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Looking Back and Looking Foward-->>2018


2018. You were a good year. You were full of what most years consist of: change, tears, laughter, unknowns, joyous realizations, blessings, surprises, hugs, hellos, and goodbyes. I will look back on you as the year I found out more of who God made me. I realized more of what I am capable of with the strength, joy, and power of the Holy Spirit in me. I found a new wave of love and generosity in me. I also found out how impatient, anxious, suspicious, and greedy I can be.

But I'm looking forward. I'm looking forward to a year where I learn more of God's patience, peace, embrace, and benevolence. I'm ready for a restoration of the parts of me that are hard to get rid of.

Even though I'm ready to embrace a new year, I'm also a sentimental person who enjoys looking back on all that happened in the past year. So, I thought I'd share some of those experiences and memories with you all.

Travel

Our first adventure of the year was going to a retreat in Michigan for international students (primarily missionary kids). It was fun to meet with some of Andrew's friends from the international organization at IWU, but also to meet people at the retreat that he had met in previous years. They were all so kind and welcoming!

Our friend, Audrey, was there too! We all unintentionally wore the same color.

For our Chorale tour this year, we traveled along the east coast. We got to visit Washington DC and got a tour of the White House!

And the History of the Bible Museum.

And had dinner with my Uncle, Aunt and two cousins! They only lived a half hour from where we were staying one evening, so we had to get together! It was a wonderful dinner. (I, unfortunately, do not have a photo to share).

Oh, we also met the sweetest cat at one of our host homes. His name is Sherlock.

In May, we traveled to Arkansas for a friend's wedding. We stayed with family, which was super great and got to hang out with some of Andrew's high school friends!

We also went to New York for my cousin's wedding in May and got to spend some time with my grandparents.

In July, I went with my family to New York for my other cousin's wedding! So fun! Unfortunately, Andrew couldn't make it on this trip because of work.

In August, Andrew and I went to Ohio for one of my friend's weddings and got to spend our one year anniversary at Cedar Point!

We also went up to Michigan and got this cutie.

In August we also got some pretty epic anniversary photos done by our wedding photographer. We went to southern Indiana on a rainy day and got some beautiful photos.

In October, we flew to Seattle, WA for a friend's wedding. It was SO gorgeous! All the leaves were just spectacular.

And the people more spectacular.

The city was also pretty great.

We also went to Portland, OR and met up with Andrew's parents. While in Oregon, we found a beautiful nature reserve and walked around for a while before heading down to California.

While in California, we visited with Andrew's parents and grandparents. His parents live in the northern part of California and his grandparents in the southern part and it was fun to see both areas of the state.

In November, we visited my aunt her family in southern IL to celebrate Thanksgiving. My dad's cousin and his family came and visited, too! My dad, Andrew, and me did a Turkey trot on Thanksgiving morning.

Then we ate some good food.

After Thanksgiving, we went to Ohio to visit some of Andrew's friends from high school (who are now my friends, too). We got to go to a castle that was HANDMADE by a guy who love medieval castles. It was amazing.

And we also got to an art museum!

I didn't take any photos of the art, but I had to take a picture of the pretty Christmas lights!

Fun Stuff

I like to call this segment: "random fun stuff that happened this year that I want to lump together because they don't belong in the travel or food sections of this blog post"--enjoy.

I took a biology class this year and took lots of photos of the random stuff we looked at under the microscope. It's just too neat not to!!

Becky, Andrew, and I named this avocado Beatrice.

Celebrated Easter with this lovely crew.

Took some selfies with my cat.

Last Chorale concert.

Andrew got an award for being awesome.

Lots of walks with this man.

GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE!!!

Moved out of our school apartment into a new one near my parents'!

Got another car! Andrew's dream car, too!

I started working at a Flower Farm. (:

Went pontooning with friends. (Ignore my albino feet)

First IWU football game!

Found this stinking HUGE spider in the sink at work. BLEHHHHHHH

Made a fall inspired bouquet.

Celebrated my birthday with the besties.

Visited a cat cafe!!

Andrew helped Katie and I carve our pumpkin. It's too cute.

Won a free photoshoot on Instagram! Literally the best thing I've ever won.

We started a game night (we play board/card games) with this crew (some are missing from this picture) back in August. We had a Christmas themed game night and it was too fun!

Went on a winter's night walk to look at lights.

Celebrated Christmas with the family! Andrew got to experience a "Johnson Christmas" which means getting up at 5:30am and opening presents until 10am. haha

Food

I'll introduce this section as: "some of the best food I ate this year".

Homemade pizza

Homemade Bibimbap

Tofu, rice, broccoli and peanut sauce.

Lava cake for Valentine's Day

Tofu bibimbap at a restaurant in Virginia.

Glop made by my grandpa

Strawberry shortcake that we got at a festival.

Orange roasted chicken.

Falafel in New York.

Peanut butter cake with dark chocolate ganache.

Molten lava cake in Seattle.

Banana, peanut butter, and Nutella cupcake at my friend's wedding.

Lastly, here is a compilation of my favorite pictures that I captured of nature this year.

Gosh. God is good.


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