Holidays 2014

As 2014 comes to an end, we again feel blessed and are thankful for this past year and are excited to welcome 2015!

We started the year with a big trip to China! We began by visiting Beijing and walked on the Great Wall of China, toured the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, and saw the Summer Palace. One of our favorite experiences was to have a local family prepares us lunch and we were able to visit with them in their home in a Hutong neighborhood while they told us about their life!

We continued onto Shanghai and were able to really explore this modern city and surrounding area. In Hangzhou, we took a boat ride in the West Lake before having some very fresh green tea at one of the tea fields. I celebrated my birthday in Suzhou!! We walked through the beautiful Classical Gardens and went out that night for Hot Pot and walked the waterfront after.
We really had a wonderful time and felt so fortunate to be able to take this trip and enlighten ourselves with Chinese culture.  

Mid year we had an opportunity to visit Alaska to see Alex and Erica get married. We stayed with the family in a big cabin with an amazing view of Mount Alyeska. We also headed to sea to search for whales and although we saw some, we were a little late to see them breach and play out of the water. We loved having so much daylight, since we went in July, it was light out until midnight! Great trip and congratulations again to Alex and Erica!

Besides our travel this year, we were able to get more snowboarding in (mostly Justin, 5 years later and I am still "learning" to snowboard!) and a few cool hikes to continue to explore our state of Colorado. Almost forgot, Justin took a guy's trip with his uncles, brother, and cousin to the Boundary Waters. They had a great time and I am glad Justin was able to get his camping fill.

Justin and I had many visitors to keep us busy the last few months and were blessed to have family over for Christmas this year. We are still living just right outside of downtown and loving the neighborhood. In October, I shifted career paths into the recruiting field. I have been looking into becoming a recruiter and very happy to have made that happen this year.

Those were our highlights for 2014 and now we look forward for next year. Here is to a wonderful 2015 to come!
Thank you to all those who are part of our lives and we miss you all! Wishing 2015 brings you love, peace, and happiness. Best wishes and happy holidays to all!

Lots of love,
Xoxo ~ The Wallens