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This is the 10th year in a row that I’ve answered this exact set of questions looking back at the year that is quickly slipping away & looking forward to the new year that is upon us! One WHOLE decade – that’s so crazy! It’s really fun to look back now over the past 9 years and read what I was most proud of, what I learned, and what I was most excited for – it’s fun to see the progression of my goals growing and changing.
Shout out to Jamie Delaine for originally inspiring & sharing the outline to this post TEN years ago!
If you’d like to go back and read over what I wrote the previous 9 years I have done this, click here for 2014’s version, click here for 2015’s version, click here for 2016’s version, click here for 2017’s version, click here for 2018’s version, click here for 2019’s version, click here for 2020’s version, click here for 2021’s version, and click here for 2022’s version!
And if the ridiculous amount of words in this post intimidate you – I promise I’m not offended by you choosing to skip this one (there are over 4,800+ words!). In the next few weeks, I have a lot more “pretty” posts planned – my favorite wedding & engagement session images from 2023, as well as some Abby Saturday bloopers, plus the ever-popular “behind-the-scenes” look at me while I’m “on the job”! So, stay tuned!
Of course, if you’re into reading words – let’s dive in!
LOOKING BACK
What are you most proud of this year?
2023 has been an INTERESTING year.
Just considering my entrepreneurship “journey” – it’s been a year of ups and downs.
Let’s talk about “ups” first (since this question is: what am I most proud of) —
I have had a YouTube channel since 2020. What started as an “experiment” has turned into a PASSION – creating edited, cohesive, entertaining, finished films of us as a family, doing both daily life AND traveling on our adventures.
I had this idea of “vlogging” our time in amusement parks and began experimenting with it in 2020. I honestly wasn’t sure how I would be able to be at an amusement park, keep an eye on my children, enjoy the day, take photos for Derrick, AND take enough videos to create a vlog? I honestly doubted that it was possible.
Well, I quickly learned that it was completely possible and even faster, I became obsessed with capturing our travels and memories in video form – it was SO much more powerful than just taking photos!
So, from 2020 to the beginning of 2023 – I treated my YouTube channel as a place that I published my vlogs, but I truly didn’t put much thought or effort into actually growing that platform. I didn’t really have a direction, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted it to “be”, and it just wasn’t a place I was putting a lot of effort. I posted vlogs whenever I finished editing them, there was no strategy or consistency, and so over those 3 years, I barely pulled in 100 subscribers.
That all changed this year.
In the early spring of this year, I decided that I wanted to put more concentrated effort into my YouTube channel.
So, I re-named my channel “The Adventuring Abbeys” and re-branded it as “The Roller Coaster Family”. I moved all of my “personal” videos (the monthly videos I create of our family just doing “daily life”) over to a secondary channel, and solely focused my “main” channel on us being at amusement parks.
I started creating “shorts” (YouTube’s version of a TikTok) and publishing them daily and I started to get much more strategic about what my thumbnails looked like, the titles I used, putting keywords in my description, and posting at “peak” times.
And I actually started to see the needle move.
I’ve had plenty of social media accounts, plus this blog, for way over a decade, but I have never seen growth like I’ve seen over the last 9 months with my YouTube channel. (Which, when I sit back and think about it, kind of blows my mind.)
I went from 97 subscribers to 784 subscribers in less than a year.
(Maybe that doesn’t sound like much, but when you consider that my Instagram account has only gained about 20 new followers over the course of the last 12 months – that’s a lot.)
It’s been a ton of work (especially to create and put out a “short” every single day) but it’s been work that I have thoroughly enjoyed. I LOVE putting together our family vlogs and I love sharing our adventures with the world!
If you continue reading, there is more about my YouTube channel in the questions/answers the follow, but overall, I’m crazy proud of myself for putting in the work and actually seeing results.
Stepping away from the entrepreneurial side of my life:
I’m also super proud of how I’ve continued in my health journey this year.
Last year, I talked at length about how I had implemented not only a consistent exercise practice, but a new attitude toward food. I’m proud to say that I’ve continued on that trajectory in 2023 (a path I started on in 2021) and continue seeing positive results.
As of this week – I’ve completed a 104-week exercising streak on my Peloton app. (It should be more like 140 weeks, but when I got COVID in 2021 – it threw everything off and I lost the 40ish-week streak that I had going.) Exercising every morning is no longer a question in my mind. It’s just something I do. The alarm goes off, I get up, and I exercise. The end.
