Top Ten Thursdays - Our Blog in 2016

Thursday and it's time to come up with our top ten list with this week being about our blog in 2016. Thanks again to Tamara at Confessions of a part-time working mom for hosting this blog challenge.

2016 was our first year of living in Scotland so of course our blog featured that a lot this year as we explored and became more familiar with our new home. I discovered blogging challenges and also gave us the challenge of finding more and more fun days to blog about.

So here, in no particular order, is my top ten of our blog in 2016.

1. Goodbye London, Hello Scottish Highlands was our first post of the year, which was fitting as that was the predominant emotion in January - goodbyes with lots of new hellos.

2. The first blogging challenge I discovered was the A to Z challenge. Basically a post for all 26 letters of the alphabet on every day of April except for the Sundays. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Well, it was a challenge for a reason and I've learnt so many lessons to prepare me for April 2017. I think I'll start planning my posts in January this year. My favourite post for the challenge was for the letter Y, which was Young at heart - I think I really captured the heart of mine and Ken's relationship.

The post in the A to Z challenge that was viewed the most was, of course, Cats - no surprise to this crazy cat lady.

3. The next challenge I found was in May and it was the monthly photographic blogging challenge that is hosted by P.J. at A 'lil Hoohaa. P.J. posts the theme for the month on the 1st and we post our contributions on the last day of the month - five photos that we feel represent the theme. I think my favourite post I've done for this challenge was the month that the theme was baseball - not something that's very common in the Scottish Highlands, but I twisted the theme to suit me and was really happy with the results - have a look and see what you think by clicking HERE.

4. Selfies - I know some people hate these, but if it wasn't for selfies Ken and I would rarely have pictures taken together. I've done a count and was shocked to find that in 2016 we've included 53 selfies in our posts, and they're the ones that made the cut. Usually I have to take more than one as my beloved likes to pull faces to start with - don't worry, they're all saved away in case I need them in the future.

5. Our other recurring thing in 2016 (and probably every other year) is the amount of graveyards that have featured. This year we've blogged about 37 different graveyards!!! We've visited more than that but I haven't done all the posts yet. There's just something about old graveyards that appeal to me and I love spending time in them.

6. Most commented on post - surprise, surprise, it's Cats again. See it's true what they say, people spend all their time looking at cats on the internet.

7. The post I most enjoyed writing this year was Furbies make every day fun. I freely admit that I'm well on the way to being a crazy cat lady but they're not the only beasties that I have room for in my heart. Sadly we had to say goodbye to Muffin Monster in November so now we have the terrible two, Cookie and Bramble, who have a sort of love hate relationship.

8. The third challenge that I joined this year is Top Ten Thursdays which is hosted by Tamara at Confessions of a part-time working mom. Each week Tamara sets the theme and then we come up with our list of ten - as I'm doing now for this post. I love sitting down and trying to come up with my top ten and sometimes it's really hard to narrow it down to only ten, so I often have to employ my stranded on a desert island technique - if I could only have ten things, what would they be. My three favourite posts for this have been the first one I took part in, Top Ten 80's Songs (very difficult to cull down to ten), Top Ten things to know about me (very important), and Top Ten Plans (not always going the way we want).

9. Shockingly to me, we've had over 50,000 views of our blog from people all over the world. I hope that what I write isn't too boring and I hope that it makes people smile. Thank you to everyone who has joined us on our days of fun via the world wide web.

10. In September it was four years since I started our blog and this year I've managed to do 110 posts to date - that's more than double the best year I've done in the past. I'm loving having a chance to sit down and write about our days out and it motivates me to explore the world more and to find different ways of showing to to you.

So there you have it, my top ten for our blog in 2016. Why don't you pop over to Tamara's blog to see what my fellow bloggers have come up with - click HERE to visit.

Until next time, be good, stay safe, and thanks for stopping by.

Pamela & Ken
xxxxxxxxxxxx