2020 is here! I know, I know, I’m a little late on the recap… give a guy a break!!! As we head into a new decade, a new form of retrospective starts to build in our minds. Ten years ago, I had just graduated college, Jess and I were just two years married, and we had no clue what our lives would look like. It’s also about the time this blog started, so let’s dig in!
Two Thousand Ten
I was still attending college at Montana State and Jess was working at Owenhouse. It was also in March of that year that we moved out of our little student housing apartment into a nice 3 bed condo. Our swing into running also started to take stride as we ran in a couple local races. We also started to get outside more and went on our first backpacking trip together. We definitely didn’t have the right equipment, but it got us going in our outdoor adventures. It was also the year I mission-aborted college and was able to squeak out a degree to finish up in December.
Two Thousand Eleven
Fresh out of college, I was also fresh out of my student jobs. I did a couple freelance projects, was very lazy, but eventually landed a job with IKUW Solutions as a web and graphic designer. It was in this year that Jess and I went on our first mission trip together. We went with the church we were attending to Rehoboth children’s orphanage near Manila in The Philippines. We spent much time outdoors and spent the summer training for our first marathon. And boy did we run! Photography was also a highlight of the year as we shot a few weddings and learned that $200 was not enough to charge. It was a step into a direction that put a spark into our photography careers.
Two Thousand Twelve
So, a bunch of things changed this year. I changed jobs and became the IT Manager for TREC, Inc. as Jess continued as office manager at Owenhouse Ace Hardware. In addition to running, road cycling was added to our outdoor repertoire and I even rode in the Seattle to Portland event. Jess ran a couple marathons, one in Nashville, TN and the other in San Francisco, CA. Another running event became a tradition started with running the Grand Teton Relay. We also started attending a new church and became heavily involved. We also got a new car (after I wrecked the other one…) and broke it in on a couple trips.
Two Thousand Thirteen
Now this was a very memorable year. We bought a house, Jess continued running marathons and we got a dog! I started doing more media work on the side. Jess joined me riding Seattle to Portland in 2013. We also headed off to Nepal with our church. Jess spent time visiting orphanages while I went trekking along the Annapurna Circuit in the Himalayan foothills. To say that it was a formative trip would be an understatement.
Interesting story about buying our house. The day we closed on the house, as we were leaving our friend’s apartment (we were staying with them while we waited for the house to be finished), we walked into a crime scene. There was a block party that turned sour and someone ended up shooting two people. At our closing appointment, the agents were surprised that we weren’t excited about our new house. “Someone got shot outside our apartment last night,” we said. “Good thing you’re moving,” they replied. It was just a few blocks away from the new house… We ran in the Grand Teton Relay again and made a trip out to Oregon to celebrate Thanksgiving on the coast.
Two Thousand Fourteen
I started a business in 2014, though I only shot a few events and did a bit of side work. We went on a trip to Colorado/Utah to celebrate our anniversary, of course Jess ran a marathon. We hiked some pretty long hikes, namely to the Spanish Lakes and the Bridger Ridge. Once again, we ran our annual Grand Teton Relay among other races. I went to New England and Louisiana for work. We also capitalized on being sans children at the time and had a couple of roommates. I know that for many, roommate situations don’t turn into friendships, but the two that lived with us became great friends. This afforded us to tag an extended vacation onto our trip to New York.
Speaking of New York, Jess won the lottery entry into the New York Marathon and we enjoyed a few days in the Big Apple before heading across the Atlantic to Scotland. We adventured to castles, locks and old cities across Scotland, visiting a friend along the way. Both Jess and I had a few business trip that led us to to Vegas and New England, respectively.
Two Thousand Fifteen
We started the year off with some more travel. I headed out to Oregon to visit my family and Jess went to New Orleans for work. It was also the year that we became parents. Much of the year was spent preparing for Elijah to come into the world. We still got outside plenty and went on a couple trips. Jess ran the Fargo Marathon, 16 WEEKS PREGNANT. We also photographed a few weddings around Montana over the summer. Jess, also went on some business trips.
Elijah Griffin Powell came into this world on October 2nd, 2015, a month early and with tumultuous affect. He was whisked away to Billings, MT for intensive care and we spent our first weeks together there as he gained his strength and we started to understand our new lives as a family. We closed out the year with a trip out to Oregon to see family.
Two Thousand Sixteen
I have mixed feelings about this year. Most of it was spent cuddling and loving on Elijah and finding a new groove. I went on a couple work trips. Jess decided to stay home and left her position at Owenhouse. We ran the last ever Grand Teton Relay, something that still feels like a missing piece to our annual calendar. In October, our time in Bozeman had drawn to a close. I accepted a position at Skyline Hospital in White Salmon, WA and our adventures moved westward. In-between jobs, Jess ran a marathon in Boise, ID and we visited good friends there. We closed out the year trying to find a place to land.
Two Thousand Seventeen
Also known as the year of the marathon. We traveled abroad with our family, Krista and the In-laws along for the ride, to Norway. We started off the trip finding our way to Tromsø for the Midnight Sun Marathon. I told Jess after our first marathon, that it would have to be a pretty awesome destination marathon to get me to lace up my shoes for that long of distance again. Well, running 26.2 miles during the summer solstice above the Arctic Circle in Norway fit the bill! We spent several days afterwards exploring Fjords, Bergen, and Oslo. We even got a stopover in Iceland!
