Hey January,

You started with lots of puppy cuddles on a frigid day. We rang in the new year with my sister and her family, hopped in the car, and drove home, then decided we would hibernate for as long as possible since the temperature was in the negatives. I broke that plan a few hours later when I left to visit some friends for a couple of hours. But when you started I had my number one sidekick right by my side, and that ended up defining the month.

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There was a part of me that wanted to forgo waiting until the next month (to make sure I’d be able to share any moments captured on that last day) to post December in Photos and put this up back in December. I didn’t want any part of 2017 to seep into 2018. You may have noticed there was no letter to 2017 last year. I thought “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” was a little short for a blog post and that’s all I could think of to write. 2017 wasn’t my favorite year and I wanted to wipe my hands and be done with it as soon as midnight hit. But 2017 in itself wasn’t good or bad; it was a period of time. In that time, a lot happened. There were the not-so-pleasant people and places that I’m happy to walk away from. I’d say that was one of the highlights of the year: walking away from the people and places that weren’t good for me and were holding me back.

During a devotion last week I had to do something that I was avoiding doing: I had to reflect on 2017. It was a year I entered feeling extremely burned out and left still feeling burned out, but less so. And in the midst of those negative people and those negative places was so much good. Listening to my niece play the piano, watching my nephew play hockey, the endless laughs that Little One brings, trips to my home state, so much time spent with horses this summer, Taz’s tiny little horse-tail swishing back and forth, cleaning horse stalls (yep, I’m including shoveling horse 💩 in the good moments), days spent on the Amazon River with a fisherman who knows the land like the back of his hand, seeing so many pink dolphins he said we must be drawing them to the boat, a visit to the largest tulip festival in the world with my mom, another shared birthday/mother’s day, walking a horse around the grassy area at a truck stop, a beautiful sunrise in Nebraska, a rainy drive through Rocky Mountain National Park, feeling creatively inspired again, getting lost in a good book for the first time in forever, my oldest nephew’s wedding, a lot of hard work–but work I find satisfying, starting a business, the opportunity to see a lot of amazing plays, and I’m sure there are things I’m leaving off this list. So, I guess my letter to 2017 could read, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, but thanks for all the amazing moments that carried me through.”

And all of those moments are captured in these posts. So let’s dive into the last “in photos” of 2017.

(Note – Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase using one of these links I’ll make a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting Dreams, etc.!)

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