Lily Foster : 2017 || Year in Review

Wow, what a year 2017 was. Throughout the past year I have become so much happier, I have met so many incredible people while keeping my favorite people in my life!!

January

The first month of 2017 was rough, if we are being honest. We had a few snow days, which were nice. Over those days off I started this blog. I finally had a place to share my outfits and all my crazy thoughts. Thank you to anyone has followed along. I watched all of Freaks and Geeks. For my cousin's birthday, we celebrated at Top Golf and they had some killer music playing and I danced a little too much. Shelly turned 13 and we had a lovely time celebrating!! I also started watching The Office and it took me the entire year to finish watching it, oops.

February

In February, my uncle became a US citizen and we threw him an AMERICAN PARTY, complete with an American Flag cake. As a family, we went to an ODU basketball game! Later in the month, we had a few really warm days, so we headed to the Boardwalk. My mom and I went on a little day trip to CNU and William & Mary for my first college visits. At the end of the month, I went to North Carolina to watch my friends in the Distinguished Young Women pageant. While I was in NC, I went with some friends to Burger Batch in Winston Salem and got the coolest milkshake ever!!

March

This month, I learned so much about film photography and had a ton of fun playing around with it!! I watched my little cousin play basketball, played mini golf with the fam, and ate lots of food!! I read "The Book Thief" and it was actually pretty good. I took a cool pic of my dad because his shirt made his eyes look nice!! I died Easter eggs with my cousins and sister and got acrylics for the first time. We celebrated my Grandpa's birthday with sports themed decorations!!

April

In April, I went to Ring Dance where my group got the dance floor all to ourselves and ended up being the last people to leave. I ran the Color Run the next day! My family and I went on a road trip to NYC for spring break. On our way we stopped in Rehoboth and Baltimore. Once we got to New York, I took a picture next to the "Hamilton" sign and made my friends think that I saw it. I then saw "Get on Your Feet" and ate cupcakes from Baked by Melissa. We went to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum and on our way out of the city I took a pic of a super cool looking wall! On our way home, we stopped in Harrisonburg and walked around James Madison University. At the end of April, we celebrated my mom's birthday!!

May

In May, aka my fav month of the year, my dad put a zip-tie on my wrist in Target and it got stuck there so I had to run to the car and cut it off. We celebrated Fynley's first birthday with a trip to PetSmart for a new toy and some treats. On the 12th, my family and I celebrated my 17th birthday. We went to dinner at PF Chang's, we went to an escape room, and had some delicious Red Velvet Cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory. I read Jay Asher's 13 Reasons Why and my love of photography grew with my new Nikon D3400. I received the "Most Likely to Have Your Own Fashion Brand" Award in SCA ;) lol. And I celebrated National Brother's Day with my favorite little bro.

June

In June, I finished up my Junior year. I went to Top Golf with my dad's fam and I went to a Tides baseball game. I started watching That 70's Show and took some of my favorite pictures of the sunset.

July

July was great. I worked the first few weeks as a camp counselor. I celebrated the 4th of July with my family. I went with Ellie to see the sunrise and took my absolute favorite pics of the sky! I took another cool pic of my dad. We visited Fynley's little brothers and sisters. My mom and I went on a road trip to Harrisonburg to tour James Madison University and we stayed overnight in Charlottesville. We got a jet ski and took my Bestemor out on it (she's a baller).

August (AKA THE GREATEST MONTH OF THE YEAR)

August was for sure the best month of 2017! I played around with my camera and tried to channel my inner Brandon Woelfel. My BFF Claudia came to visit!!!! We went to Busch Gardens and watched the sunset. We went to Redbox like 45 times and watched a ton of movies!! We went on a cruise to the Bahamas and had the most fun of all time. They played some pretty great movies at night and we ate a lot of ice cream. On our way home from the cruise, we met a woman, who called herself C. Joy, in the airport. She was easily the most inspiring person I have ever met and we all cried when she told us her life stories. I got my senior yearbook pic done at school and made Claudia come with me. I took my SEN18R pics with Lexie Hand and got way too excited about graduation! I visited JMU, AGAIN, with my family and dressed Shelly up in my dad's work gear. My mom, sister, cousin and I watched the Solar Eclipse through our homemade cereal box viewer! And to round up the month, I helped out with Falcon Fest (welcoming the freshman) at school. I got to give the freshies a "Dynamic Duo" themed tour around the school with my girl, Shelby!!

September

In September, Shelly and I spent the night with my cousin and watched High School Musical (duh)! I started my SEN18R year and took a picture with Lily on the first day of Kindergarten ;) My mom got me a journal to write down everything I get freaked out about and it is the best journal ever! I finished watching HIMYM and started watching Game of Thrones. I went to a football game and cheered on the Falcons! I made my first poster of the year and it looked halfway decent. I volunteered my arm for a stat project and I actually volunteered in my cousin's class, she teaches first grade! They are pretty cute tbh. I learned about neurons and the brain in AP Psychology by making candy neurons and play-doh brains!! And at the end of the month, my mom and I went to the Jack Johnson concert, which I don't have any pics from, but it was incredible... 10/10.

