Happy 8 year anniversary of me sitting down and writing a “traditional” Christmas letter! I’m not sure if this officially makes me an old lady or not, but I refuse to give this up. In a day and age where it seems people slip further and further from the “traditions” of the past, this is one tradition that I really love. I remember, as a little girl, getting Christmas cards in the mail and sitting down with the letters my family would receive to read all about my parent’s friends and what they’d done that year.
And so, I invite you to take a peek into our lives! I love this part of the year! I love sitting down and reflecting, thinking, and remembering – it’s one of my favorite Christmas traditions!
2022 Letter // 2021 Letter // 2020 Letter // 2019 Letter // 2018 Letter // 2017 Letter // 2016 Letter
If you follow along with my blog, my Facebook, my Instagram, or my YouTube channel on a regular basis, you probably have a pretty good idea of what our year looked like, but in an effort to give a complete overview of the year 2023 in the Abbey house, I’ve put together this Christmas letter (and hopefully at least a few of you are here reading this because you got the note in our Christmas card! If so, welcome! I’m so glad you’re here!)
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Happy end of 2023!
Whew, sitting down and looking back at the previous 12 months always seems like, “Wow, we did what?!” And 2023 is no exception.
Our biggest news of 2023 is that Derrick received a major promotion at work (cue all the confetti!) He has worked at Shred-It for 9 years now: starting off as a driver right before Braelynn was born and working his way up into the office to become a dispatcher for the branch here in Pittsburgh.
Then, earlier this year, his hard work was once again rewarded with a big promotion to “Dispatch Supervisor”. Pittsburgh is still his “home base”, but he is now in charge of an entire district of dispatchers. He manages and oversees branches from up in Rochester, New York down to West Virginia.
His new job not only brought added responsibility, but a traveling component as well. Especially at the beginning (as he was establishing himself in his new role) he was traveling quite a bit to visit his new branches.
Mid-summer, Stericycle (the medical waste side of the business) started moving through a massive systems upgrade. As a Dispatch Supervisor, Derrick was suddenly up to his eyeballs in learning the new technology and systems so he could turn around and train his people. The new system went live over Labor Day weekend and we’ll just say, things were a bit rough for a while. Derrick actually traveled more in the month of September, working like crazy to get his branches up and running, then pretty much the entire rest of the year combined. It was bananas.
Over the last few months, Derrick has been consistently recognized as a top performer in his new position. He gets called out on meetings and phone calls regularly for leading his team exceptionally well. He’s been working so hard and people are taking notice. It’s amazing and so exciting and we’re all so gosh-darn-proud of what he’s accomplished and done in his “real” job.
And yes, I call Shred-It his “real” job, but XscreamThrills still remains his passion. Sadly, his roller coaster content creating did get put on the back-burner for a few months over the summer, while he was learning the ropes of his new position, traveling to meet his new branches, and then working through the new systems update. For a few months, he just didn’t have any mental capacity left at the end of the day to come home and work on YouTube content. Over the last 6-8 weeks though, things have began to shift and with things at work finally starting to calm down, he’s finally had the drive to create content kick back up again. We started recording Season 2 of ERT with Derrick and Kara, he’s started putting out regular long-form videos again – it’s nice to see him finally finding a groove at work that allows him to come home and work on projects he truly enjoys!
As of me sitting down and writing this, his YouTube channel sits at just under 20k subscribers! Last year at this time, he was sitting at about 15.9k subs, so even though he didn’t have the time to put into his channel this year like he has in the past, he’s still seen steady, consistent growth!
What does the future of XscreamThrills look like? We’re not sure! We have lots of ideas and things we’d like to do and try, but all in good time. (Most recently, we tried to put together a t-shirt line for the holidays, and let’s just say: we jumped in way over our heads and didn’t know what we were doing – so that project was put on “hold” while we continue to figure that out!)
I can say for sure though that we will definitely continue traveling, visiting amusement parks, and riding roller coasters though! Going into 2022, we already had some big plans set in stone, but as we entered 2023, we really weren’t sure what the year would hold.
