Have you heard the news? Here’s what I’m most looking forward to this year…

Some things to look forward to in 2015

Good morning friends!

I hope y’all had THE MOST wonderful holidays with your family! Ours was fantastic despite the craziness! You see, in addition to the already busy holiday season, the Mercer family has been planning and plotting some BIG changes and now that things are official, I’m SO over-the-moon excited to FINALLY share that we’ve moved back to our hometown in Northern Alberta, crazy cold temperatures and all! Hubs and I were both born and raised in this little town and both of our families have been begging us to return home since the day we left and so, after much soul searching, we decided that it was time for our adventure in BC to end and head on home. On top of selling our home (and boy was that an emotional roller-coaster!), securing employment, house hunting from afar and of course moving – we ended up with the worst flu EVER smack dab in the middle of it all! Now that we’re all feeling relatively human again, I’ve got more than a bit of catching up to do, including letting y’all in on the big news … F-I-N-A-L-L-Y!!!

So, with as fresh a start as they come, here’s what I’m most looking forward to through 2015:

one. Sharing those everyday moments with our families! We’ve spent the last five years living 12+ hours away from the people we love most in the world and, though it’s been an adventure we wouldn’t change for the world, we’ve missed our friends and family back home immensely! This has been especially true since the arrival of our son and then we hit our breaking point with the birth of our beautiful niece. It’s amazing how kids really do change EVERYTHING! It means SO much to us that Carson and his cousin, Miss A, will grow up just down the street from each other!!!

two. Making over our first not-brand-spankin’-new home! Brady and I have always (and I mean through our entire lives) lived in brand new houses – you know, the type that are just so easy to move into and live in without much work at all. New and easy has been great and they’ve all treated us very well, but after all of our DIY adventures through 2014, we’ve decided to try something a bit different this time around … we’re heading back to the ’70’s and couldn’t be more excited about it! Though we toured a ton of new builds here in our little home town, we just couldn’t find something that we loved (we’ve been so spoiled living in the mountains!). We looked at some lovely houses, but nothing was really to our taste and how could we possibly justify changing brand new, you know? We were SO lucky to find the PERFECT home on a big old lot and I cannot wait to share it with y’all soon!!!

three. Hitting the gym and getting back into running. Without any family around to help us out with our busy little guy, Brady and I have had such a hard time keeping up with our hobbies. Here in AB, with Grannies that are just begging for some babysitting time, there’s no doubt that we’ll be able to carve out more time for ourselves and each other!

four. Setting up a craft room! With 5 bedrooms upstairs, I’ve finally got some extra space to create the crafting room of my dreams!!! I’ve been pinning away a ton of inspiration to my Dreamy Craft Room board on Pinterest and, though I’ve got absolutely no idea about how I’d like to set things up yet, I’ve had zillions of fab ideas spinning through my head for weeks now! This may just be one of my very first projects of 2015!

five. I’ll finally be able to teach again!!! This is a big one my friends! I’ve wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember and I’ve missed it SO very much since moving to BC (aka. the land of no teaching jobs). Though I’m not sure I’m ready to leave my little man at day care and head back to work full time, I’m incredibly excited about the possibility of finding my way back in the classroom, even if it’s just subbing a few days a week for a while.

six. Traveling the world. We’ve got more than a few trips planned already for 2015 including heading back down to Mexico to stay with Brady’s Dad who is lucky enough to call Guyabitos home (you can read more about our Mexican adventures here)! We’re also looking forward to skiing some of the hills we grew up on in some of the most breathtaking towns in all of Canada – Banff and Jasper! And of course, we’ll be heading to our fave mountain biking destinations this summer for a ton of biking!!! What’s really great is that we’ll have some babysitters for our trips now, which means Mommy and Daddy will actually be able to enjoy some of our favorite things to do together once again!

Really, this list could go on and on forever I’m sure, but the most important thing is that our little family will be surrounded by the people we love most in the world once again! We’ve really got SO much to look forward to! Just 6 days in and 2015 has already brought SUCH BIG changes for us – talk about a fresh start to the New Year! I couldn’t possibly think of a better way to kick things off!!!

Here’s hoping that 2015 brings with it enormous possibility for us all and great memories to be made! Wishing you and your family nothing but the best this year my friends!