{"id":3990,"date":"2017-12-31T19:23:19","date_gmt":"2017-12-31T19:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextstopadventure.com\/?p=3990"},"modified":"2018-01-02T19:26:24","modified_gmt":"2018-01-02T19:26:24","slug":"2017-in-a-nutshell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextstopadventure.com\/index.php\/2017\/12\/31\/2017-in-a-nutshell\/","title":{"rendered":"2017 in a Nutshell"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is life without a little adventure! This past year was full of changes in our lives.<\/h2>\n

January <\/b><\/h3>\n

The year 2017 started with a bang celebrating New Year\u2019s Eve with Katie and Ashley, Katie\u2019s best friend in Nashville<\/a>. After we returned to Salt Lake from our Southeastern vacation to Nashville and Florida, we began our house hunt in Salt Lake City.<\/p>\n

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February <\/b><\/h3>\n

In early February, we found the perfect house and put an offer on it within the hour. They accepted within 24 hours, and said it was because of our letter talking about our fur babies (they had 3 cats + 1 dog, and we have 2 cats + 1 dog). During the house hunt, I simultaneously pivoted in my career, and was hired by the CVB and started mid-February.<\/p>\n

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March <\/b><\/h3>\n

In March, we closed on the perfect house and moved from our little apartment in the cute Avenues neighborhood. Our new neighbors are very friendly, it\u2019s in a great location, and the size is perfect for our little family.<\/p>\n

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Speaking of our little family, we also adopted Koda<\/a>, a six-year-old golden retriever who is now our newest adventure buddy!<\/p>\n

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April <\/b><\/h2>\n

In April, we celebrated our first wedding anniversary<\/a> with a home photo session in our new house (typical photographer move, right?) and a short trip to Moab where we drove a UTV 4×4 through the red rocks<\/a>!<\/p>\n

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Right around our anniversary, I also took a work trip with my CVB coworkers to Tucson, Arizona<\/a> and got to explore the desert.<\/p>\n

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My new coworker also introduced me to the Keto diet<\/a>, which was extremely effective and unfortunately I fell off the bandwagon in late summer. Brighton and I will get back on after our move.<\/p>\n

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We also settled into homeownership by getting to know our neighborhood, trips to IKEA and Home Depot, and lots of walks with Koda.<\/p>\n

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I also visited the Tulip Festival<\/a> with Kelli, which is one of my favorite spring events.<\/p>\n

May <\/b><\/h3>\n

The weather started to warm up and the mountains welcomed adventure in May. We took some mini trips to Millcreek Canyon<\/a> and Ogden. I also found out that my cholesterol dropped dramatically on the keto diet, which was a big health win for me.<\/p>\n

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We also planned a trip with our friends Rachel, Kelli, and Mariah (Kelli\u2019s friend) to Zion to hike the Narrows for Memorial Day weekend<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>That was an adventure I had wanted to do since moving to Utah, and it was an awesome trip! The Narrows are a classic \u201cUtah\u201d trip to experience, and I was so lucky to have done it with great friends.<\/p>\n

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June<\/b><\/h2>\n

Summer always seems to take forever to arrive, and when it does I always feel this mad rush to try to fit in all the weekend adventures as much as I can to soak it all up. We took advantage of the warmer weather to go paddle boarding in Causey Reservoir and camping with Rachel & Brandon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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We also celebrated Brighton\u2019s birthday with keto birthday cake and Wonder Woman. Simple, sweet, and without much fuss \u2014 just the way Brighton likes to celebrate.<\/p>\n

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July<\/b><\/h3>\n

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In my mind, July means hot weather = green mountains, blue alpine lakes, and colorful wildflowers. Itching to get out and explore, I found a great employee hotel discount over 4th of July weekend near Glacier National Park, and we took a great extended weekend trip. Glacier was one of my favorite parks that we could only see parts of a couple years ago, and I\u2019ve been wanting to get back there again since our initial visit. Boy, was it worth it! We had a great hiking trip and it was just the way to celebrate holiday.<\/p>\n

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In the family and friends, Leo, our nephew, celebrated his first birthday. He\u2019s becoming the cutest little boy! Watching Brighton play with him makes me think that he will be a great dad someday!<\/p>\n

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We also did a \u201cbirthday hike\u201d with Hannah, our Seattle friend. I also found out my friend Courtney would be moving to Salt Lake at the end of July.<\/p>\n

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A couple local adventures:<\/p>\n