We kicked off our 2023 roller coaster season with:
+ A weekend trip out to visit the American Dream Mall in March. We spent the day in the Dreamworks Waterpark (the largest waterpark in the country) and Nickelodeon Universe (their indoor theme park).
+ At the end of April, we redeemed a free, week-long stay that we had earned at a condo in Williamsburg. Derrick came with us for the first few days, then traveled for his job during that week, and then came back down at the end of the week and brought my Dad with him. Meanwhile, the kids and I and my Mom stayed the entire week – visiting the historical sights and spent time at Busch Gardens Williamsburg!
+ We kind of “spur of the moment” took a week-long trip down to Florida at the beginning of the summer (and by “spur of the moment” I mean: we waffled back and forth over actually going or not and finally decided to go about a month before). We kicked off that vacation by attending a media event for Kennywood’s new ride: Spinvasion at 5am the morning we were leaving! It was so much fun (but freezing)! That trip included visits to Dollywood, Six Flags Over Georgia, Fun Spot America in Atlanta, Epcot, Aquatica, Sea World Orlando, Adventure Island, and Busch Gardens Tampa.
+ From there, we simply took a bunch of long weekend trips to Cedar Point, Hersheypark, Busch Gardens Williamsburg (again), Kings Dominion, Kings Island, and Dorney Park (with lots of visits to our home park Kennywood along the way!)
+ As parks transitioned into Halloween events, we not only attended Kennywood’s this year, but we visited Cedar Point and Hersheypark for their Halloween events as well. We aren’t big on the “scary” stuff, so we just went during the day for the “family friendly” fun stuff (and left before dark so we were out of the parks before the “frights” kicked in) and we had such a wonderful time!
You might think that would be the end of our travels for 2023, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
At the beginning of November, we took a HUGE trip out west! We hopped on an airplane and spent 10 glorious days in Arizona and California! With Derrick’s parents moving out to the Phoenix area at the beginning of the summer, we knew we wanted to go see them, so we packed our carry-on suitcases and hopped on an airplane, and in less than 5 hours, we were there! It was the most amazing, memorable vacation – we loved every single moment. The kids had a blast – they loved flying, they loved the desert, and they loved being with Papa and Nana.
+ While we were there, we visited Knott’s Berry Farm, Sea World San Diego, Belmont Park, and Castles and Coasters. We spent time at the beach (we rented a condo right on the beach in Oceanside, California), we spent time in the desert, and we saw a ton of sights (but we didn’t get to see the Grand Canyon – next trip!)
And last, but not least, we actually just got back from a weekend spent at Kalahari – an indoor waterpark in Sandusky, Ohio. We booked that specific weekend during a big promotion they did back at the beginning of the year, so it was our very last hurrah for the entire year!
Just in case you lost count: we visited a total of 19 amusement parks and 4 water parks in 2023 (6 parks and 2 waterparks being brand new experiences for us!) Derrick continues to be recognized at just about every single park we visit – and for the first time this summer, someone actually recognized me! Talk about a weird, crazy place we’ve created for ourselves in the roller coaster world!
In between all of that, I still photographed 8 beautiful wedding days (5 of which took place almost back-to-back in June and July – which explains why I am so behind in creating vlogs for our family trips! I’ll catch up over the next few months!) Every single wedding day that I photographed was amazing – my brides and grooms are truly the most special people and I am so insanely blessed to be a wedding photographer.
The wedding industry is definitely changing, and while I don’t have as many weddings booked going into 2024 as I have in the past, that’s okay. I firmly believe that God sends the perfect clients my way, so while yes, I still work on marketing and sales for my part, in the end I trust God to take care of me and my little business – no matter what that looks like in the future.
Besides weddings, I really ramped up creating content for my own YouTube channel this year. I’ve been publishing vlogs from our family trips on my YouTube channel for 3 years now, but was terribly inconsistent and still hadn’t even hit 100 subscribers.
