First, I have to start with our "good things" jar. We decided this year to start a good things jar so we could have something fun to read at the beginning of the new year. We read all the entries in our jar this morning and really had fun doing so. I'll share some of our favorites as we go.
We also decided to keep a jar with all of the movies we saw this year in it so we could have a top ten at the end of the year. Brace yourselves.. we saw 79 movies this year! It's safe to say we really enjoy going to the movies. Here's our top ten:
**Disclaimer** These are all movies we rated either 4 out of 5 stars or higher, and they were all so closely rated it was difficult to put in any sort of order!
10 - Avengers - Age of Ultron
9 - Creed
8 - Mr. Holmes
7 - Bridge of Spies
6 - The Imitation Game
5 - Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
4 - The Martian
3 - Love and Mercy
2 - Red Army (documentary)
1 - Dior and I (documentary)
And a few honorable mentions..
- Top Gun (throwback day at the theater)
- Man From UNCLE
- Selma
- Woman in Gold
Ok, so here we go with the year in review.
January
From the good things jar: "Jan. 1 Breakfast in bed, "Imitation Game", Massages, Happy New Year!"
For the past few years, we've been getting massages on New Year's Day. So 2015 was no exception. We also knew at the beginning of the year that we wanted to buy a house before 2015 was over, so we did a little house hunting in Arizona. We had fun setting goals and making plans, and of course, January is the perfect time of year in Arizona.
Super relaxed after massages
February
From the good things jar: "Feb. 7 Went to Best of Broadway with the Phoenix Symphony. Thanks to mom."
February was full of a lot of fun things, one of which was our Valentine's Day dinner that I wrote about here. The weather was perfect, we had a visit from my mom towards the end of the month, and we took advantage of all the good things that came our way.
Valentine's Day
Superbowl
March
From the good things jar: "Mar. 14 We spent the day together at the outlet stores and treated ourselves to some new things and had AMAZING pizza for dinner. And... Harris was born today!"
There's a rather large outlet mall in Phoenix that we'd never been to, and we decided to take a portion of our tax return and just spend it on some fun things for ourselves. We also went to Sedona for Jake's birthday which I wrote about here. Jake's parents came down to visit at the end of the month as well, and we had fun with them. Oh, and about that pizza, it's the Baked Ziti pizza from Sal's Gilbert Pizza, and it will change your life....
Surprise trip to Sedona for Jake's birthday
Life changing pizza
April
Unfortunately, we didn't write something down in the good things jar for this month. However, for the past 3 years, April has been one of our most favorite months in Arizona, because of the Culinary Arts Festival in Scottsdale. We look forward to it for the good food and warmer weather (usually mid to high 80s). We finally figured it out this year too; buy one sample at each vendor and share it so we can eat more delicious things! This is definitely something we'll miss.
Enjoying the food festival
May
From the good things jar: "May 30 We went to yoga then out to breakfast and relaxed. A perfect Saturday."
I can't remember when we started going to a yoga class at our gym on Saturday mornings, but it was really something we loved this year. May was also my birthday month, and Jake's younger brother Aaron came to spend some time with us. I wrote about those escapades here.
Having the famous baked ziti pizza for my birthday dinner
June
June was also missed in the good things jar, but we visited Utah to be a part of our nephew Harris's blessing. We also had a few really cool dust storms, and did some cartwheels in Jake's office (can you tell we were just looking through our phones to try and figure out what we did in June??).
Driving to Utah
Dust storms do cool things to the sunsets
July
From the good things jar: "July 4 We spent the day relaxing and window shopping and ended it at a baseball game with fireworks."
"July 20 Jake was offered a promotion in Utah! We celebrated at P.F. Changs."
I had to share two things from July because it ended up being a pretty big month for us. We went to our first MLB game, and luckily we were indoors in 70 something degree temperatures for the game and fireworks. I also wrote about our surprise job offer here, and we went to Colorado for a our nephew Lukas's birthday.
Watching the baseball game
August
From the good things jar: "Aug. 8 We bought a house! :)"
"Aug. 19 We went to a movie and enjoyed the warm air outside when we left. We agree we love Arizona."
August was an emotionally conflicting month for us. We were excited to have bought our first house, something we hoped would happen at the beginning of the year, but we were also really sad to be leaving Arizona. We'd grown to love the warm temperatures and the dust storms and the sunsets...
First picture of our new home
After a rain/dust storm from our balcony
One of our most favorite sunsets
September
From the good things jar: "Sept. 28 Moved into our new home in Bluffdale."
September is really a big blur to me when I look back now. We had our little apartment packed up, lived in a hotel for a couple days, then at my mom's house for a couple days, and a hotel for a few more days, and then finally moved in to our new home. It was exciting, and sad, and fun, and confusing (we kept thinking we were going back "home" soon).
The day we moved, this is how Utah welcomed us back (can you tell we really like sunsets?)
October
October was skipped in the good things jar, but we spent our 3 year anniversary in Park City (wrote about that here) and we also went to Michigan to see some good friends (mentioned here). We started adjusting to our new Utah life, and were slowly putting our home together, which was really fun for us. October has always been my favorite month, and I was really happy to see the beautiful changing leaves again.
November
November was also skipped in the good things jar (here's a spoiler: so was December). We spent Thanksgiving in Colorado at my brother's house, I had a 2 and a half week cold that was really no fun, and we caught up with some friends and family we hadn't seen in quite a while. There was much to be thankful for this year.
This is the pie we made for Thanksgiving. I didn't take any other pictures while we were there apparently!
December
December was fun because it snowed for the first time, and we ended up with quite the pile in the backyard! We had our first white Christmas in 3 years and enjoyed spending the morning in our new home together, and seeing our family in the afternoon. We ended up having 4 days off of work to spend with each other and started some new traditions.
2015 was a great year for us and brought us many good things. We're happy to be in Utah and close to our family, but we still miss Arizona. We're looking forward to the spring so we can thaw out and see the sun again! We are excited for what 2016 may bring us, and hope you all have a prosperous year!
