I had such high hopes for 2017. All ended well but it wasn’t the easiest of years for us.

Buying and selling properties, husband starting a brand new career and moving areas with children who don’t want to leave their friends behind were all incredibly stressful life events. Add in that the first new house fell through so husband had to live with my parents (2 hours away) for 5 months, whilst working incredibly long hours, had no weekends off and we had to find a new family home together, meant it almost broke us. Thankfully just when we thought we had hit rock bottom, we found another house and it all went through smoothly this time. Finding a school for all three girls was another stress but all ended well there too. The girls have settled really well into their new one and have all made some lovely friends.

One thing we weren’t prepared for was the lack of weekends off for husband during this year. Having pretty much had weekends off for as long as we can remember that was a huge thing for us. We had plans to get away somewhere once a month but this just couldn’t happen. We started off happily going to Brighton in January

Then it was Chessington World of Adventures in February.

March we had no family time so my sister and I did our usual Kew Gardensis , trips but in April we headed off to Portugal for the most amazing family holiday together. Just what we needed to forget our stresses and recharge together.

Between May and September, we didn’t get a single weekend together which was tough on us all. Over the Summer we did lots of days out exploring Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds. I didn’t actually get around to writing about them all but I did write this post about 10 things we did this summer.

One of my favorites days out was to Borton-on-the-water. I have so many photos of the most amazing day out but I never blogged about it. I will have to do that soon.

In September we went to Go Ape in the Forest of Dean.

Then in October, and November, my husband finally started to get weekends off and we appreciated them so much more. Moving home and with Christmas fast approaching, we didn’t actually get away but we did have some great days out together just exploring our local area. One trip I will always remember is Stow-On-The-Wold, a gorgeous Cotswolds village.

In December we went to Nottingham Forest and enjoyed seeing our family and friends. There were even a few snow days!

In between, there were plenty of our usual National Trust days out and trips to the park.

This year, now he’s almost done a whole year in his new job, husband has much more control over his holiday dates. Therefore,  we have already booked his time off to coincide with the school holidays. He will also be getting plenty of weekends off too. Plenty of opportunities to get in some family adventures and holidays.

I have decided not to try and set any unrealistic goals this year but we are hoping to travel quite a bit.  We just want to enjoy spending lots of quality time together, settle into and finish making our new house our home and make some lovely memories with our girls. You will have to watch this space and see what we get up to.

Happy New Year everyone

Karen x