Reflecting on 2017

You may have seen the post we did talking about what we’re thankful for back around Thanksgiving. We loved writing this type of reflection and gratitude based post. We don’t do a lot of lengthy post on this blog since we like that’s it’s a place of lightheartedness and joy. But as 2017 comes to an end we wanted to reflect on some highs of the past year. Of course, there were some lows too, which are just more personal, so we’ll leave those to discuss amongst ourselves.

Britta | Highs of 2017…

• We contributed to one of our favorite blogs, A Beautiful Mess. It was truly a dream come true to work for women we have admired for so long. We actually started our lifestyle blog after seeing that Elsie and Emma (also sisters) found success with it. So many people told us to find a niche but that’s just not us!
• We adopted the craziest pup ever, Luna. She has brought so much love into my life and has taught me to practice patience. She’s the light of my life!
• Back in April we invested in the Sigma 35mm lens and it has vastly changed our photography for the better.
• Speaking of expensive electronics, we both purchased new MacBook Pros this year. It was definitely time for an upgrade and has definitely helped us become more efficient.
• This summer we went back to Wisconsin for our friend Jenny’s bachelorette party. We stayed at the Stone Harbor Resort in Door County, went wine tasting and all around had the best time ever. It’s always amazing to see our best friends and celebrate an upcoming marriage!
• We started our own business, cb social, after a few beauty brands had asked us to take photos for their social media accounts. It’s been a learning process but also a very exciting one!
• Carli and I were invited to be a part of the Who What Wear Influencer Network (INF). We love Who What Wear and admire many of the influencers they work with. So it was amazing to be recognized among them!
• We started contributing to Dani Barbe’s blog. Dani is an amazing jewelry designer and all around great person. She reached out to us to contribute to her blog and we immediately jumped at the chance. We adore working with successful women entrepreneurs. Peep her gorgeous jewels on her Instagram.
• We moved to a house. FINALLY! We don’t mention it often but Carli and I live with our boyfriends. The four of us live really well together and Carli and I just aren’t ready to part ways! LOL. We were living in a very modern apartment in Hollywood. It was beautiful but we needed more space. We found the most charming house in the Hollywood Hills and it’s been life-changing. Way more space and we actually have a neighborhood to walk Luna in!
• We were able to travel to New York City to see Anastasia. Without going on about this I’ll just say it was a dream come true and the highlight of the year as far as experiences go!
• I was also fortunate enough to go to Florida with my boyfriend and his lovely family. It was great to meet some new people and just relax and have a good time together!
• Speaking of trips, I went to Catalina for the first time back in May. It was a lovely weekend with the best people. What a magical island!
• We also got to see two of our best friends get married. Weddings are the best!

Carli | Highs of 2017…

• We turned 26 in January! I think birthdays should always be a high of the year, no matter how old you are.
• We contributed to A Beautiful Mess for awhile earlier in the year. It was truly a dream-come-true to write for a blog we have admired for so long. It was an amazing opportunity and definitely gave us a confidence boost in our blogging skills!
• Speaking of blog contributing, we also started contributing to Dani Barbe’s blog. Dani makes the most stunning jewelry and we absolutely love working with her to write posts on her blog. We will continue to contribute in 2018 – we have many fun posts to come!
• We adopted our pup, Luna, back in February. She is, in short – the coolest. She has so much sass and love to give, I can’t remember what life was like before her!
• We used our blogging funds to buy key tools we needed to up our blogging game this year, namely – new MacBooks and our Sigma 35mm lens that we use for 90% of our photos on the blog now (& to film our YouTube vids)!
• We took a trip home in June for one of our best friend’s bachelorette parties! Trips home are always a high of the year. Our trip in June was our only trip home all year and we took full advantage. We stayed for 6 days which is longer than most of our trips (we did lose a day after we got stuck in the Chicago airport – long story but definitely a low of the year). We got to spend quality time with our mom and of course, all our best friends at the party. It was one of our favorite trips to date!
• Every year I try to reflect on how we’ve grown this blog and one of the more excited brand-partnerships we did was with essence makeup. We did various posts in collaboration with them this year which was really fun since we have loved and used the brand for years!
• We started our first business, cb social. We fell in love with photography through blogging and now we work with brands to provide them with images for their social media accounts (mainly Instagram).
• We took a trip to Catalina to celebrate my boyfriend’s bday plus two of our other best friends. Some of my BFs family flew out from Michigan for the trip and we had such a blast!
• Our best friend Alyssa visited us for a weekend in June! We got to show her all our favorite spots (aka – where we like to go to Happy Hour) and spend quality time together just talking for hours on end!
• We moved into a house! Well, technically it’s a duplex (there’s a unit below ours). It is so different from apartment living and we couldn’t love it more. It’s an old home in the Hollywood Hills with so much character and the most gorgeous fireplace we’ve ever seen. We will do a home tour soon, promise!
• Probably my all-time high of the year was the NYC trip the 4 of us took (Britta, myself and both our boyfriends). We took the trip to see Anastasia on Broadway before it’s run was over (since it’s a new show, we didn’t know if it would be extended). The whole trip was amazing, but the show actually brought us to tears. It was that good!
• Since we did so much traveling this year, James and I decided to stay close for our 5-year anniversary. He surprised me by renting a room at the Hotel Indigo in downtown Los Angeles and we had such a fun time going to dinner, ice skating and basically closing down the lobby bar.
• This year we went to two beautiful weddings – both couples are our friends (s/o to Lexi + Joey and Micki + Todd!). It still surreal that our close friends are starting to get married – I’m going to FOUR friend’s weddings next year – how crazy is that?