My Favorite Moments of 2014

A new year brings new memories, but there are always old memories I'll never forget, and 2014 was definitely more eventful than I could have ever hoped for. Here are some of my favorite (personal) moments of 2014.

Any time I Skyped Phoebe
Phoebe is my best friend despite the fact that we live over 2,000 miles away from each other. She's been one of my very best friends since we became friends in 2006. Since she's in California now and no longer a five-minute walk away, I value anytime we share together.
She and I mostly Skype over breaks from school with my twin sister, Ashley. Even though we haven't seen each other in over a year, when we Skype, it's like she never moved away, and that means the world to me. I've never had such a close friend for so long, so I really appreciate that we can still see
each other and talk, even if it's not in person.

When I met Shawn Johnson
February 4 was pretty much the best day ever. That was the day I met Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson. I'm a huge gymnastics fan, so when I found out that I was going to have the opportunity to meet Shawn, I was ecstatic.
Johnson was on the University of Illinois campus to commentate for a Big Ten gymnastics meet and was also a lecturer as part of the Illini Union Board's lecture series. Shawn spoke about the experiences written in her book, A Winning Balance. After the little speech Shawn gave, there was a book signing for fans to get books signed and to get a picture with her.

My sister and I getting our picture taken with Shawn. (The IUB staff said pictures had to be taken in groups of five, so three random guys we don't know had to be in our picture.) | Photo courtesy of the IUB Facebook

My Favorite Outfits of 2014

Fashion is one of my all-time favorite things, and I even wanted to be a fashion designer at one point of my life, so I love shopping and putting outfits together. I'm not exactly a fashion blogger, but here are my favorite outfits that I've worn this year.

365 days worth of outfits is obviously a lot to choose from, but I always take pictures of my outfit if I love it to post on Instagram, so that helped a lot.

Memorial Day weekend
The Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, my family had a get-together at my house following a mass for one of my deceased relatives. It was the first time of the year that my family was getting together, so I knew my mom would want me to dress up a bit. (But I was going to anyway.)

I was originally wearing a maxi dress, which I wore to church, but I didn't want to walk around the house and play with my little nieces in that dress since I'd probably mess it up and trip and fall or something, so I changed my outfit. The weather was great that day, so I decided to wear some scalloped hem shorts and a sleeveless collared shirt. This was actually the first day I wore any of these clothes.

The shirt is from A'GACI and is by Ambiance Apparel, and the shorts are from TJ Maxx by a brand called Mine. I got the shorts before the shirt and was looking for a shirt to go with them. The shirt, as you can tell, is actually sort of a peplum shirt, but it looked weird with the shorts, so I tucked it in. I know it might look a little weird since it's a peplum shirt tucked in, but it really doesn't look that weird when I tuck it in all the way so there's no visible bump like in the picture.

I really like the colors of the shorts and shirt. Coral is definitely one of my favorite colors for the year, especially in the summer.I love the scalloped hem of the shorts. It adds a little flair to otherwise plain shorts. Also, floral print is my favorite print, which made me really like the shirt even though I own a bunch of floral shirts.