Looking back at October, November, and December.
In December, my daughter had her dance performance! She did a version of The Nutcracker. She was a little mouse 🥰.
2025 is a wrap, looking forward to what 2026 has in store.
Looking back at July, August, and September.
My recap of 2025, covering April to June.
In June, I said goodbye to my role as Affiliation Council Head at the New York Junior League.
It’s about that time for me to recap my year!
In March, I was honored as an Outstanding Volunteer by the New York Junior League for all the volunteer work I’ve done for the past 10 years.
Here are the recipes I made from July to December from ‘The Calendar Kids’ series.
Overall, the book series was very cute and the recipes were a lot of fun.
Speaking of looking back, in November, we visited the Great Wolf Lodge in PA. It was a fun, quick getaway.
It’s absolutely frigid in New York today, the perfect time for me to look back on my trip (and warmth) to Disney World in October for my birthday.
It’s that time of year when I like to take an inventory of all the fun stuff I did. A few things I enjoyed were reading and cooking with my daughter. In ‘The Calendar Kids’ series, I got to do both. There are 12 books, one for each month, and each book focuses on one kid (named after the month) as they explore seasons, holidays, and memorable moments with friends and family. Each book has a cooking recipe that is tied to the story, and it’s been fun reading the book each month and trying all the recipes.
More to come in part two.
I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays. I’m currently curled up on the couch with my favorite people and reminiscing about the past year.
I picked up a new hobby this year, collecting pins. It all started during my birthday trip to Disney World (more on that next week).
I bought pins after riding Toy Story Mania in Hollywood Studios and Dinosaur at Animal Kingdom. I don’t know what compelled me to start buying them, but these stores had a great selection of pins, and I just picked the ones that spoke to me. I did not choose the Ursula pin, though. I actually hate her, but my husband and daughter decided it would be a hoot to buy it for me as a surprise.
I also randomly got three mystery pin boxes, Up, The Incredibles, and I picked up a Star Wars one in another shop. Little did I know that this would be the beginning of my pin journey.
I have since bought more mystery boxes (mostly Disney-related) and I’ve been enjoying opening them with my daughter. I’ll share more another time.
The Casual Explorer 