Wow…what a year. I know it sounds cliche, but it’s the truth. I don’t think anyone could have predicted how this year was going to go down. I ask myself a lot how lucky I am to get to live the life that I do–but after 2020, I’m asking myself this more and more everyday. This year was so hard for so many people, and it breaks my heart knowing there is so much hurt in the world. Tim and I were talking about how it makes life so much sweeter knowing that 2020 was one of our best years yet, and 2021 is going to be even better. It was a constant reminder every time we had a big happy moment, that we should never take those for granted. Although our year was filled with really big milestones, we, like everyone else, also had our lows. I’m pretty sure after this year though, that we (and when I say we, I mean all of us!) can get through anything. With that being said, here’s a look into our year:
January
We rang in the New Year with a little get together at our apartment with Tim’s friends. Everyone dressed up in the 1920’s theme and we ate and drank the night away. The perfect start to a new year! Nilla had her first of many playdates with my friend’s dog and Chip started his dog training. And finally, our house was breaking ground. We were originally planning on being here for our first married Christmas (2019), so we were very behind to say the least. Watching them pour concrete and start the frame was definitely the highlight of the month–once they got going, they moved so fast! Our third annual Big Bear trip also took place over MLK weekend with Tim’s family. We just spend quality time together–eating, playing games, and relaxing. I’m really bummed we have to miss this year! We ended up ending the month with Monster Jam, my second time going and Tim’s first with friends of ours. A great night to say the least!
February
Tim got tickets to a Timberwolves game in LA, so we headed up the very first day of the month to watch the game and make an LA day out of it. February was also the first anniversary of losing my dad. The day was a hard one, but luckily I had friends, family and Tim to keep me afloat. I took the day off work and spent it with my mom and sister. After that eventful first week of the month, I headed down to San Diego for my first hotel collaboration of the year. You can read about my trip here! I had a blast and had such a great time capturing content with my blogger bestie, Katie! We celebrated our first married Valentine’s day–and to tell you the truth I can’t remember what we did. Ha! Our house continued to make lots of progress, so any free chance we got we took the opportunity to drive out and see it.
March
A goal I had for blogging in 2020 was to bring lots of travel content to my page. I had my second hotel collaboration (I was going strong on having one planned a month) and headed out to Temecula for the weekend. To read about my stay, click here. This was particularly fun because I got to spend a weekend in my soon-to-be new hometown! Danielle Alana turned 3 years old shortly after, and quite honestly I kind of forgot about it. It snuck up on me/I thought it was in May. Ha! Noted for this year. After that, we celebrated our boy Chip’s first birthday. We don’t know his exact birthdate, so we made it up to be March 14th…I think. And then, you know, the world started to…get ugly. I think this is when the pandemic official started–but I honestly couldn’t tell you. Its all a blur to me! Our house was finishing up though, and we started to hunker down in quarantine mode.
April
A worldwide pandemic. Officially! My nanny job pretty much came to a complete hault minus one family. Everyone was staying home, social distancing and waiting to see what the next couple of weeks would hold. I took advantage and took the extra time to work on my blog. This was the month that I had a huge realization of how unhappy I was. Before the pandemic started, my schedule and days were full to the brim. I had 14 hour days pretty much everyday, and our social calendar was non-stop. I remember vividly crying to Tim and telling him about 3/4 weeks in quarantine that I was the happiest I had been in a long time. This was a huge wake up call–as it spoke volumes to the fact that I wasn’t taking care of myself whatsoever. I did a lot of re-evaluating this month, prioritizing, and just being very aware of my feelings. The month ended with me attempting to give Tim a haircut (total fail), us signing the papers for our house quarantine style, moving out of our apartment and getting the keys to our house on the last day of the month. Read my house Q & A here.
May
The biggest month of the year! We started out the first weekend by moving into our brand new home. The rest of the month consisted of finishing moving in, getting settled in, decorating and trying for a baby. We then got the biggest surprise and found out we were pregnant in the same month! I think I cried more happy tears in this month then I ever have in my entire life. Becoming a homeowner and finding out that I’m going to be a mom in the same month at the age of 22…I had never felt more accomplished. Two things that I have always wanted and they were finally happened/happening! Such a dream come true and something I’ll never forget.
June
We celebrated our one year wedding anniversary and 3 year dating anniversary (same day!), but not as we planned. This was supposed to be our big month and we were going to travel to England, Scotland and Ireland for two weeks. Our trip ended up being cancelled due to the pandemic, so instead it was spent waiting 2 hours at a restaurant I really wanted to try and then barely eating anything because I felt so nauseas. Woo hoo! Besides that, I had a really hard time keeping my mouth shut about the fact that I was pregnant. All I wanted to do was shout it from the rooftops! We started telling friends and family shortly after since I knew I wanted to announce on social media right at 12 weeks. The reactions we got were priceless!
