Oh what a year it has been, there have been so many good things happening, it is hard to remember and recognize them all. I love to review my pics on my phone to remember where we were and what we were doing. I did that last night…when the house was quiet and all I could hear was the soft breathing of the one I love. Yep, Gertie was in the corner…we are housesitting this week in Costa Rica which translates to dog sitting and THAT is a blast.

We’ve covered a lot of ground, we’ve seen a lot of people and we have participated in some very cool things. This was a year for new events for us. We went to the JP Magazine Jeep-n-Drive; Trail Hero and the Rebelle Rally – all new events in 2016. We went to National Parks all over the US and I became a Junior Ranger over and over again. We attended a number of weddings that saw people join together for the future of all of us. We went deep sea fishing with friends, we got to go to Costa Rica – twice.

On the home front, we kept moving forward, kept moving our kids forward. We loved on our grandkids more than usual this year and that was awesome. We invested time and effort into our future retirement. We went to museums and made offshoot road trips to see people that mattered to us. There will be more of that this next year. We sent gifts and cards when we were thinking of someone, we tried to bring some joy in to others lives, whether on the track or off. We said “yes” when opportunities arose, I’m actively looking for more things to say yes to.

This is not about how cool our life is, it is about the choices we make. The choice to see the good, to spend the extra minutes to embrace the sunset or sunrise, the flowers, the abandoned sights, the beauty. The friends and experiences. On any given day, hell, on every given day, we work, we work to promote our living, our life, and our lifestyle. On any given day, we make that choice to see the good and the beautiful, to make someone smile, to make ourselves smile. It isn’t always easy, but it is always worth it.

Join me in 2017 doing the same. Start with counting the wins, ignore the losses, just count the wins. Then look at how to repeat them. My biggest wins come when someone says thank you – it means I did something right.