A Look Back at 2017

Happy New Year everyone!

We have crossed out the last day on our 2017 calendar.  Like many of you, we celebrated the new year with close friends, good food, and plenty of cheer to go around.  As we sit here waiting to watch the ball descend on Time Square, I can’t help but look back on the events that made up 2017.

What a crazy year it has been.  Donald Trump was inaugurated to become our 45th president.  Britain’s exit from the European Union.  World leaders being ousted from their political thrones.  Along with many other political events.  The many sexual misconduct accusation against several high profile actors and producers. And we can’t forget the many natural disaster that have occurred.  Hurricane Harvey, Irma, and Maria devastating Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, and the Southern U.S. and something that effected my family, the wild fires that plagued the Western U.S.  With tragedy comes triumph, as humanity put its best foot forward to help their fellow man and to the many woman that stood up to say that they would no longer be the victims.  As I said, what a crazy year it has been.

It has been bit more quite for us here at the Adventure Diaries.  Our year was full of small victories and big adventure.  Many of those things we have been happy to share with you.  I’ve found me a new job after looking for over a year and Erin has excelled at hers.  We didn’t have any major trips this year but we were able to explore more of Illinois outside of Chicagoland.  That doesn’t mean that we didn’t get out.  We were able to spend sometime with family out in Utah and California.

I would have to say that my favorite adventure that we had this year is when we went back to Utah for my sister-in-laws graduation.  It wasn’t anything fancy but we were able to spend a lot of time with our families.  The first part of the week was spent out in the Utah wilderness driving around in our side by sides.  If you have learned anything about me from this blog its that I love to be out in the woods.  Especially if we’re in our Jeeps or on atvs.  We haven’t really had time to find good places to camp in Illinois.  A few of our friends have recommended some places but with our limited free time it’s been hard to research and go.  Hopefully that will change with the new year.  The rest of the week was low key as we hung out with the family and visited old friends and our old haunts.  This shows that your adventures don’t have to extravagant to be worth wild.  Even the simplest adventure can have the biggest impact.

But if we want to talk about extravagant adventures we’ll talk about Erin’s favorite adventure.  Erin was lucky enough to be accepted into a training program through her work.  This training happened to be a world wide program and the first place they went......Sweden.  I will give Erin a chance to tell you what made this trip so special.

Going to Sweden has been a dream of mine since starting with IKEA over 6 years ago. It’s not just the birthplace of my favorite store but also a huge inspiration for design and style. My absolutely unforgettable highlights we’re going to IKEA in Almhult, visiting IKEA headquarters, going to the IKEA museum and staying at the IKEA Hotel. Meeting people from all over the world with the same level and passion for design and IKEA was simply divine. I often had to rub my eyes and think to myself this must be a dream! I soaked up every moment and took enough photos to always remember this once in a lifetime experience. Now to find a way to go back so I can add to my suitcase worth of a dhala horse collection! 

Like many of you, I have a resolution for this year.  Nothings too outlandish, even though I should make one to slim down a bit, but something simple.  Try to make 2018 better than 2017.  I know simple, that may not be as easy as I make it sound.  We had a lot of fun this past year.  We already have some exciting adventure on our calendar, which we have been planning for sometime.  Which I can’t really talk about right now.  No spoilers here, I don’t want to ruin any of the surprises.  We’ve also been trying to figure out what else to do this year.  There are so many thing that we would like to do but not enough time to do them.  Thats always the hardest part,  Whatever may come our way, we are excited to continue to share our adventure with you and hopefully inspire you to find your own.

Heres to a New Year and New Adventures!

Until next time. Thanks for stopping by.

Josh and Erin