Winter Fresh 2016

We spent the holidays in New Jersey with family, as usual. We try to leave at the ass-crack of dawn here in Dover to beat the inevitable Mass, CT, NY, and NJ traffic. We're pretty tired of the trek back and forth and we openly wish our families would all move somewhere else. Jason baked a ton of cookies and mastered some loaves of bread for all to enjoy though, making the whole trip a little sweeter. We drank a bit. We helped my mother-in-law with her paint and sip class in Asbury Park, which turned out to be pretty fun. Overall, it was a nice gift to spend time with everyone. We have a big family so it's easy to feel pulled in twenty directions...but the trip was low-key. We came home shortly after Christmas to fix our broken car, (all's fine now). New Years was spent at Sara's house (our new hire - more on her later), lots of good old friends came up to visit and we played ridiculous games and watched balls drop. 

We have been successful in convincing a family member to leave the tri-state and come live the good life in New Hampshire. Jason's brother Ryan made the shift in November of this year. He took a job at UNH and we all got a little apartment together. We share similar ideas about living within our means and striving for a simpler existence that emphasizes having more time over having more money and stuff, so it's been a very smooth transition. Everything fell into place and I'm grateful for how easy it's been. Although I may be the only person in the house that notices when the toilet is a bit gross, we're getting along just fine. It's all just part of a colorful life living with boys. We've been watching Jeopardy every night and playing trivia at our favorite bar once a week, so our factoid game has definitely improved since he got here, which makes me happy.

Here's Ryan and Jay tapping away in our cozy little apartment. 

We also share a house with 8 friends in the White Mountains for skiing and snowboarding. We've been up there a couple of times this year. We feel so fancy when we talk about it, but it's such an inexpensive winter getaway when split between so many people. We chase the snow when we can mid-week, as long as it's not too busy in the studio. But as our business grows we have to keep a more "9-5" like schedule and that's definitely weird for us. We're adapting. We really love it up there and have plans to build something in those mountains. More on that way later. 

Above - Franconia Notch, White Mountains New Hampshire. Below - The base of Loon Mountain, where we have our passes for the season. This was our first day out. 

So here we are, fresh into the new year and feelin' groovy. The NY NOW trade show is less than three weeks away and we've been hustling to get our pre-show mailers done, make new prints to debut at the show, finish catalog designs, brainstorm marketing ideas, etc. It's a blur, but we love the blur. Follow our Instagram to really dig in. Happy New Year! -b.