My friend Darcie of Such The Spot challenged me to do this, so here it goes:

1. I found an exercise that I loved, causing me to exercise several times a week.  Finding kettlebells and working out consistently allowed me to get into the best shape of my life.  I’m finally getting my husband on board too!

2. I had fun blogging.  Towards the end of the year, I started participating in several link-ups, Wore I Wore Wednesday and Monday Mingle, that I really enjoyed.  I love writing about fashion and beauty so this was fun and natural for me.

3. I took my daughter to Disneyland, just the two of us.   Since my son was the first born, we have had many outings together, but I think this was the first time my daughter and I did an activity so grand together.  My family goes to Disney often, but as a group the activities skew towards big kid/adult and my daughter keeps up.  At Disneyland I let her set the pace and did whatever she wanted to do.  That meant no roller coasters, but standing in line to meet the fairies in Pixie Hollow.   I loved seeing Disney through her 9 year girly eyes.  We had a fantastic day together and her “thank you Mommy” and big hug at the end of the day was priceless.

4. We took my son to a broadway show.  We went to NYC in October to celebrate my daughter’s 10th birthday and my son’s 16 1/2th (his birthday was back in April).  Our gift to him in April was a broadway show in NYC, since he loves musical theatre. We go to musicals and plays all the time in Atlanta, but there’s something about seeing a production in NYC on broadway–it’s magical.  We used to take him to broadway all the time when he was younger, when we used to live in New Jersey, but they were family musicals like The Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan.  This was his first big production, adult broadway musical.  We saw Follies and the look on his face during the musical was pure joy.   That experience was better than any tangible gift we could have given him.

5.  I recorded less and stayed in the moment more.   While I do enjoy sharing my experiences on my blog, sometimes it best to enjoy the moment and be fully present–not thinking about how this would make a good blog post or even how a photo of this moment would look great in the family scrapbook.  During our holiday trip to NYC a few weeks ago, I was trying to take photos of the beautiful holiday window displays on 5th Avenue, but it was difficult because of the reflection.  My daughter said, “Mommy, you can’t get a good photo, so just enjoy the window now.”  She was so right.  I put down my camera and fully enjoyed the windows while I was looking at them.  I may not remember them exactly years from now, but I will never forget that “Christmas in NYC” day with my children.

6.  I traveled often with my family.  We went to Disney World, Club Med Sandpiper, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, London, Paris (twice!), and New York City (twice).   It was the first time that we have traveled to Europe as a family and I was thrilled to show my kids the adventure of traveling internationally.  I think they are hooked and are already talking about our next international trip.

7.  I fell in love with Paris.  I’ve always wanted to go to Paris, but somehow during my European travels as a college student I made it to (southern) France, but missed Paris.   We spent a week in Paris as a family in July and I went again with my husband in December.  Both times I was in heaven.  Isn’t it great when you finally get to experience a place that you’ve been longing to visit and it exceeds your expectations?   I know that some people don’t care for Paris, but for me it was love at first sight (and frankly I just don’t get those people).

8.  I surrendered to motherhood.  This seems silly right?  I’ve been a mother now for over 16 years, so I should have done this long ago.  Well, I did the moment my son was born….and I must continue to surrender all the time.  It’s an on-going process.  Somehow I thought this motherhood thing would get easy with time, when it fact it doesn’t; it just changes.   But as challenging as it is (and it really is right now), I wouldn’t change a thing.   Raising my kids is absolutely without doubt the greatest thing that I have ever had the privilege of doing.

9.  I started taking French lessons.  See, Paris had a huge effect on me!  I plan to go back often, so I figure I should know how to speak the language.

10.  My husband and I celebrated 18 years of marriage.  It’s not a milestone number like 25 years, but 18 seemed like a big deal to us.  It’s a long time!  We woke up that morning and felt the bigness of the number and took the family to an impromptu big, fancy celebration brunch.  It was a really good day.  My husband was even inspired to write a blog post about marriage.

Why was 2011 a good year for you?

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3. Snowmageddon 2011
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