Right before the trip to Norway, we bought a house. A real fixer-upper. It was a 1946 ranch house that we poured ourselves into over the next two years. I learned a lot, lost a little bit of blood, a lot of sweat and some tears (and a kidney stone…). If buying a house and traveling abroad with a 17-month old wasn’t enough, Jess convinced me to run a second marathon in 2017. I don’t know if it was because I felt guilty that I led us to buy a house in the very town that liked least, but about 6 weeks from the Tromsø marathon, we ran the Jack & Jill Downhill near Seattle. Funny story about this one: We forgot our running shoes! We were able to find the pairs we ran in and broke them in on a Marathon. It’s about as much fun as you think.
The rest of the year could be summed up as trying to find our groove in a new place. The end of the year was a bit crazy. Jess’s dad had open hear surgery, and her grandma had a heart-attack within a couple weeks that had us ping-ponging our way from the PNW to North Dakota to Montana and back again over the Christmas holiday. Everyone was fine in the end, but it exhausts me to think of that season.
Two Thousand Eighteen
2018 was the first in several years that I didn’t write a recap post for the year. There were many reasons, but most of them fall into the excuses category. Writing has definitely become a back burner hobby, 2018 didn’t help. I have never wanted this blog to become a destination for all my malcontented thoughts, but this particular year required more of us emotionally than ever before.
As 2017 came to a close, we were confronted with some bad news that bled into the following year. Remember the chaotic year’s end? Add to that a miscarriage and that is where we started 2018. To say it was rough, that would be an understatement of cosmic proportions. Then add to it another miscarriage and the revelation that one occurred before… You can see where some negativity sunk in.
But 2018 wasn’t all bad. In March, I headed to Nepal with my good friend Andy Holm to try to see if an idea had some legs. We spent a week in Kathmandu, Nepal and worked with a business there that made backpacks and some other goods. Both Andy and I had travelled together the last time I was in Nepal. Our heart was that we could help our friends and their businesses thrive. I’ve never really liked the whole idea of a bunch of westerners coming in and declaring their solutions over everything. We went there to help and to be useful. It was unorthodox, but deeply fulfilling.
Jess and I went on a week long trip to tour the Oregon coast with our Outback as the hotel. We left Elijah with the grandparents and took the dog with us. We discovered that you can’t just park your car anywhere to camp and that not all Walmarts allow overnight camping. We also did an odd meetup in Shelby, MT with our friends there. Odd because Jess flew with Elijah to Bozeman and then drove with her sister to Shelby, where I met them by train. It was just a weekend for me and then Jess spent another week in Bozeman.
Jess and I were feeling a bit in limbo over the course of the year and we started to dive into our side hustles. Jess has always been a photographer, but her outlets were mostly non-commercial, with the exception of being my second shooter occasionally. She started doing it on her own and struck relationships with other business owners in The Dalles, some of whom became good friends. I also tried to work with video more regularly.
The fires were bad in our neck of the woods and my parent’s property suffered through the South Valley Fire and we helped fight fire and recover from the losses. Fortunately, their home was spared, but their water supply was not. We spent several weekends restoring their water, digging in, and burying a new line.
Two Thousand Nineteen
If some of the other years of the decade seemed packed, they barely hold a candle to 2019. 2018 sucked. 2019 was a turnaround. We got pregnant! And then traveled to Kauai, HI for a much needed vacation. Jess continued to focus on her photography and I was still in limbo for purpose.
Purpose came as I started to tear out the basement in our house. I answered a job posting that was right up my alley. I won’t talk much on the how, but it was serendipitous, bordering on miraculous. Only one hitch though, it was back in Montana! And I had just torn out my basement. Well I got the job and we moved to Helena, MT. What commenced had us up late drywalling, painting and finishing 900 sq. ft. of space on top of closing out a job and time in a community. I’m proud of how it turned out. While we were staging the house for selling, we noted how nice this space is and that “we’d buy it!”
I started my new job the beginning of June and drove out to Bozeman for the two weeks to get started. The house was under contract quickly and then I had two weeks back in The Dalles to pack up the house and finish up a couple projects. We moved while Jess was 7 months pregnant into a little apartment on the east side of Helena. We settled in and prepped for the arrival of Fitz Bergen Powell on August, 29th. To be a contrarian, he decided to come late, with great effort. Elijah turned four and we were able to celebrate with some of his Montana peeps from when we lived in Bozeman.
We’ve enjoyed our time in Helena and can’t wait to start more traditions and explore more. Outside of Helena, we travelled to Bozeman several times and have enjoyed reconnecting with friends. For work, I’ve had a few trips. It’s been a while since I’ve travelled for work, and while I enjoy my trips and work that I do, I do miss my family and our reunion is always sweet. I had the time off between Christmas and New Years off, so we drove back to Oregon to surprise my parents and closed out the year celebrating with my family.
What a decade!
And there you have it! Ten years of pure life-happening-goodness! There were mostly ups, a few downs, and more blessings than I could even share. I know my time on here has been limited of late, but if you’ve made it this far, you’re dedicated. Thank you! It’s for those of you that stick through it all we keep this thing up. Here’s to the next decade. Maybe I’ll have a hologram for you in 2030…