I did change up my routine this year, mixing in more strength training along with my cycling – and I’ve really enjoyed that. I recently got a new set of heavier weights because the original set of “medium” and “heavy” weights were no longer “medium” and “heavy” weights any more (crazy!)
I’ve continued eating “Trim Healthy Mama” style (if you’ve never heard of it – Google it – I talked about it at length last year.) And I honestly don’t see myself ever “going back” to whatever I was eating before. Sure, I still eat sugar and “unhealthy” stuff on occasion, but most of what I (and my family) consumes falls within the Trim Healthy guidelines.
Last year, my “super proud” milestone was that I had lost 30 pounds.
I wish that I could say that I lost another 10-15 pounds this year, but that’s not the case. In fact, the scale truly hasn’t moved for me all year long (go-figure). I still weigh pretty much the same as I did last year at this time.
But what has changed is the clothes sizes I wear.
(And this truly boggles my mind.)
I went from wearing a large shirts – to mediums and smalls.
And, just a month ago, I was forced to buy new jeans. I bought jeans right before I got pregnant with Leander that were a “pretty small” size. I finally could fit into them again around the beginning of last year and have never bought another new pair. Well, at the start of this fall, I noticed that all of my jeans that I had been wearing, were started to wear pretty thin. They all had random holes and so I went to buy a new “non-holey” pair.
I figured I would just need the same size, so that’s what I ordered. They arrived and they definitely did not fit. I took them back to the store to exchange them for a smaller size, but this time, I was going to try them on to make sure they fit before leaving the store.
Just for kicks and giggles, I took two sizes smaller back to the fitting room as well – I figured: “Just in case.”
Well, you can imagine my shock when I tried on that pair of jeans that was TWO sizes smaller than the ones I’ve been wearing and they fit perfectly.
I honestly thought that over the course of the last few years, they must have changed the sizing because there is NO WAY I had lost two pants sizes this year. But sure enough, I came home, held them up to my old, worn-out jeans, and they are in fact smaller.
So, all that to say: I might not have lost a pound, but I’ve definitely lost some inches! It’s so crazy to continue to see slow and steady progress. I can’t wait to see what next year brings!
What was the biggest risk you took?
Alright, so remember how I said the year was full of ups and downs?
Here comes some of that roller coaster ride.
At the end of last year (right at this time), I realized that my “new” business (Abbey Family Documentaries) was just not working. And I gave it up. (It’s a long story – I wrote all about it in last year’s recap.)
A few weeks into the new year – I started another new venture.
Down Abbey Lane was born.
In a nutshell, Down Abbey Lane was an Instagram account and YouTube channel where I posted reviews of things I was getting off of Amazon. At first, I posted short (and long) form content daily, and once wedding season hit, I went down to posting 3-4 times a week.
It was a lot of fun.
My goal was to use it to springboard some affiliate income from Amazon.
Derrick and I talk in December every year and we evaluate things: what’s working, what’s not, what do we need to adjust or make changes to, etc.
And this year? Down Abbey Lane landed in the “not working” category.
Sure, I was having a lot of fun with it. But it was a lot of work. It took a ton of time to not only film the reviews, but edit them, and then format them, and then get them published.
IF I could see the needle moving on it (like I could see with my Adventuring Abbeys channel), then I would have continued, but things truly just weren’t moving. Sure, I was making some affiliate income, but not enough to warrant the work I was pouring into it.
And so, once again, I’m writing about a “business venture” that I’ve attempted over the course of the last year – and putting it in the “failed” category.
“Failed” is a harsh word – I did learn A LOT by having Down Abbey Lane. Just like I can list the things I learned by starting Abbey Family Documentaries, I can list a ton of things I learned by starting Down Abbey Lane. But ultimately, it’s just not something that I can continue to sustain without seeing growth or income from it.
(I do plan on doing a series of reviews that fall in line with my Adventuring Abbeys channel – and thus hope to continue to build some affiliate income – but the whole separate channel is just too much with too little return.)
AND (if you’ve made it this far), you might realize: I’ve written a ton already about my entrepreneurial ventures and haven’t even mentioned Kara Abbey Photography.
I AM still a full time wedding photographer! I photographed 8 weddings in 2023 (my goal is always 8-10 weddings in a year, so I’m happy with that.)
