by dessert at Milk Bar and football at the Snows. Just my kind of fun-but-not-crazy NYE.
Our Housewarming Party
On January 9th, we hosted a little party and called it a housewarming. To our surprise and delight, it was packed! We think we must have had 50 people in our tiny place. I remember friends we are now very close with coming over and not knowing them that well. That really reminds me that friendship takes time to develop sometimes. This is also when we met the Phillipses!
Will’s Birthday
We celebrated Will’s birthday with a bunch of his college buddies who came into town for a Georgetown basketball game (and the Porters!) then meandered over to Clyde’s, following by a long evening at our perennial favorite, the Tombs, without a care in the world.
The Blizzard
Bear with me here, because I didn’t have a blog during this time, and this deserves some coverage. In late January, 2016, we got over three feet of snow in DC. We ended up having such a good time during the process that it has become a running joke that if you hang out with us for very long, you are bound to hear us talk about how much we loved this blizzard. I always love snow (one of the reasons winter if my favorite season), but this was special. The Capital Weather Gang had been getting mileage out of the hype for the possibility of this blizzard for at least a week, and Will was a doubter. I was a hopeful. Most offices were shut down on Friday before the snow even started to fall. But as it did, and I went to the grocery store with everyone else in Arlington, there was a thin layer of sparkle on the parking lot and no bread on the shelves. I got that excitement you get when you’re a little kid and hoping there will be a snow day.
A snow day, there was. We woke up on Saturday morning to the most snow I’d ever seen in a place I actually lived and messages from my French friends, as the news of our snow had reached Paris. When we tired of our amusement over the local news crew’s endless coverage of what was happening (riding around in vans showing streets, showing us people walking their dogs as if it was newsworthy, sharing stories of people being torn over whether to hole up at their place or their girlfriend’s place), we suited up in our ski gear and set out to explore with the rest of Clarendon. One of my favorite things about this was how it brought people together. Everyone was talking to strangers, helping dig cars out, greeting each other on the street like old friends, and a man we don’t know even told us he was out in his SUV because his wife just had to have something from Whole Foods.
Pippa had a better time than anyone until we got inside and realized she had ice balls stuck to her entire coat that even a hair dryer wouldn’t melt.
We eventually had to give her a hot full-body bath.
Once we were exhausted from all the exploring, we rode the rest of the blizzard experience out inside until we ventured over to the Phillipses’ to watch the Panthers in a playoff game (this was also the year of the Panthers Super Bowl!) a few days later. There were hot toddies, card games, and lots of college sports. I think we are over-worked, because we were thrilled to be cooped up.
February
In February we were wrapping up our marriage care small group (which was amazing and lives on in a new iteration today), and I was working for the Senate Judiciary Committee thanks to my friend Emily. Ben’s bachelor season was in full-swing, and we were getting to know our new church friends one dinner party and game night at a time. We were very sad when Justice Scalia died, but we ended up having a very fun Valentine’s Day in Whitetail on our first mini ski trip together. I remember there was a torch parade down the mountain and fireworks for the occasion, and I thought it was the best Valentine’s Day ever!
Our Southern Newlywed Feature Shoot
Photo by Abby Grace
In February we shot our little photo shoot for Southern Newlywed right around the time of our anniversary.
Our Anniversary Trip to Snowshoe
We then had the most special first anniversary trip to Snowshoe Mountain Resort in West Virginia. We can’t wait to go back with our friends in a few short weeks!
Favorite Posts:
My first real post: Our Apartment on Southern Newlywed
March
March highlights included landing my new job (and sadly leaving the Senate Judiciary Committee after a very short stint), taking meals to several sweet new babies, attending the Make it Happen conference in Chapel Hill, and having Will’s cousins come to visit. I don’t have any photos from Holly Springs/Chapel Hill, but that was a really wonderful weekend and a milestone in my life.
First Dinner Party on the Blog
We also finally had some college friends of mine over for dinner, and I documented the tablescape for the first time with the camera Will got me for our anniversary.
Family in D.C.
Will’s cousins came to visit us! I wish I hadn’t been so busy with my new job at this time (I missed a lot of good museum outings), but we still had plenty of fun outings with them. We hope they will come back soon!
Favorite Posts:
April
In April I was getting settled into my new life as a litigator, but the month saw some of my favorite weekend getaways. I attempted to go see the cherry blossoms a day late and a dollar short, and we had a weekend that included a great double date with the Phillipses and our first trip to Signature theater. Here are the weekend getaways!
Nashville for Paige’s Baby Shower
April started with a wonderful weekend in Nashville with my hometown besties to celebrate our first baby. 🙂
Williamsburg with Mom
The very next weekend, Mom and I had the best mother-daughter weekend in Williamsburg! Williamsburg in spring should be on your bucket list.
The Greenbrier
And finally, we made our first of what we hope will be many trips to the Greenbrier. It’s really our place.
(Other) Favorite Posts:
May
May brought more fun weekends, Pippa’s third birthday, Jojo’s bachelorette season premiere (is it weird I measure my life in Bachelor seasons?), and a trip to the beach!
Our First Kentucky Derby Party
We hosted our first Kentucky Derby Party in early May, and I’m thinking it may have to join the pumpkin-carving party as an annual tradition!
Haley Came to Visit
Another May highlight included Haley’s visit to DC! We went to several museums and did lots of DC stuff I don’t normally take the time to do. Thanks for helping me get to know my city! 🙂
Emeral Isle Family Trip
In May I also got to go on my first of the annual Moser family Emerald Isle trips!
(Other) Favorite Posts:
June
June was really all about Maui: preparing for Maui, packing for Maui, going to Maui, and recovering from Maui. It took me forever to start documenting it, and I still haven’t finished, but I’ll get there. We actually did some other hiking and kayaking around DC too.
Maui (Duh)
Maui Posts So Far:
Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of 2016 in Part II soon! It has been a joy to have this little space to “scrapbook” this year, and it has been fun connecting with you, old and new friends, through this little space. Thanks so much for stopping by!