At the beginning of March, I re-branded my channel to “The Adventuring Abbeys: The Roller Coaster Family” and started posting shorts to my channel daily. I instantly started seeing the needle move. As of today, I have just shy of 750 subscribers – which is massive growth over the course of less than a year! It’s been so fun to work at something and actually see growth! (And, obviously we traveled enough this year to fuel that channel for months to come!) My vlog of our trip to the American Dream Mall has just shy of 40k views! That’s insane!
On top of that, earlier this year I started a third “side hustle” that I called “Down Abbey Lane” (I still am obsessed with that name – I’m definitely keeping that in my back pocket). It was a channel (both YouTube and Instagram) dedicated to me sharing reviews of things I was getting off of Amazon. I kept that up, posting 3+ times a week to those channels, all year long (over 150 shorts/reels created!) The needle on that little hustle though was not moving at all though, so just two weeks ago, Derrick and I were talking through things that were working vs. things that weren’t working – and Down Abbey Lane was put in the “not working” category.
Ultimately, we decided that that content, though fun to create, was just taking too much time and not producing the results I was hoping for. So, it has officially gotten the axe.
I do plan to continue doing small reviews – but will be tying them into my Adventuring Abbeys account – reviewing things that we use specifically for travels and amusement park adventures. So, the concept isn’t entirely going away, but I’m pivoting it into the niche that’s actually growing and working for me.
Ultimately, we’d really love to see The Adventuring Abbeys and XscreamThrills work cohesively together, in partnership. They will remain two separate entities (one distinctively mine and one distinctively Derrick’s), but working hand-in-hand together toward a unified goal. I can’t wait to see what 2024 brings with that new goal in mind!
Braelynn is now in 3rd grade and about to turn 9 years old next month. She’s learning multiplication and division this year (and she’s so smart – it hasn’t taken her long at all to “get it”). We have tried several different reading programs and finally settled on a mix of an app called Reading Eggs and a phonics book that together seem to really be propelling her forward in her reading skills. At the beginning of this school year, I really wanted to work on her reading confidence – she knows her letters and the sounds they make, but she was so apprehensive about reading, that she would just shy away from it. I’m so proud of her and the work she’s put in this school year to really break through that ceiling!
She learned how to ride a two-wheeler bike this summer – she pretty much taught herself. She is massively determined when it comes to the things she wants to do! She worked endlessly for about 2 days in a row and on the 3rd day, she got it. Being able to ride a bike opened the door to us riding bikes down at the Lake and riding bikes out in Arizona (so cool)! It’s a skill I’m so proud that she conquered!
She also learned how to crochet this fall – again, very much self-taught! My sister taught her how to chain and then I showed her the basics of the single-crochet, and she’s taken off like a bolt of lightning! She taught herself how to crochet in-the-round and has created so many little things – including mini stuffed animals, ornaments for her Christmas Tree, collars and tags for her stuffed animals, candy canes, the list goes on and on.
She and Leander continue to be best friends – they play together endlessly. Anything Braelynn is doing, Leander is following right along behind. And anything Leander is doing, Braelynn wants in on it too. They love to be outside, they go on epic adventures together, and their imaginations are bigger than the universe.
Leander just turned 5 years old and is officially in preschool this year! He’s been doing science and history right alongside his sister for the last few years, but my goal this year for him has been to work on letter and number recognition and pencil control. He and I do “school” together while Braelynn is doing some of her subjects that she can do independently. Having two doing more “formal” schooling has been an adjustment, that’s for sure (it is reminiscent to when Braelynn started doing more “formal” work in kindergarten and I had to re-adjust our whole schedule to adapt to that time, and I feel like I’m doing it all over again now with two!) He’s been doing fantastic though and (usually) loves school.
He has lost two teeth this year! He lost his first tooth on Halloween and he just lost his second tooth while we were at Kalahari last weekend!! He can officially sing: “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth”! His sweet little smile is even cuter than ever.
He mastered riding a “big” bike this summer with Braelynn (he still has training wheels – but it’s not a tricycle). He also really loves riding his scooter around and that kid can run for days and never get winded, it’s crazy.