What big risks did I take in the photography realm this year? Well, I booked 5 weddings over a 6-week span in June and July this year. It was (slightly) bananas. By the end, I honestly thought I was going to go insane. But I did it. And not only did I do it, but I stuck to my workflows and systems, and turned every single wedding around in less than 2 weeks. It was honestly some of the hardest work I’ve ever done. I logged an insane amount of editing hours in June and July (I probably spent more time in Lightroom and Photoshop than I did with my family – yikes).
But at the same time, I learned so much. I implemented some new tech to help speed things up (and honestly: that new tech saved my butt because I never would have made it otherwise!) and I’m just so darn proud of myself for making it.
I really don’t want to shoot so many weddings, so close together, ever again though.
What did you learn this year?
If you have read this far and are thinking: holy crap, you’re insanely busy – the answer is: yes.
So, what did I learn this year? Well, I got really good at planning things out, batching content, and scheduling things.
In 2023, I managed my YouTube channel, 3 Instagram accounts, my blog, and 2 Facebook pages – in other words: scheduling content became my middle name.
It HAD to be.
There was no other way for all of those things to consist simultaneously.
(If you’re trying to keep track and can’t quite figure it out, I was managing The Adventuring Abbeys YouTube channel, Kara Abbey Photography, Down Abbey Lane, and XscreamThrills on Instagram, this blog, and Kara Abbey Photography and XscreamThrills Facebook pages.)
In other words: when you see things post from me – those things are very very rarely being posted in real-time. Pretty much everything I do is scheduled days (and weeks) in advance. (Sorry if that spoils “the magic” for you – but that’s just the cold-hard-truth.)
I’ve had a blog calendar where I jot down ideas and “schedule” content out for several years now (I can tell you precisely what I’ll be blogging every week into March, at this point) and I just expanded on that content – re-purposing and re-packaging information across so many different platforms – it’s all a bit crazy.
But I want to really hone all of that in even further this year: I won’t have Down Abbey Lane to continue to manage and create for, but I really want to create more of a schedule – something like: Mondays is XscreamThrills scheduling/creating day, Tuesdays is Kara Abbey Photography scheduling/creating day, Wednesdays is Adventuring Abbeys scheduling/creating day, etc. That way, things are a bit more streamlined and organized. (I love organization – it’s my middle name!)
What do you wish you had made more time for?
Time? I wish I had more time for EVERYTHING. Time is one thing I desperately want more of.
Taking into consideration everything I’ve already written about doing in 2023 – I still (believe it or not) have “a life”. I’m a stay-at-home Mom, I’m the primary home-maker for our family, I homeschool our children, I still love to read and crochet and watch The Office and movies with Derrick. I co-lead the Greensburg chapter of the Rising Tide Society and I teach on the rotation on Wednesday nights at our church.
Reading back over everything I’ve written so far, it’s a little mind-boggling that I have time for anything – I almost feel like some magical unicorn that doesn’t really exist. Do I really do all of that?! Somehow, I do.
But yes, my time is incredibly tight and precious. I love efficiency and I work as effectively as I possibly can, but let’s be honest: I need more time.
Which is precisely the conversation that Derrick and I were having a few weeks ago when we determined that something needed to get cut – and that was Down Abbey Lane. Cutting that venture out of my life, though so sad (and disappointing), has given me a good chunk of time back. It allowed me to actually prep and getting ready for Christmas this year without literally going insane (so, that was really great). And now that Christmas is over, I’m excited to see what I can do with that reclaimed time! (And if you know of any magic buttons I could press to add a few more hours to my day, let me know!)
What are 3 highlights (business or personal) of your year?
- At the beginning of November, we hopped on a plane and flew out to visit Derrick’s parents in Arizona for an epic 10-day adventure out west. Within that trip, we also spent 5 days on the beach in California. It was such an amazing, wonderful, relaxing time. We loved it so much and it is definitely a huge highlight of our year.
- Derrick and I took one over-night trip together (without the kids) this year. We visited Hersheypark to check out and ride their brand new roller coaster: Wildcat’s Revenge. It was a whirlwind 36 hours, but we had a blast! We met some amazing people and had so much fun hanging out at Hershey (without any kids – which meant that we got to actually ride roller coasters TOGETHER – something we very rarely ever get to do).
