Two. That’s how many posts we published on this blog in 2021. Not very impressive, and not at all indicative of the year we had (or maybe it is). We have fallen out of the habit of journaling our lives, partly due to the busyness of life, but also because we don’t make room for it anymore (Thank you Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+). I hope we make the time in 2022, but before we start looking ahead, let’s recap on 2021.
Skiing
We took up skiing as a family (sans Fitz) and it was a blast. I snowboarded in high school and college, but ended up selling my gear and hadn’t been on a mountain in nearly a decade. I’m still a novice, but I can at least keep up with Elijah. We enjoyed it so much that I got a season pass to the local hill, Jess bought gear, and Elijah and I got season leases for our gear.
Looking ahead: Snow was late to accumulate, but the hill is open and ready for us to have some escapades on the slopes. We will get Fitz on skis this year and continue to hone our skills. Jessica is trying to get me to play hooky to get up during the week, which I’ll probably do a couple times.
Jessica Powell Photo
Jessica’s business continues to thrive and grow. She photographed adventure couples sessions, elopements, weddings, and countless others around the state. Many of the sessions were in the Glacier/Flathead area, so we also had some nice visits to the park and time with our friends in that neck of the woods. She also took a trip to Sedona, Arizona for a photography workshop and came back with a ton of energy and ideas for her business.
Looking ahead: Both Jessica and I have some business goals we are working toward. We are going to start creating some educational content around building a business, content creation, and other stuff as we have time and energy. She is nearly full up on full weddings and continues to schedule sessions to fill the gaps in the calendar. It’s going to be a busy year!
Travel/Vacation
As mentioned, we made our way to Glacier for some family trips. We camped in the park and enjoyed a few days exploring. Jessica and the boys drove out to North Dakota to visit family in that neck of the woods. We celebrated Elijah’s birthday in Yellowstone, spending a weekend down there. We made it out to Oregon twice to visit family, the second time over Thanksgiving, during which we celebrated my mom’s 80th birthday.
Looking ahead: We are headed to Maui, HI for a family vacation the end of February along with my sister Alisa.Jessica is going to Nashville, TN for a photography/entrepreneur conference in April. My dad turns 80 this July, so we plan to be out in Oregon to celebrate. We will of course get out camping and hiking around this beautiful state we live in.
Brent’s work
I continue to love my job, something that I can’t express enough. I’ve been able to use a fair bit of my wide-ranging skills to make videos, websites, applications, and even the occasional carpentry task. I still do some work on the side, mainly videos and photography, but occasionally a website consultation comes along. I made a commercial for Mattress Mill in Bozeman, which was a blast and hope more projects like this are in my future.
Looking ahead: We might start traveling for work again, which means I get to visit some of the communities that we work with and capture their stories. I started the year moving offices and setting up a better “studio” space for our productions. I hope to find time and opportunity to create some more paid video content, but will put energy into some of my ideas and passions. I also purchased a small drone, so I hope to get my commercial license this year.
Elijah
Whether you can believe it or not, Elijah is in Kindergarten! He loves it and even tries to get to school early so he can play with all his new friends. I’m glad things are mostly back to normal and we love seeing his growth in so many areas. He’s still a builder and a talker, but also kind and passionate. He’s also pretty tall, so we had to upgrade him to a larger bike that will hopefully last him many years. We were able to get up to a 9 mile ride.
He took swim lessons in the summer and also completed a season of T-ball. I think he’ll try it again this next year. He also went to a summer Lego camp and had fun hanging out with grandpa Ken regularly, always building contraptions in his garage.
Fitz
He’s so full of energy! He talks our ears off and adds to his vocabulary daily. He follows right along his brother and has a knack for building things, and then knocking them down. He’s also got some good comedic timing down and is a constant source of laughter. While we wish he would nap a bit longer these days, his energy and joy is infectious. He also did swim lessons and is much more accepting of aquatic environments.
Run/Hike/Adventure
Kind of a broad category to get in the last bit of things with did this year. Jess and I both ran the Rut race in Big Sky. Jess ran marathon number 10 in Billings with some good friends we made here. It wasn’t a great one, she was plagued early on with some pain, but has been going to PT appointments and is back to running regularly. We hiked, most around Helena, but it will take us a long time before we exhaust the trail options around town.
Looking ahead: Jessica is helping plan a race in Helena for the fall of 2022. It will be a half marathon and 5k to support a local charity. We are signed up for the Rut again, but I’m sure others will come along. I hope to get back in to both running/riding shape and be a bit more of an active participant this year.
Projects
We did a fair bit around the house. We replaced a section of fence and added some more to fully enclose our yard. It’s become such a paradise for us. Hopefully the smoke isn’t as bad in the future and we can enjoy it more. I built a new dining table out of reclaimed wood from the old shed we tore down on the property. Speaking of tearing things down, I also started on pulling the apartment down. Hopefully we can pull enough salvage lumber out of it to sell to offset the cost of demolition. We also got chickens and planted a garden, if we weren’t already busy enough.
Looking ahead: This will be a big year for projects. We hope to have the apartment down by the spring and get underway with building a detached garage with living space above. We have not had a garage for several years and greatly miss it for a myriad of reasons. We are also rebuilding the back entrance of the house to provide more of a mudroom and a better place for our washer and dryer. Hopefully we can also get in a siding project as well. It’s a lot to do, but I’m looking forward to it being done.
I’m sure that I missed some things. In the past, I’d just use the blog as a reference, but we know how well I did at updating this space. I won’t promise, but I do hope that we get on here a bit more this year.