Wow, what a year 2018 was and I honestly can’t believe we’ve already dived deep into January 2019! I have some big plans for this year and I couldn’t be more excited about them.  I decided to start of the year by hitting the ground running with my health goals by getting a breast reduction surgery. Obviously that has slowed me down a little this last week as I’m currently on lots of pain meds and bedrest while I’m healing so I’ve been a little slow in the social media and blog front, but I’ve got some really great projects planned for the upcoming year and I am stoked to get to share them with you all. Stay tuned!

I always love to reflect on the previous year when starting my new year goals. If you’re interested you can check out last year’s highlights from 2017 here. It’s funny, for some reason I had myself convinced that I’ve done one of these every year that I’ve blogged but I went back all the way to the beginning of my blog in 2014, and the only thing similar I could find besides last year’s post was our highlights from our trip at the end of 2014,

It was kind of interesting really to dive into all those old posts and see how far I’ve come. I can see all of the truly, truly terrible posts and photos I had as a newbie blogger, and then where I started to progress through the following years. And then there is this huge gap where you can tell I was completely uninvested in my blog. The posts were scarce and the few I did have were definitely not thought out… yikes. There is about a two year period there (late 2015 to mid-2017) where it’s pretty scary. Then you can see after Emilia was born where I started getting interested again and my blog kind of came back to life (for lack of a better term) Haha none of that really is relevant, I just thought it was interesting to see how the cycle of life I was in at the time was reflected in my blogging.

With that big, fat disclaimer, let’s get into my favorite highlights and memories of 2018!

If you’d like a highlight reel in terms of pictures and videos, make sure to check out my 2018 RECAP story highlight on instagram!

1- Visiting the Ice Castles

Visiting the ice castles last January was so much fun, even if I did fall 32,579 times and seriously scrape up my knee. I’ll have that pretty scar forever.

2- Rebranding my blog!

Last year in March I made the jump and finally rebranded my blog so that it finally feels a little more legitimate! Many of you know that I’ve been blogging for about 5 years now, but originally I started my blog as kind of a fun hobby and had no idea what I was doing. I rebranded when I got a little more serious, but as you just heard me talk about I still had some issues committing to my new blog and brand (remember that 2 year gap in blogging I mentioned at the beginning? Yep. Commitment probs.) I go WAY more into detail about my blogging journey and talk about how all of my rebranding happened in THIS post here, and I’m so excited to have Hey Sunny Jess be at the point where it’s at now.

3- Visiting Southern Utah

We took a little weekender road trip to St. George to visit some of my family and it turned out to be one of the funnest weekends we had together as a family. So fun and carefree!

4- Holi Festival of Colors

Almost every year we attend the Holi Festival of Colors and it’s always such a blast. You can find the post with all of our photos from last year here or watch our video here.

5- Learning how to dress.

Last year I met with the incredible women behind Personal Style and Colors and they completely changed my life by educating me on how to dress using styles and colors that work for me. Read more about that experience and find out what my style and colors are here.

6- I got to interview the incredible Sarah Tripp from Sassy Red Lipstick!

I was literally crying happy tears and screeching like a the biggest fangirl when I opened up an email from Sarah Tripp (THE Sarah Tripp!) from Sassy Red Lipstick saying she would interview with me for a blog post! Like… talk about life goals MADE. I was so excited to get to work with her to create a blog post talking about how Body Positivity has changed her life, and it’s been one of my favorite blog posts to work on to date. Read the whole thing here.

7- Visiting the Hall of Breakfast

I know that Utah has a lot of fun, cool things that are unique to do buuuuuuttt….. let’s get real. Not a lot happens here compared to big cities like New York or LA. The Hall of Breakfast was an interactive art museum that came for the summer and it was so much fun, we got some of my favorite photos from the whole year there. See them all here.

8- Working with some amazing brands!

Last year is really the first year I got to experience actually collaborating and working with brands because it’s the first year I have ever really considered my blog as more than just a hobby. Can I just say- HOW COOL is that??? I never thought I’d have some of the opportunities that I’ve had and I can’t wait to see where this year takes me. Last year was proof that you don’t need to have a million followers or lots of page views to get to work with companies you love and collaborate with some amazing people, it’s all about your attitude and being true to yourself! Just a few of these fun collaborations included working with Smile Brilliant, Basic Invite, Maskcara, Francie Pants,  Abbie Snape, Sarah Tripp,  High Style Life, and It’s All You Boo.

9- ALL THE FALL ACTIVITIES!!!

The caps and extra exclamation points were necessary. We had SO much fun this fall, just a few of the highlights were visiting the pumpkin patch, attending pumpkin nights, celebrating Dia de los Muertos, and taking our family photos.

I already cannot WAIT for next fall, it’s my favorite season and I’m already scouting out fun activities to fill up our autumn this year. Yes, really. What else do I have to do during recovery when I can’t move my arms other than to look at my phone (while keeping my arm straight at my lap haha) ?

10- Orlando Vacation

This is by far my absolute favorite highlight from the year. In November my new job sent me to Orlando for a conference and we got to spend a few extra days playing in Disney World and Universal Studios. Just Tony and I went, literally our first trip together alone since our honeymoon. It was SO. MUCH. FUN. I did some Disney and Harry Potter blogs, but mostly we just vlogged our trip- you can find the vlogs for Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Universal Studios (Harry Potter world!) on Tony’s channel. (If you’re not subscribed, go subscribe!)

Thanks for following along and supporting for such a great year babes, your love means everything and I can’t WAIT to see what 2019 brings us! Happy New Year!

XXOO Sunny