2016 Highlights

2016 was an interesting year... it had a great deal of crappy, difficult and heartbreaking moments but we made it through and all I can hope is that 2017 hands out a better set of cards. Having said that, it's important to focus on the positives and the happy moments and fortunately there were a few of those too! Here are my highlights from 2016...

  • University- One of the biggest changes in my life this year was starting university, moving away from home and taking on that adventure. It definitely didn't have the easiest of starts but by the end of my first term, I was really enjoying it and had a much better overall experience. You can see the change in my feelings/attitudes towards uni in my blog post from week one compared to my post and my video reflecting on the first term. Some particular highlights from uni would be decorating the room, which was fun to do and I think, looks really nice, meeting Cally and Kim, spending time with my flatmates both in and out of the flat, especially around Christmas and learning new skills to hopefully help with a career in journalism!
  • Learning to snowboard- Linking to university, I also had the opportunity to learn to snowboard and I loved it. It was the activity at the top of my bucket list and although I don't think I'm good at it, I think with time, I will get there and I now know the basics to keep practising in order to improve! 
  • Spending time with grandma- If you aren't already aware, we lost my grandma in August this year, which was obviously a sad and difficult time but prior to that, I enjoyed spending a lot of time with her. For a lot of this year, I'd see her most days of the week whether for a brief sitting or a day's outing. One day I particularly enjoyed was our trip to Coventry to show her around the city I'd be staying in. We had a lovely day and I'm really glad she got to see it as she obviously hasn't been able to since I moved. In addition, I feel like I saw the family more this year, which is a silver lining, and myself, mum and Jenni have done quite a lot together in particular, which has been really lovely!
  • Mallorca- In April, I had a lovely week in Mallorca with my best friend and her family. There were several funny, memorable moments but overall, it was a lovely relaxing week.
  • 5 Seconds of Summer- Seeing 5SOS with Jess was a lot of fun and as expected, they put on a great show. I always love seeing them perform live as it seems more raw and laidback in production, focusing purely on the music!
  • Runa visiting- Another lovely week, was when Runa came to stay with me and got to experience university life before celebrating my birthday!
  • Kinder Scout- Climbing Kinder Scout was an interesting experience! I have a fear of open air heights so climbing the mountain was a big challenge for me, not to mention the difficulty of it in terms of fitness. There were moments of pure fear and worry but all in all, I had a lovely day and some great company. I'm proud of what we managed to accomplish and look forward to setting more challenges to complete next year.
  • Blog hitting 40,000 reads (not long after hitting 30,000)- I set an end of year goal to reach 40,000 reads and managed to get that before Christmas, which is incredible. I know it may not seem that many to some people but to me, it's insane, so thank you so much to everyone who reads my blog! 
  • Boutique of Molly- I've really enjoyed buying and reviewing BOM products this year, it's always fun picking something out and then creating the photos, so I'm sure you'll be seeing more reviews in 2017!
  • Severina- This year, I formed a great friendship with Sev, she's so lovely and supportive and I always love talking to her. It's also great to see her having such a positive uni experience, which I hope continues as she deserves the best.

  • Sidmouth- Sidmouth was an emotional trip, full of highs and lows but it was amazing to spend such a significant moment with the majority of the family. I only recently uploaded a post on this trip, so if you're interested in reading more about that, you can do so here.
  • Christmas- Once again, I had a lovely Christmas, very family orientated. I always love having a busy Christmas day with the family and this year was no different, we had a lot of fun and laughs and although it was missing someone, it was a lovely celebration.  
I'm sure there were other notable moments in 2016 but these are the ones that spring to mind. I hope you had a good year and are looking forward to a fresh start in 2017. I have my 2017 goals coming at the weekend, so make sure you come back to have a read of them. Let me know what your highlight of 2016 has been. Thank you for reading this post, if you enjoyed it and want to see more from me, you can follow my social media links in the top right-hand corner to see when I next upload.

Love, Steph x

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