2016 Overview + Looking Back on Goals

Hello from the Philippines! I've been having such a great time here, hence the lack of posts (which I warned about haha) but at the same time I'm also getting new ideas for future posts, and potentially... videos? 

Anyway, 2016 was a huge year of transitions for me. I moved to Australia, I got married, and I've been pretty much adulting for the rest of the year after that hahaha. Although a good chunk of my life wasn't documented here as it happened, I was still pretty active on social media (ahem, Instagram), and don't worry, many things I've experienced this year can also be saved for separate posts next year ;)

With the blog, I took a purposeful hiatus this time. Last year it was accidental and this year, while it was initially unintentional, I decided that I can't apologize for living my life in the moment. HOWEVER, I have gotten back into writing more regularly and it's been good (despite me being on vacation & slacking here haha, but you understand). Instead of pressuring myself to get straight back into my old schedule when I'd write 3 times a week, I now just have one post up a week until I feel comfortable to get back into more frequent posting.  As I've done with previous years, let's look through my goals for this year: 

Blog Goals: 
[] Get back to at least 2 posts per week  [] Send out a biweekly newsletter [] Have Instagram following hit 1500 [] Have Twitter following hit 1k [] Meet up with at least 4 other bloggers/influencers [] Start selling something (whether physical or digital) [] Make the move to self-hosted [Does my wedding count if I use the photos for my blog? haha] Pose in at least one full-on photoshoot (with a makeup artist/hair stylist, photographer, etc) 
Personal Goals: [] Go on a road trip with friends (carry over from last year) [x] Take at least two major trips (domestic or international) [x] Move. away from SoCal (;  [] Read at least 6 novels for pleasure [x] Go on a trip with Darell to anywhere [x] Become fully self-sufficient (parents do not financially support in any way at all) [] Take some kind of creative class (dance, crafting, etc) [x] Regularly attend a small group

Okay, so I clearly slacked in my blog goals but like I said, I'm not going to apologize for living my life! That's the hardest part about being a content creator, I think. It's the fact that while it's something you love, you always need to be thinking about the next thing. When you're out with friends, it may be taking photos or videos for a blog/vlog post. When you're at home with your partner relaxing, you might actually be writing instead or planning out what to do next. It's a hard thing to do, but it is definitely worth it when you can nail it all down. For me personally, having a full time job also really drained me from being able to write as much as I wanted to, but thankfully I'm done with that so I can focus more here!

Having said all that, I am pretty proud of myself and my personal goals, however! I accomplished almost all of them, which is really great. I went to Gold Coast, Australia and here now to the Philippines for my two major trips. I moved away from Southern California. On my trips I went to this year, I went with Darell, my new husband :) I have become fully self sufficient financially. And I also finally began regularly attending small group at church, something I hadn't done for maybe two years or so until this year. 

I've been seeing a lot of memes about people saying 2016 wasn't that great of a year, it wasn't anyone's year, etc, but honestly it was my best year yet! Yes, it was the hardest and most emotionally draining for many reasons (hello, US election) but I wouldn't change anything I did this year for the world. I'm excited (but kinda shocked) that 2016 is done already, and I cannot wait for whatever next year brings! 

I hope you are able to celebrate the end of this new year on a positive note even if the year itself wasn't very positive! Happy new year, and I will see you next year ;)

Next Stop: PHILIPPINES!

Hey y'all! So the last two weeks have been crazy with me finishing up my full time job, moving into the master bedroom of our home, and now packing for the PHILIPPINES!

I briefly mentioned it on Instagram a couple weeks ago but yes, it has finally come. We are heading to the Philippines for 5 weeks!

To be honest, we wanted to stay in Australia and work this holiday season because they pay so well in the holidays, but this year is also my family reunion for my mom's side of the family. I haven't been to the Philippines in 6 years (& Darell 5 years) so we decided to just take this time to enjoy with our families. Besides, we don't know when is the next time we'll be able to do something like this again!

We will be spending some time with Darell's family, as well as both my parents' families. When my family from America arrives just after Christmas time, we will pretty much go hard on doing touristy stuff for two weeks because it's part of the reunion celebrations and because my family is from there, we are less likely to do touristy things when we visit. We are even visiting the island of Palawan this time around, and I haven't island hopped in the Philippines probably since I was 3 or 4, so this will be a treat!

And then outside of those crazy two weeks, anything can happen! Our schedule is mostly free for the other 3 weeks that we'll be there without my American family so who knows what Darell & I will end up doing!

Having said that, we most likely will have some down time since we won't be in a hurry to do things most of the time that we're there, so I may have a blog post once a week while we're there, I might not. I will definitely try to do an end of year/new year post on the 31st and the 1st like I've done for the last few years since those don't usually take too long, but we will see! Hopefully I don't sleep our entire flight to the Philippines & maybe I can get some work done. 

We will also be vlogging our trip! Not sure how many vlogs it'll be but they will most likely go up after we come back. And of course, after the trip I will be posting specific posts about visiting the Philippines, the food, and so much more :) So until then, follow me on Snapchat (@duhhkrisellee), Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook where I will be posting updates!