- We renovated our dining room at the beginning of this year. That project (which was supposed to be quick and easy) turned out to be much more involved and more time-intensive than we ever anticipated. It was totally worth it, but wow was it a lot of work (and so much dirt). Out of that renovation project, I got a brand new office space! It wasn’t in the plans for me to move my office at all (I was completely content to continue working in a corner of the laundry room), but when we pulled all the walls in the dining room down, we found an extra “cupboard” space that we didn’t know existed. We quickly re-formulated our plans and my brand new office “nook” was created! I LOVE it. I love that it puts my work in the center of the house – I can sit at my computer and edit or create while still being attached to everything else going on. I still want a set of doors to go over the space so I can completely close it off (fingers crossed that can happen this year!) but I just love it.
LOOKING FORWARD
What “word” do you want to define 2023?
STRATEGY.
I want The Adventuring Abbeys and XscreamThrills to work together.
For SO LONG Derrick and I have talked ideas and different things XscreamThrills could do to capitalize on his loyal, growing audience. There’s just one problem: Derrick truly does not have time to carry out any of those ideas. After all, he works full time and XscreamThrills is just his side hustle he works on a few hours a week.
On the other hand: I have more time and I can actually spear-head some of these ideas we have.
Over the last few years, instead of doubling down and working toward the same roller-coaster-themed-goals, I’ve gone off and created multiple other side hustles (that obviously have not quite worked out). But now, with the success of The Adventuring Abbeys – I’m sensing a shift.
It’s time to hone in and work together to truly become “The Roller Coaster Family” – he still has his own channel with his content, his style, his flair, while I still have my own channel with my own content, my style, my flair – but in conjunction, we I want us to work together on some of these ideas we have.
I have no idea where that will lead us, but it’s exciting.
(And that leads us directly into..)
What are 3 big goals (business or personal) for 2024?
- No more creating 3rd “side hustles” – in 2022, I created and poured so much time and effort into Abbey Family Documentaries. In 2023, I created and poured so much time and effort into Down Abbey Lane. In 2024 – I want to put my head down and focus on what I’m currently doing: Kara Abbey Photography and The Adventuring Abbeys. If March rolls around and I announce that I’m doing something new – I give you permission to come over and slap me. (See above word of the year.)
- I desperately need to completely revamp my website. While I’ve made minor updates through the last few years, I truly haven’t updated it and brought it current in way too long. While I did a pretty good job with my design when I created it a few years ago – parts of my site are just outdated.
Case in point: I had created a short “promo video” for myself back in 2020 and it lived on the pricing page of my website. It was fine in the moment, but earlier this year I actually clicked on it to watch it and WOW was it bad. When I filmed it in 2020, I was so bad at talking to the camera (a skill I’ve grown greatly in thanks to Down Abbey Lane) – I spoke like a sloth, it’s so slow and painful (plus, I’m about 40lbs. heavier than I am today)! So, as much as I still feel it is important to have video of me on my website, I pulled that video down because I felt like it was doing more harm than good. So, beginning next week, I plan on overhauling my entire site: new layout, fresh images, updated copy, and a brand new promo video!! - I want to hit 1,000 subscribers on my YouTube channel! I’m well on my way there and if I can continue the momentum I have built up in 2023, I should hit that milestone by mid-2024!
What do you want to stop doing in 2024?
This is always the most challenging question to answer, but this year, it’s very easy.
I need to do better in keeping up with our family vlogs and stop putting them off.
Okay, “putting them off” isn’t precisely correct, because, I didn’t really “put them off” in 2023. But I did do a horrible job at keeping up with them.
Let’s unpack this:
I started vlogging our travels and trips to amusement parks mid-2020. I did it as an “experiment”, because in all honesty: I wasn’t sure if I would be able to take enough video footage, while also taking photos, keeping an eye on my children, and having fun myself.
I became completely obsessed with the results.
And thus, I have taken dedicated video footage (to create vlogs) of every park and trip we’ve gone on ever since.
I kept up with 2021 and 2022 fairly easily (it’s easiest to come home and create these vlogs while the excitement is still high), but 2023 has gotten completely away from me.
And there is a reason (I didn’t just become “super lazy” in 2023).
In 2023, we took our “spontaneous” trip to Florida at the end of May/beginning of June (and we visited a lot of parks in that trip). We came home and within just a few days, I added even more vlogs to my editing queue, as we attended a Media Event for Kennywood and spent the next weekend at Cedar Point for Derrick’s birthday.
From there, I then photographed two weddings, two weekends in a row (with a trip to Hersheypark right in the middle – another vlog in the queue). The following weekend, we took a long weekend to visit Busch Gardens Williamsburg, followed by another 3 weddings, 3 weekends in a row. We went straight from that into VBS at the lake, VBS here, a few more weekend trips, a few more weddings – and well, you can see how things got backed up very quickly.
