Is there any other way to start this than, wow… what a year? Part of me wants to skip writing this montage for the year, but part of me is hoping it will be therapeutic. And I know that I will want these thoughts recorded years from now, so here we go. JANUARY Aside from waking up on January 1, 2020 with a champagne hangover (sorry, mom), the year got off to a really nice start. I was feeling confident because I lost weight in 2019, we were optimistic and hopeful for Jordan’s job search, and looking back at my camera roll there was a lot of good food, fun nights out on the town, and going to ..read more

Our first trip during the COVID-era was to sunny San Diego, CA. My sister, Vanessa, is living there for her first travel nursing placement and since she’s only going to be there for a short time, we decided to go. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t nervous about traveling during the pandemic – I feel like we have learned how to be safe while we’re living (and Jordan and I are) – I was most nervous of what other people would think. Obviously, there are a lot of opinions around traveling right now, but this trip felt reasonable to us. Noteworthy, I read an entire book on the flight there. First stop, cof ..read more

By a million miles, Cordon and Courtney’s wedding was our bright light of 2020. On June 19, 2020, Jordan’s youngest brother, Cordon, married his dream girl, and our new sister, Courtney. Obviously, the day looked different that their original plans, but it was seriously such a great day. I am the new biggest fan of backyard weddings. Jordan was Cordon’s Best Man, and looked fine as hell if I do say so myself. I was one of Courtney’s Bridesmaids, which was such an honor! Here are some of my favorite photos from the day ..read more

Jordan turns 28 years old today. He is all of the wonderful things. Actually. When I say things like… “He’s my favorite person.”… “He’s the best guy I know.”… “He is all the wonderful things.”… I mean it with all that I am. Jordan is incredible – I’m sorry that not everyone gets to know him like I do, but I’m also so glad that I’m the only person on this planet that gets to know him like I do. Anyway… our new apartment includes a guest room, so for the first time ever, we got to host guests this weekend! And who better to host in the days before Jordan’s birthday than the two amazing humans w ..read more

Last weekend Jordan, Lincoln, and I moved to a small two about 20 minutes east of Champaign – Mahomet, IL. I had driven past Mahomet during Jordan’s freshman year of college, but the first time I ever hearing of the town was when I met my two college best friends at Illinois State who happened to be from Mahomet. Jordan and I love Champaign with our whole hearts, but we weren’t able to find an apartment that checked enough boxes in Champaign. To be honest, we already feel pretty bummed to be outside of Champaign, but I think this time will give us a lot of wisdom when we are ready to buy. The ..read more

Today, Jordan and I have been married for five years. Five feels so substantial. We’re grateful. Our wedding day is something we look back on often, with great fondness – it really is hard to believe that it was five years ago. Since that day, we’ve lived so much life and it has looked very different than we expected it to. Sometimes I wonder what I would have said, then, if I knew what the next five years would hold. And I don’t say that to be dramatic, cause it’s been a really wonderful and happy life so far, but I do think it would be hard for me to accept that life was going to happen a l ..read more

JANUARY As I write this blog post in January 2020, I am very aware of how much I looooooove January. Jordan and I are both introverts, so while we love being with our families for the holidays, as of January 1 we are very ready to retreat and rest. That’s pretty much how we spent our January and we were so happy about it! FEBRUARY February was more or less the same. We watched a lot of Illinois Basketball with our parents. The product I work on hit $1 Million in sales and that was fun to celebrate with my team. We had friends visit twice – Ashley came down for a girl’s night out, and ..read more

Four years of marriage to my best friend and favorite human being! It’s still going way too fast and I’m grateful for every moment. We celebrated this year with a trip to Mexico, and honestly every year that we don’t celebrate that way will be a huge disappointment – ha. Jordan and I are an Enneagram 1 and 5 couple, so traveling together – just us two – works really, really well. We actually are each other’s favorite person and we thrive off of long, intellectual conversation with one another. It was an amazing few days and I’m so glad we made the investment (time and financial ..read more

Lisbon, Lisbon, Lisbon… I’m in love! We took a quick one hour flight from Madrid to Lisbon. From the very beginning, Lisbon was the city I was most excited about visiting and I couldn’t wait to get there. As soon as we landed we headed to the hotel and go checked in. Our hotel was really wonderful and the location was perfect. We headed out to wander as soon as we could. We didn’t know where we were going, we just knew we were walking toward the ocean. I was thrilled to land on the water, but realized it was a river – ha. There was a little shack on the water that served pizza so we sto ..read more

After an incredible few days in Barcelona, we were Madrid bound. Our mode of transportation? High speed train. Up to par with the rest of our transportation experiences on the trip, the train was so wonderful. First of all, it was so clean and even felt like it might be new. Our car wasn’t that full and the seats had miles of leg room. They also provided us with a meal on the train – what?! It was a tuna salad sandwich and some chips, but guys, it was such a delicious sandwich. The honestly breathtaking views of pure wine country were the true cherry on top. I tried so hard to stay awake so ..read more