October

October was super eventful!! I started off the month with a super great pun/pick-up line (feel free to use it). My mom and I went to Blacksburg for a tour of Virginia Tech and I loved it!! I went on yet another trip with Shelly to get Mexican food! I went to North Carolina for my old school's homecoming! My friends looked incredible on the Homecoming Court and I took more pictures of the sunset! I went with Claudia and her parents to a UNC football game and we walked around Chapel Hill for a bit! It also rained on us while we were at the game and it was lowkey SUPER FUN! Shelly and I almost bought a fish. On the tenth, I helped plan and carry out the first Middle School Citywide SCA meeting of the year with my co-chair Kiyah! On Friday the 13th, I bought two boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts for $10 and went with my friends to a football game! Throughout the month, I worked on a project for Sociology where I had to do research on my school, but from a different decade. I chose the '90s and I had a ton of fun looking through old yearbooks. I got Rupi Kaur's book The Sun & Her Flowers. I started and finished Mindhunter and became completely obsessed. I helped decorate the SEN18R hallway for homecoming with our Finding Nemo theme. I took pictures of Lois for no particular reason. I dressed up in crazy socks for mix-and-match day and wore my llama pjs for pajama day during spirit week. I won Student of the Month in NHS ;) ahaha! I helped my class decorate our float for the homecoming parade by literally just dipping their brushes in paint! I took a picture of Ciara in her Dory costume because it made my entire day! I went to the Homecoming game at my school with my friends and tried to take an artsy picture of the sunset, but Spencer photobombed it. I went to the Homecoming dance the next day with Shelby, Megan, and Spencer. We went back to Shelby's house and watched High School Musical with Ian, because he had never seen it before... AN OUTRAGE. I wore my denim overalls and Shelly took some cute pics of me. I went to Starbucks with Lois and Shelby and got like two things done. I applied to JMU and celebrated my dad's birthday! And on Halloween, I dressed up as Arya Stark. Krissy was Sansa Stark, Shelly was a cactus, and Fynley was a "Rufferee".

November

In November, I started out the month by being a counselor at Elementary Leadership Workshop in the Cypress Council with my partner, Josh! The next day, Lois, Jeanine, and I had a Twister Paint War thing, I don't really know what happened there lol. I saw a cool car in the Target parking lot. I spent an afternoon with Shelby and Spencer at the beach taking pictures. And then two days later, I went with Shelby to a nursery and took pictures of her in the rain with all the cute plants and scenery. I went to the SPCA with SCA and got to play with puppies. I celebrated my friend Sam's 18th birthday! I watched all of Stranger Things and Jeanine doodled on mine and Lois' hands. My mom and cousin took pictures of me and Shelly for our Christmas card. I dropped it low and Krissy managed to capture the moment on camera... ICONIC. I celebrated Thanksgiving with my family, I went shopping on Black Friday and bought one thing, and I got accepted to Longwood University. I took pictures of Ellie. My mom and I went down to the bay because a baby Humpback Whale had washed up on shore, unfortunately it had already died, but I learned so much about whales that day and it was very interesting. I FINALLY applied to Virginia Tech and I spent an entire day watch The Bucket List Family on Youtube.

December

In December, Shelly finally let us go to IHOP. We decorated our house for Christmas and Shelly put on a Santa hat and the tree skirt and said she was the most Christmas of all. The lowest point in my year was when I came home to find my $5 bill shredded by my dog. So, I taped it back together... pretty impressive. I went to Sweet Frog's with Jeanine. I did a student exchange with another school and got to spend a day with Morgan at her school. The next week she got to spend a day with me at my school. I got accepted to Radford University. I watched too many vine compilations on Youtube and Shelly and I had more Mexican food dates and we had alot of laughs! My family and I drove around and looked at Christmas lights. Shelly helped me make a gingerbread house, since I am incapable. I made a holiday trivia game for our holiday party in SCA. I wore a ton of cute socks the whole month and a took some more pics of the sky. I found Lilly Pulitzer ties and got a smoothie/acai bowl with Ellie. My mom took pictures of me and Shelly under a LIT tunnel. I fell in love with Bob Ross and wore one of my Bob Ross t-shirts. I watched a thousand stand up comedy specials on Netflix including Aziz Ansari, Bo Burnham, and Jim Gaffigan. I celebrated Christmas with my family and Shelly got a Keurig. She made me some hot chocolate in my Star Wars mug. I wore my corduroy overalls and dabbed on the haters. I did a mini photoshoot with Shelly. I did a bigger photoshoot with Delaney and Shelly in Norfolk's Neon District and at Starbucks and had an absolute blast!! I found a super cute bookstore and spent like 30 minutes walking around it. I TOOK MORE PICTURES OF THE SKY... shocker. I took pictures of Shelly and her friend that evening, too. I took pictures of the bonfire that my fam had in the driveway. I went to the last sunrise of the year with Ellie, Shelly, and Kenzie. It was super cold and the clouds were covering the sky but... it's okay!! On New Year's Eve, I redid my gallery wall in my room, I filled out the "Year in Review" paper with my family and I went to Shelby's house. I got to finish 2017 with some of my favorite people. We played Just Dance and critiqued the New Year's Eve performers. I laughed way too hard with everyone one and Shelby's sis and I are now lowkey bffs.