Last December, we had our roof replaced and new siding put on our house. It dramatically changed the look of our house. Well, we continued that renovation momentum and we remodeled our dining room in January/February! It was QUITE the massive project (bigger and messier than we anticipated), but the end result has been 100% worth the work. We ripped out all of the walls (3+ layers of them), the ceiling and the floor, re-insulated and re-wired, put up new drywall, a new drop-ceiling, and new flooring, and as a surprise bonus: I got a new office space out of the deal! We had a built-in china cupboard in our dining room, but what we didn’t realize was that behind it was a “closet” space! As soon as we were ripping walls down and found that “hidden” space, we changed our plans around to move my office into the dining room! Derrick’s Dad built me a custom built-desk with shelves – it’s just lovely. I love being able to work at my computer, while still feeling connected to my family instead of tucked away in another room. I still want to add doors to my space so I can officially close it off, but finding a door-solution that fits the space has been challenging (it’s taller and wider than most doors – most likely I’m going to have to have something built).
I still co-lead the Greensburg, PA chapter of the Rising Tide Society with my friend Tiffany.
I still teach on Wednesday nights for the kids’ program at our church.
And I still create monthly films of our daily life (when I put together the December film in January, I will have 3 full years documented in video form – it might be my proudest accomplishment EVER). When I re-branded my YouTube channel to “The Roller Coaster Family”, those monthly films just didn’t seem to fit in: they stuck out like a sore thumb. So, I moved them off of that channel and onto my “private” channel. After all – those films are just for ME, so I’m fine with not pushing them out to “the world”.
Derrick and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary this past spring. That number doesn’t even compute with me. Over the summer, when things were super crazy with Derrick’s new job and I was in the thick of wedding season, we initiated a “wine and cheese night”. One night a week (usually Fridays) we create a “charcuterie” board of cheeses, meats, and crackers, we pour glasses of wine, and we have an “in-house” date night after the kids have gone to bed. Sometimes we watch a movie, sometimes we just sit and talk, sometimes we watch The Office – whatever the week calls for. It’s been a fantastic dedicated way to connect (plus we’ve discovered all sorts of new cheeses we love – win-win).
Our Abby-dog is now 13 1/2 years old. She spends most of her time curled up in a ball and sleeping, rather than playing much these days. Of course, that doesn’t stop her from enjoying a few rounds of frisbee thrown in the backyard or swimming in the Lake. She sleeps up in Braelynn’s bedroom every night (they have a really special bond). She’s starting to lose some of her hearing – she doesn’t even realize when someone comes to our door anymore. She gave us a bit of a scare a few weeks ago and Derrick had to take her to see an emergency vet, but it turned out to just be an infection and thankfully nothing more. She’s our old, sweet, grey girl and we treasure the days we have with her.
PHEW – so now you know why I write these Christmas letters digitally. Can you imagine if I printed this beast out to mail to our family & friends? If you’ve read all of this & made it this far – you deserve a gold star! Thank you so much!
BUT WAIT: there’s more! Normally at this point, I am working on the highlights film from our “Adventuring Abbeys” vlogs from the year – but since I’m about 16+ vlogs behind, that highlight film is going to have to wait until probably the beginning of next year (oops).
I do have all the OTHER traditional “end of year” stuff coming up: highlights from all the weddings & engagement sessions I photographed, the super popular behind-the-scenes post of Derrick & I working throughout the year, an Abby’s Saturday bloopers reel, my 2024 goals – so, lots of fun to come! I invite you to stick around & enjoy!
If you’d like to follow Derrick on YouTube, here is the link to his channel.
If you’d like to follow me on YouTube, here is the link to my channel.
If you’d like to follow Derrick on Instagram, here is the link to his account.
If you’d like to follow me on Instagram, here is the link to my account.
(Following our accounts listed above & my blog here is the best way to keep up with us throughout the year! We post a lot of content & we’d love it if you stuck around!)
