our 2022 year in review

January

We started the year celebrating Lolo’s first birthday and playing in the snow as a family! She has brought us so much joy this year! APCO was honored to sponsor the Miss Wa Volunteer Pageant and we attended together as a family. We went on our first annual marriage retreat (little staycation in Seattle), where we planned, prayed, and created goals for the year. It was so restorative, we will for sure go every year from now on. Lolo and Bear have become just the best of friends. They play together all day, and snuggle. It’s precious. April’s mom (Gramma J) started to come visit us a couple times a month, which was amazing to give us a little break to continue to build our businesses. Grandparents are the best!

February

In February we held our first multi-model APCO photoshoot at our home, which was a success! Troy started a new tradition gifting his girls a rose for Valentine’s Day - so sweet. We also had a couple of our best friends from SoCal come up to visit for the weekend. I don’t think we’ve laughed that hard since. April started influencing for Harper Wilde, and Target - of course with Troy behind the camera. We also escaped some of the cold weather and snuck down to Vegas for a few days. We saw the Michael Jackson show, and loved it. Highly recommend if you ever get the chance to see it. We also started bi-monthly date nights together (we have two amazing babysitters), and it was incredible to eat warm food and spend time together just the two of us.

March

We got to dedicate Lolo at church as a family in March, which was super special. Thank you to everyone who prays over Lolo and loves her so much. Lolo also started walking at 13 months old! Oh and Encanto, the movie came out. We watched it every afternoon the entire month haha! The sun started peaking out again, so lots of walks along the lake with our little family. We made Lolo an Easter basket. April kept cooking delicious food, and began researching more about getting her food blog up and running. Tome continued to grow and the demand for a CEO on-site Dallas, TX became more clear- so we discussed what it would look like to move. Our little family just kept growing and staying busy! Our wonderful nanny moved on, so we just created better systems to stay organized so we could both work from home and also spend quality time with Lolo.

April

Oh you know, the best month ;) April felt so much love for her birthday! April also started making ginger shots at home to help with heath, wellness, and inflammation. We all kinda got addicted to them! We celebrated Easter at our church and Lolo started walking and never stopped! We were finally able to leave Lolo in Church Kids and attend church together as a family, instead of staying in the Mommy & Me Room - that was amazing! We did another staycation in Kirkland where we shot some APCO content, attended a wedding, and a birthday party. We also began to think about another baby…what?!

May

In May Lolo got her first campaign with Target, and she crushed it of course! We launched our upcycled authentic designer jewelry line, APCO Jewels, and got a couple blogs written about us! We had our Legacy Getaway with our Church Family which was so fun and inspiring. We celebrated our 4th Wedding Anniversary in Newport Beach, CA. We got to spend time with Troy’s family, and everyone loved hanging with Lolo! We also decided as a family the move to Dallas to continue leading Tome was not best for our family, so we had to bury the dream and Troy eventually stepped away as CEO of Tome. It was one of the hardest seasons of our life, but we just knew it would be too much for our family to uproot and move. As we mourned, prayed, adjusted our budget, and cried…this season forced us to really evaluate our priorities and rely on God for what was next in our life regarding Troy’s career. We felt like putting our family first over money, title, stock packages, etc was what we were called to do. That meant we would chose careers with healthy work/life balance, add in sabbaths each week, and make room for healthy relationships with our community we are blessed with. We kinda decided to kill the hustle, kill the need for more, and as we healed, we knew we made the right decision in stepping off the corporate treadmill.

June

Even though we were “going through it” - June was a fun month! We took Lolo to another Mariners game, and she loved it (or maybe just loved the dip n dots). We got casted to model for Hotel Level in Seattle which was so fun! We also had a fun lake day with April’s best friend Shaina and her family. Summer had arrived in Sammamish, and we loved every sunny day. We visited my mom at her new house in Gig Harbor, and shot some more products for APCO there. We had some fun birthday parties, and pool parties. It seemed like the world was getting back to normal. Troy officially resigned from Tome, and began looking into new opportunities.