In other words: I still haven’t completely finished editing all the vlogs from our Florida trip – let alone the rest of our summer, plus our big Arizona and California trip.
I have about 15ish vlogs sitting in my editing queue.
I went the whole summer keeping up with my weddings (because, that’s my actual job), but letting all of my Adventuring Abbeys vlogs go to the wayside. I kept telling myself: I’ll catch up through the winter months.
And I will. I’m slowly but surely chipping away at it.
But it’s not as exciting. In fact, it’s completely daunting – the list is so long.
And as much as I truly, honestly want to sit down and edit all of these vlogs – I know I won’t be able to finish them until April or May. Even if I complete one a week (which is my REALISTIC goal), I won’t be done until April.
That’s an insane amount of work.
I want to do it, and I know I’ll be so proud of myself for finishing it, but next year, I really need to be better about keeping up with it through the year, instead of waiting until “the off-season” to get caught up.
(How do I plan on doing that? Well, I’ve cut out Down Abbey Lane, so that frees up a good chunk of time, and thankfully, the weddings I have booked for 2024 are more spread out than I had in 2023. Shooting 5 weddings over a 6-week window of time was insane. I did it, but wow was that hard. I’m so thankful and grateful for the work, but so many, so close together was bananas.)
What things excite you about the upcoming year?
2024 will be a big year for our family!
To kick things off: my sister Ellen is due to have a baby right around Braelynn’s birthday (which is at the end of January)!
Then we move straight into wedding prep as my little brother gets married at the end of May! He is our only brother, so this is the one and only time we get to welcome a new sister to the family! We’re all over-the-moon excited!
And then, in June (around Derrick’s birthday), my sister Amy is due to have a baby!
Needless to say: it’s going to be an exciting year.
Add to that another potential trip out to Arizona, anticipated media event invitations for the grand opening of a bunch of new roller coasters around us, we’ve talked about planning a trip to Texas in 2024 (still not solidified) – we’ll see what the year brings!
What do you want to learn in 2024?
I feel like I’m in a time of “learning” right now. I feel like I’m coming out of a “foggy” season – when things were just overwhelming and stressful and we were just “surviving” from day to day. I can’t really say for sure why I felt that way – it’s probably just a sign that I was doing way too much. But now that things have slowed down a bit, I feel like I can see things clearer and my mental health is just better.
It’s kind of weird – but that’s where I am.
Further: I want to “learn” whether I should continue on with wedding photography.
Y’all – I’ve been a wedding photographer for 15 years in 2024 – 10 years as a full time photographer.
And, I’m feeling this weird pull that maybe it’s time to start to pivot into something else.
I don’t know what that is. I truly don’t even have a clue. (I’ve told Derrick so many times that I wish someone could just look at our lives and tell us what to do next, because I feel like there is so much potential there, but I can’t see the forest through the trees.)
So, for now, I continue on as a wedding photographer (I do truly still love it), but the wedding photography world is drastically different today than it was 10 and 15 years ago. There is so much more to being a wedding photographer today than there was yesterday. One of my sweet best friends (who is also a wedding photographer) was saying the other day: “Ya know, when we started out, we just took pretty pictures, posted a few sneak peeks to Facebook, and that was it! Now we have to be expert marketers, experts at so many different social media platforms, we have to create short-form videos, we have to be constantly creating content – it’s exhausting.” And it truly is. Things have changed so much just in the last 3 years with the state of the economy and inflation – so, I’m not really sure what all that means. I’m keeping my eyes and ears open though and we’ll see where the possibilities in 2024 take us.
So, there you have it! If you’re interested in playing along and looking back over 2023 & looking forward to 2024 along with me – here is the list of questions to copy & paste! If you do, would you tag me in your post either on Instagram or on Facebook? I’d love to read up on your year in review & your goals for 2024! You can even grab my graphic to use! Here’s the link to download it!
LOOKING BACK
What are you most proud of this year?
What was the biggest risk you took?
What did you learn this year?
What do you wish you had made more time for?
What are 3 highlights (business or personal) of your year?
LOOKING FORWARD
What “word” do you want to define 2024?
What are 3 big goals (business or personal) for 2024?
What do you want to stop doing in 2024?
What things excite you about the upcoming year?
What do you want to learn in 2024?
