You ever just look down for a moment and suddenly a whole year has passed? Yeah. That’s where I’m at. When I wrote my goals for 2018, I had no clue how many challenges were on the horizon for the next 365 days.

This year was, for lack of a better word, busy. Flipping through my planner, which I excitedly adopted during my planning month, I can’t believe how many events and to-dos are checked off week after week. So here we go. This is what filled my pages in 2018:

January kicked off with another Harper-Gee family vacation in Keystone, Colorado. Even though the snow was at a record low for the time of year, we had an amazing time hitting the slopes and trails by day and playing games in our cozy cabin by night.

We leapt the pond in February to spend eight amazing days in London. Through the bitter cold, we saw all the major sites and even made time for afternoon tea. It was the best Christmas present I’ve ever gotten.

In March, I celebrated two years at my full-time job with a team outing to a VGK game and at my part-time job by wrangling kids at a gigantic Easter egg hunt. We were also spellbound as we watched Mark’s high school friend perform magic for Penn and Teller at a live taping for Fool Us.

If the first part of the year was the climb of the rollercoaster, April was the apex before the drop. We spent multiple nights in The Fortress watching our Golden Knights battle to the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season. The energy in the city throughout the playoffs was utterly electric. I also trudged through a dusty, difficult 13.1 on top of a mesa at the Zion Half Marathon and immediately got the flu 10 hours after crossing the finish line. In true patient zero form, it then rippled through our entire friend group. Seriously. Like eight of us got sick. I’m so sorry, guys. And if that wasn’t enough for one month, April was when we found out Mark would be heading to South Korea for more than a year….solo.

May came like a swift kick to the gut, as we said “seeya later” to all of our friends and coworkers, watched our stuff get nailed into crates, and drove from Las Vegas to Houston so the dogs and I could move in with my OG roommates (aka the parentals) while Mark went Gangnam Style.

Everything got real in June, when Mark and I went to Seattle together and only I flew back to Houston. Thankfully, my brother and sister-in-law were ready to show me all the fun things to do in my new state, like eating kolaches and floating the San Marcos River. I also got adopted by a new radio family and was officially back on-air.

With the overbearing heat of July, I spent all my free weekends in various breweries and wineries in the beautiful hill country surrounding Austin. There was a lot to cheers to as I accepted a new full-time job doing national advertising with Anthem.

August triggered a whole boatload of travel for the rest of the year, starting with a weeklong trip to Virginia to meet my new coworkers…and to see my bestie. I got back just in time to catch an Astros game with the roomies and help families still recovering from Hurricane Harvey with Rebuilding Together.

After years of trans-Pacific friendship, our crew was finally reunited again in September for NASHBASH 2018. When I got back, I dragged my roommates to Luke Bryan and they took me to my first NFL game. I kicked off training for my first marathon with the Badges & Bases 10K, crossing the finish line in the outfield of Minute Maid park.

Frequent flyer numbers were in heavy use by October, as the family made our way along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail for Grant’s 30th birthday and Mark and I said aloha in Hawaii for an unplanned reunion. Even though we both worked the entire week, we were beyond grateful to be together again, if only briefly.

November found me back “home,” as I reconnected with friends for a week before hitting a new PR at the Rock N Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon. When I got back to Texas, we cheered on our alma mater ISU as they took on (and unfortunately lost to) UT in Austin.

And finally in December, Santa gave me the best present for Christmas - two weeks with my WHOLE family in Thailand and South Korea.

This past year was far from what I expected at the start of January. There were many moments of looking for the silver lining and choosing to have a positive mindset about situations (a practice still being refined). This year wasn’t horrible or even bad, I am simply looking forward to the onward and upward of 2019.