Tonight we get to officially say ‘peace out!’ to 2016!

2016 has been incredibly weird on so many levels.  So many highs and so many lows made up the year. 

On a blog related note, 2016 was my first full year of blogging here at On The Creek!  I honestly can’t believe I stuck it out for the entire year.  Some weeks/months were more consistent than others but I managed to post something every month, which I’m incredibly proud of because I’m the biggest quitter ever!  I’m so excited to continue to write and grow my blog in 2017!

Before we begin 2017, I wanted to take some time to look back at some fun stuff that happened in 2016!

After 6 months of extensive renovations, our house was finally ready to move into!  Although it seems like a distant memory now, I try not to forget the endless nights and weekends we spent working on this house.  At best, it was a labor of love and at worst, it was an enormous time suck, but I’m so glad we took this route to home ownership.  It has definitely (literally!) opened so many doors for me that I always thought were going to stay daydreams.  We also couldn’t have done this without the enormous help from my parents who were right beside us throughout the renovation process.  In November, I finally shared an in depth look at our renovation and the hurdles we encountered by purchasing an extreme fixer upper. 

I originally started this blog to document our home renovation but I’m glad it turned into much more than that.  Over the summer, I tried my hand at some recipes like this watermelon sangria.  I also made a nonalcoholic version of it too!  In November, I ran a Thanksgiving drink recipe series and had a lot of fun developing and photographing my creations, like the 4 last minute holiday cocktails.  I also ventured into baking and made these snowball cookies.  I’m looking forward to developing my kitchen skills in the upcoming year.

The Habitat For Humanity ReStore was a huge part of my blog this year.  I have so much love for my local Habitat store!  I did 10 installments of ReStore Finds and purchased countless other items from the ReStore this year.  I love that I can always find unique items at the ReStore.  I can’t wait to visit the store in the new year!

Well, I guess that’s about it for my trip down memory lane!  See you in 2017!

-My posting schedule was a super light last week.  I had big plans to post my mom's famous pineapple upside down cake, but after 3 failed attempts, I pretty much scrapped that idea!  I think I'm cursed with the food style of "looks disgusting but tastes good". That's a terrible thing to have when I'm trying to blog about food!  I did find these mini pineapple upside down cakes, so I might try that idea with my mom’s recipe!

- I’ve been watching so many new TV shows this season.  I really need to make a list of my favorites.  There are just so many new shows this season!  I’ve also gotten back into The Walking Dead after not watching for a while.

- Can you believe Christmas is less than a week away?!  I’m always a super last minute shopper so it helps that our family Christmas party isn’t until Dec 31!  That gives me an extra week to figure out what I’m buying for our gift exchange!

-  I finally bought a light setup for my photography adventures and I also got this lens.  I haven’t had a chance to set up the lighting, but I did take a few pictures with the macro portion of the lens.  It’s always challenging for me to learn new photography stuff, but I’m having fun practicing!  So what if only 2 out of 100 pictures I take come out decent?!  I’ll get the hang of it eventually!

We finally got our second tree decorated!

The tree is from the Habitat For Humanity ReStore and the ornaments are from Home Depot.  We bought two sets of 100 each and they all don’t even fit on the tree!

Because we have zero tree decorating experience, we kept it simple this year with just the ornaments, tinsel and some beads.  We still need a tree topper.

Here’s a view of the tree at night:

- We had a snowstorm over the weekend, which caused my husband and I to go into hibernation mode.  We only left the house one time, which is a record for us!  We’re usually always on the go, so it was nice to relax at home for the weekend.

- During our snowcation, we finally decorated our tree!  I'll do a Christmas tour of our house later this week!

- I made a video for my Grandma's Punch recipe!  For  my first video, I thought it came out really cool!  It’s definitely more difficult than it looks to make these videos!

- We finally started watching This is Us last week and now we’re hooked!  We watched the first 10 episodes in like three days! It’s just sooo good!