July
The secret of being pregnant was out, all our friends and family knew! I was checking my calendar pretty much every morning after I woke up, counting down the days until I announced. My friend Sydney did our announcement photos and once I had those in my hand, I could hardly contain myself. I ended up not making it to the date I originally planned and announced earlier than I thought I would–but I just couldn’t handle it anymore. You guys feel like family to me and I wanted to share the news with you all! Not only did we do announcement photos, but we also did our gender reveal ones at the same time. I ended up getting a collaboration with the Sneak Peek test and at 9 weeks found out we were having a boy. I’ve said this before, but we always thought we would end up with all girls. As soon as I got pregnant though, my intuition I guess you could say, completely switched. My heart was just telling me it was a boy! Tim wasn’t convinced though, so when we got the results back he was in shock and then I just got my feelings I had been having confirmed. Starting mid-July though was when my sickness began, and it continued on for weeks. Before that though, we did get in a quick weekend trip to Palm Springs with good friends of ours which was so fun! My birthday was definitely a snooze since I spent it in bed being sick. Tim still found a way to make me feel special though and celebrate turning 23! I ended the month by finishing up first trimester and starting second, which you can read about here. My mom also sold my childhood home–the only other house I’ve ever lived in. This was also very heartbreaking and a hard thing to walk through on top of everything else.
August
More sickness, that pretty much lasted all month. I was able to keep it down though for our gender reveal! On Tim’s birthday we had our closest friends and family get together at my in-laws for a party. Our theme was Let’s Taco ‘Bout a Baby and you can read all about our gender reveal here. Even though Tim and I knew the gender, I loved getting to surprise everyone else. In the video where we do the poppers, you can see everyone’s genuine reaction of finding out its a boy! It’s the first grandson on Tim’s side and my mom’s first grandchild. Pretty much everyone was team girl, so it was safe to say everyone was shocked. We enjoyed the best taco cart and then got to announce the next day on social media that we were having a sweet baby boy. Such a hard secret to keep! That was the high of the month, and the low was being sick, but also taking a trip to the ER. The last place you want to end up during a pandemic! I was vomiting so much that I ended up getting severely dehydrated and needing IV and more intense medication then what I was taking. An eventful month to say the least!
September
My first normal month feeling a real human again! This time, a pregnant human. In the second trimester with the bump starting to make an appearance and midwife appointments in full swing. Some highlights of the month were celebrating Nilla’s first birthday, accompanying friends for wine tasting, working on decorating the house and getting back into blogging. Even though I was technically blogging over Summer, I was in no means on a schedule or posting consistently. Since I was feeling normal and back to my daily life, I made a big effort to plan out content and really get in the swing of things again. We also got our crib and Tim put that together! That made the nursery feel real.
October
What we were looking forward to since we booked it! Our babymoon. We spent a week in Arizona stopping at the Grand Canyon, Scottsdale and Tucson doing a full road trip. You can read all about our babymoon here, the Grand Canyon here, and my Arizona food guide here. We also traveled up to Fresno for Tim’s cousins wedding for a quick weekend trip. Definitely a lot of time was spent in the car! One thing we brought home from Arizona was baby boy’s dresser–I had been trying to get my hands on it for months but everywhere in California was sold out. They happened to have it in stock in Arizona so we packed it up and headed home with our car full to the brim. We spent our weekend back from our trip putting that together in his nursery, and also my first baby shower! This one was hosted by my godmother f0r my mom’s friends and it was absolutely lovely. It was a small backyard get together and it turned out beautiful!
November
After almost a year of not seeing one of my really good friends, she made the trip from NY and I drove out to OC to get to see her for a hot second. I was supposed to go out to her and visit and make a big touristy trip out of it–before we moved and before I got pregnant. But of course things didn’t work out, so I was happy to just get one hour in person with her for the whole year. Crazy! And then of course, the election took place. Can we talk about stressful? Lol! I got to relax though because a few days later was my second baby shower. This one was hosted by my good friend Sydney and mother-in-law for my friends and Tim’s family! You can read all about it here. Before we knew it, we went from having nothing for baby boy to being fully stocked and loaded. So grateful for all our friends and family joining to celebrate us! After this, I went full swing to prepare for the holidays. I shot a lot of holiday content and spent a good chunk of time putting together gift guides for you all–which was actually super fun! I definitely enjoy the holidays more when I’m more prepared, so that was noted for next year. Aside from all of those things, to add to that list, I officially got my mom car. Tim sold his truck and we got our first family car–a Mazda CX-9. Still absolutely obsessed with it! We drove it to both Thanksgivings with our families so they could see, and enjoyed a quiet day with yummy food for Thanksgiving.
December
So. Busy. Even during a pandemic we found our calendars filled to the brim with holiday plans! We spent a lot of time with family this month and even though it wasn’t the same, we made the best of it. We got together with Tim’s immediate family and had my mom over for a sleepover, looked at Christmas lights with my sister and did just a lot of little things. Which was so fun! We both come from huge families, so normally we do big get togethers with both–which turns into over 50 people at each event. Neither of those things happened, so we made it work through social media and zoom calls! It was bittersweet celebrating our last Christmas as just husband and wife with our pups, knowing that next year will be so different. Besides all of the holiday festivities and trying to make it seem like normal, I ended my nanny job of 5 years to go on maternity leave. It is currently up in the air on if and when I will return!
