The Last One of 2012

It's been a pretty amazing year, that's for sure. Maybe one of my favorite ever. I mean, what could be better than traveling around with your best friends and cool little family? We've certainly had a lot of adventures, seen a lot of pretty things, been reunited with a lot of good friends and traveled a lot of miles. In fact, if you counted all the miles we've driven or flown this year individually and lined them up end to end, they total over 48,000. That's enough to drive around the equator. Twice.

And those miles have not been in vain. I have loved having Ellie and Olivia as my little travel buddies. They are great sports on road trips, and they're always excited about "a-wen-tures." And, of course, Steve is an excellent travel companion, too. We both have the travel bug as of late, and it's fun to always be thinking of the next place we want to go together. Plus, I'd like to thank his employer, Moss Adams, for sponsoring many of our trips. For an accountant, Steve has a pretty cool lifestyle, if I do say so myself. And it has been wonderful to reunite with friends both near and far many times over the year. It's not very fun when all your friends move away. But it is fun when you get to go visit them in places like Austin, Baton Rouge and San Francisco.

It's always difficult for me to figure out how to recap an entire year. Chronologically? Categorically? Photographically? Linkilly (that's when I repost links, obviously)? So I went with Instagramically this year. Because I like that Instragrams sort of capture our everyday life... the regular stuff, as it were. With two squirmy kids I don't always feel like I can bring along my expensive camera, so I'm grateful for the relatively good quality provided by my iPhone 4S's camera. I think it does pretty nicely. Plus, I enjoy the fact that Ellie and Olivia really like to look back through all my pictures and remember the fun times with me.

So if you're ready for the longest, most Instagram-filled post ever, may I present a little recap of our year.

In 2012:

We saw a lot of pretty skylines:

Main Street, Disneyland, California

La Jolla, California

San Francisco, California

Downtown San Francisco

Spokane, Washington

Honolulu, Hawaii

Houston, Texas

(More after the jump.)

We spent a lot of time in the car or on an airplane and sleeping on the go:

Powell Street, San Francisco, California

Winter Wonderland on the road to Bend, Oregon

We took our kids to some of our favorite places:

My Father's Place, McCall, Idaho

My Grandparents' Lake House in Donnelly, Idaho

We reunited with our best friends:

Brynn came back from Peru for a month before she moved to Santa Fe

Mallory, Jo, Cara and me in San Francisco

Me, Jo, Mallory and Cara at Crater Lake, Oregon

Me and my sisters reunited for Georgia's Sweet 16

Cara, Me, Kaycie and Mallory in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Mallory, Georgia, my mom, Cara, Me and Olivia in Portland for Olivia's first birthday and
the Hunger Games premier

Jumping on the bed with the girls and Steph. Steph was actually here in Portland the whole year,
but she more than deserves a shout out!

My mom got married and we got a whole new side of the family in August

My brother and sisters: Chad, Candace, Jaci and Georgia in their best duds for the wedding

Whenever the girls were reunited with their friend Addie (Mallory's niece) it was a good time

Our sister-in-law, Annette, came up from North Carolina for the wedding of Steve's brother, Kevin

Crazy Fillers reunited for Jaci and Georgia's birthday

We crossed some things off our bucket list:

Crater Lake, Oregon

Wizard's Island, Crater Lake, Oregon

Mariah Carey hair in the subway courtesy of BART

We explored our wonderful backyard:

 

We bought a house in our favorite neighborhood:

We took our oldest daughter to her first day of preschool:

We saw a lot of beautiful architecture:

Disneyland Casttle

Old Capitol Building, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Ghirardelli Square Clock Tower, San Francisco, California

United Nations Building, San Francisco, California

Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, California

Capitol Building, Austin, Texas

We hung out on a lot of beaches:

Newport, Oregon

Waikiki, Honolulu, Hawaii

Lake Travis, outside of Austin, Texas

Blue Lake, Portland, Oregon

Pacific Coast, La Jolla, California

And ate some pretty unforgettable meals:

Pizza and ice cream on Diamond Lake, Oregon with Mallory and Cara

Cinnamon Rolls and Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate for our first meal in our new house

Peppermint bark milkshake on the beach in Hawaii

Wood Fire Pizza from our favorite little spot in North Portland

Tea Party at Minnie's House in Disneyland with Grandma

Crepes from the Aroma Cafe, La Jolla, California

Cake for Breakfast with Mallory, Steph and Jo

Best Bite of 2012: Carmelba Crepe from Crepes of Brittany, Monterrey Bay, California

We kissed a lot of smoochy faces:

and had some fun birthday parties

 And read a lot of books:

And hung out in baskets (because that's a cool place to be):

And spent a lot of time snuggled in blankies:

Basically, it was the best year ever.
I don't think I could pick a favorite moment if I had to. There were just so many good ones.
We laughed a lot and spent a lot of time with good friends. We took our daughters to McCall, Idaho, the place where many of my favorite childhood memories were made. We bought our first house. We ate a lot of good food and found out 2013 will bring us a baby boy! (That may be why there is a whole section of pictures dedicated to good food. I've been in hot pursuit as of late.)
 
I crossed some things off my bucket list, like going to see Crater Lake, and getting Mariah Carey hair courtesy of the underground BART tunnel in San Francisco. I'm hoping next year we'll get to have even more adventures.

But even the times we are home are pretty wonderful. I love spending time with my little family in our new home. We have a quite a lot of fun.

How was your 2012? What are you looking forward to most in 2013?