Our 2020 Year In Review with Mixbook
I think we can all agree that 2020 wasn’t what we all expected it to be. We all had to change plans, learn to adjust to the new “normal” and constantly wonder what was coming next. Amidst all the craziness of this year, there were still so many beautiful moments. I used to be an avid journaler and would write about what was going on in my life every single night. It’s something I want to start doing again, but life just gets so dang busy. I feel like taking lots of photos and capturing those special every day moments is my new way of journaling our family's story. I’ve decided to start a new tradition where I make a “Year in Review” book to remember all the special days. As I was going through each month and adding in my favorite photos, I also included blurbs about what was going on during those months. It wasn’t my intention at first, but once I finished creating the book it turned into a Castellano family journal. It made me so happy that I could show our children the highlights of life and remember all the moments, both big and small.
I decided to make my Year In Review book through Mixbook, because I’ve created books through them before and loved the results. Well, this time was no different. The book turned out AMAZING! The quality of the prints and pages are unbeatable and the creative templates make it so simple to design a beautiful book. It is now proudly displayed on our living room coffee table and I always share it with guests when they come over. Knox absolutely loves to flip through the pages and I can see his face light up when he recognizes familiar faces and places. Every night before bed we flip through it with him and tell him all about his grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. The other night he saw a picture of my parents and said “Gigi! Bubby! (What he calls his grandparents) and it made me emotional to see how showing him pictures helps him remember the people who love him most.
The whole creation process was really simple and easy to navigate. I added all of my favorite photos from the year to a folder on my phone and it synced up with the Mixbook website on my desktop. This allowed me to move photos around, rearrange the template, and add texts. I added a page at the very beginning of our top 2020 highlights and then wrote a page at the beginning of each month telling about all our highs and lows. One thing that I loved most about creating this book was how it made me see how truly beautiful and fun this year was. It’s easy to chalk 2020 to a “bad” year and forget about all the amazing things that happened along the way.
Some of our highlights were:
January: Cole quit his job to come work with me full time. We bought our first condo in Waikiki and renovated it together.
February: Family came out to visit and we had lots of fun!
March: We went to Australia with some of our best friends and their babies. It was our last international trip before COVID.
April: Knox turned 1! We made the most out of the initial weeks of quarantine and got creative with activities.
May: We found out we were pregnant! It was the happiest news in the middle of all the craziness. We talked about baby non stop.
June: We left for California to spend time with family and travel within the us.
July: We got to see all of our siblings and parents on both sides and explore the US.
August: We spent lots of sunny days at the beach! Cole's brother and his wife got married.
September: We went to Yellowstone with my family and the Grand Tetons. We also went on a baby moon to Cancun!
October: We were back in Hawaii! We celebrated both Cole and I’s birthdays and had a fun Halloween.
November: My family came to visit for Thanksgiving and we had an amazing week with him!
December: We have enjoyed the last few months as a family of three before the baby comes :)
I was really grateful that I made our families book and was able to reflect on all the great days spent together! If you’re looking for an affordable, high quality and easy to use photo book service I HIGHLY recommend Mixbooks! I have a great code for you too! Use the code MCHOLIDAY for 50 your first book or card order at Mixbook.com. Offer expires 1/20/2021. I can’t wait to see what you create!