July

We kept enjoying summer in the PNW which meant Lolo and April played in a little sprinkler pool in the back yard almost every day! We also went to pick strawberries for the first time, and it was fun - then tried a new BBQ place on the way home. We grilled every Monday which was super fun. Troy accepted a new position as the Executive Director of Team Church Org, a nonprofit focusing on building teams that build the church. We started to learn our new flow with Troy’s new position, plus April’s growing influencing business and APCO! Speaking of APCO, we had our once yearly summer 50% off sale, which went fantastic! April got hair extensions and was in love. Troy started taking Lolo to “school” down in Tacoma every Tuesday (the organization provides free childcare for staff), and Lolo loves going and playing with all her friends.

August

Troy turned 40 this August, so we threw him a small party. It was so special because Troy’s brother and two nephews flew up from SoCal to surprise him! We served at our church’s Team Church Conference where Troy was introduced as the new Executive Director. We got to host the online attendees together and it was super fun. Troy’s parents flew up to be with Lolo and Bear while we were at the 3 day conference - they had a blast together. April’s sister and brother-in-law came to visit from London and we threw her a surprise baby shower! Lolo started to learn so many words and began to communicate with us along with her signing. She started to say “up, mama, more, bear, dada, etc.”

September

Another season change…we welcomed fall. Lolo kept learning new words and repeating sounds - SO CUTE! I continued to get Inflectra infusions every eight weeks to stay in remission from Ulcerative Colitis. We were able to keep doing date nights together thanks to our amazing babysitters. APCO began to release new arrivals every Friday, which was great for business. Troy continued to be behind the camera for all April’s campaigns. We also started the APCO Partners program where we work with influencers to put APCO in front of new audiences. So far, it has been an amazing community of 6 women. We also went to another Mariners game, this time right behind the dugout with friends. Lolo stayed awake for the fireworks!

October

APCO celebrated one year in business! All our family and friends can use code: FAMBAM on the site to save 25%. APCO was also a sponsor at the Hope For Heroes Gala for the non-profit organization Stronger Families. We also got away for another staycation in Seattle and really enjoyed the city. While we were away our babysitters took Lolo to her first high school football game. We did the Puyallup - and it was pretty horrible (haha) Lolo had multiple meltdowns, tried to break into rides too big for her, kept running away, didn’t want to wait in any lines, etc - #toddlerlife. Troy said the best part was leaving (poor guy). Troy began serving on our Bellevue Location Church Team in a larger way, and it was awesome seeing him help lead the team strong. We decided to get on a bit of a health kick, and began lowing carbs and eating more keto friendly. We both lost weight and felt so much better! Lolo was a lion for Halloween and went to church saying “rawr” constantly.

November

We went to the pumpkin patch as a family and did all the fall things! We got our family pictures done early, and April felt on top of it! Lolo sprained her finger and needed to get a cast for 3 weeks. She was such a trooper. The smell when we took it off though - GROSS! We got the house decorated for Christmas and started gift shopping. We celebrated my high school swim coach being indicted to the Washington State Hall of Fame, and we completed our 10 week small group study at church called Rooted. April’s sister had her baby, and we have a new nephew Judah. We traveled down to SoCal for Thanksgiving and April ran her BFCM Sale remote with a great helper fulfilling orders back home (thanks Makenna!!!). We then travelled to Phoenix for our Team Church Insiders Getaway, which was so much fun. I think I saw orange trees for the first time in my life!

December

Here we are! The last month of the year. We celebrate Lolo’s second birthday on the 24th and the theme is “two groovy” - going to be so much fun! It’s been a wild ride getting out of the tech world and starting new ventures, but we see God’s love, favor, and blessing on our lives and businesses. We are incredibly thankful for all our family and friends who are in our corner, encouraging us. And if you have read this far, we are giving you a standing ovation. We know you are extremely busy and the fact you are interested in our year means so much!

What we’ve learned as a family this year:

1) When you prioritize communicating everything with your spouse, your marriage improves. Talk about the good, the bad, and everything in-between
2) You can’t do it all. You have to chose what is important to you and your family. Once you’ve chosen the priorities, focus in and do those things well. A great filter is “what are the things that only I can do?”
3) Levity brings such joy to your home and life. Learning to laugh, be silly, not take yourself too seriously, rest, be present, and enjoy life is the best medicine.

Our wish for you this next year is that you grow closer to the people that bring the best out of you, that you find joy in the journey, and that you know in your knower that you matter, you are loved, and you are enough.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Love,

Troy, April, Lolo, & Bear