Today is my 25th birthday! 24 was a great year for me and I'm so thankful for the experiences I've had. Here are 25 of my favorite moments from the past year:
- Taking an overnight trip to Raleigh, NC to see The Postal Service for their 10 year anniversary tour.
- Judging an elementary school cake competition - too much fun.
- Buying our first iMac!
- Taking a trip to the Pacific Northwest to spend quality time with my parents, which can be difficult since we live 3,000 miles away from each other!
- Having the opportunity to photograph the wedding of my dear friend, Jenelle. It was so fun to capture the day as it unfolded and I was so excited to be there for this great moment in her life.
- Reading The Defining Decade by Meg Jay. This was a huge game changer for me and really helped to propel me forward and gain more focus in my life. I highly recommend her Ted Talk and her book to anyone in their twenties. And my favorite quote: "Forget about having an identity crisis and get some identity capital. Do something that adds value to who you are. Do something that's an investment in who you might want to be next."
- Making new friends!
- Going to Food Truck Fridays during the summer - we had so many great memories with friends on those nights.
- Increasing our collection of succulents and watching them flourish.
- Buying flowers at the farmers market in the springtime.
- Discovering my new favorite drink: Moscow Mules.
- Having Jeremy's sister + brother-in-law move from West Virginia to Winston-Salem, NC. It has been so wonderful to have them live closer and to be able to spend more time with them. Before that, our closest family members lived either a five hour drive or flight away from us!
- Discovering how to make (pretty darn good) chicken tikka masala in a crockpot.
- Celebrating our three year anniversary in Charleston, SC with the most perfect weather and the greatest food.
- The lavender latte I got from Kudu Coffee - yes, it was that good.
- Taking a day trip to Raleigh, NC with two of my friends, Jenelle & Corrie. A day full of coffee, quirky antiques, and Mexican food is enough to make anyone happy.
- Getting the text message from my dear friend, Jessi (who has been living in Scotland) that she had gotten engaged! I nearly screamed in the middle of the restaurant!
- Cooking a Thanksgiving feast with my sister-in-law, Tiffany. This was our first time cooking a turkey!
- Taking a girls-only trip to Greenville, SC to celebrate the short visit of our friend, Jessi, over the holidays.
- All of the delicious gourmet popcicles Jeremy and I ate from King of Pops!
- Hiking up Grandfather Mountain with my sister-in-law and her husband.
- Taking a road trip to visit our friends in Florida for New Years Eve!
- The Seahawks winning the Super Bowl for the first time! So proud of my home state for this.
- Purchasing our plane tickets for our 2014 trip to San Fransisco with two of my best friends from high school! So looking forward to this trip and enjoying every second of the planning.
- Starting this blog. I would love to talk to you sometime about how pathetically afraid I was to take this leap, how terrifying it was to put myself out there on the internet and to take my photography work a little more seriously. Reading The Defining Decade helped me to realize that all of those insecurities were causing me to waste valuable time to do something with my life: to just start.
So excited to see what 25 has in store!
