Ten years ago today, Mandy published her very first post on this blog and Out and About Mom was born! I’ve been thinking about how to commemorate this day for months now– such a HUGE milestone for us! But between coordinating busy camp schedules for three kiddos, doing our best to catch up with friends and family members we haven’t seen in over a year, and an inexplicable decision to embark on a kitchen renovation (why did I think summertime when all the kids are out of school would be a good time for this???), I’ve had hardly a moment to work on anything that even remotely approaches flashy. But I guess that’s par for the course in the world of busy parenthood, right?!
But I couldn’t let the day pass without some fanfare, so I’ve put together a short list of some big blogging moments as well as some fun throwback pictures (who are those babies holding babies? It can’t be us!). So enjoy this little scroll down memory lane with us as we celebrate all that we’ve accomplished in the past decade!
Like…
That time we published our first post on the blog (and we thought 60 views was a TON! Haha!)
That time we had our first photo shoot with the amazing Kathryn Deane Photography and created our first professional-looking blog design.
That time we celebrated one year of blogging with this fun slideshow highlighting some of our favorite moments (and funny bloopers) from our first year of outings.
That time we snagged a front page feature in my town’s local newspaper– our first real press!
That time two more kiddos joined the OAAM team, and we were once again blessed with the talents of Kathryn Deane Photography who helped us set the stage for our first major blog redesign. (If we thought a photo shoot with three kiddos was a zoo, we were in for a wake-up call trying to wrangle five! Chaos!)
That time we started working on our new blog design and our now familiar Out and About Mom logo, as well as our signature pink and navy color scheme, was first debuted.
That time our first Summer Bucket List went viral, putting us on the mom blog map, winning us hundreds of new readers over the course of just a few weeks and landing us a segment on NBC Connecticut. From then on, the Summer Bucket List for the Connecticut Mom has become our signature post, drawing thousands of views every year.
That time we made our first TV appearance on Better Connecticut, which lead to a year of regular in studio and on location segments with a few of our favorite local celebrities: Scot Haney, Kara Sundlun and Melissa Cole.
That time we were so completely honored when the Connecticut Office of Tourism asked us to participate in a panel discussion on blogging at the annual Governor’s Conference on Tourism. I spent the morning beside two other amazing and successful local bloggers talking to Connecticut businesses about leveraging our audiences to bring increased tourism revenue to our state.
Since then we’ve continued to increase our readership, work with exciting new sponsor partners, and of course keep “scouting your CT outing.” Yup, our little blog baby has grown up in ways we never could have imagined! And we couldn’t be more proud.
Just for fun, I thought I’d include a few interesting stats…
Out and About Mom by the Numbers:
838 – the number of blog posts published on OAAM
2.6 million – the total number of times www.outandaboutmom.com has been visited
30,000 – the most views OAAM ever received in just one day!
10,508 – the number of likes on the OAAM Facebook page
50 – the number of playgrounds we have visited and written about
2,000 – the number of pounds of fruit we have picked over the past decade (okay, I may be exaggerating on this one.)
6 – the number of guest bloggers who have also contributed regularly to our site (including two Out and About Dads!)
3 – the number of kiddos on the OAAM team when we debuted the blog in 2011
12 – the number of kiddos regularly featured on OAAM today (we are sooooooo outnumbered! Haha!)
Of course, our biggest accomplishment has been reaching all of you! When we started this blog, we couldn’t have imagined how many amazing love letters we would get from readers; how many of you would introduce yourselves to us when you saw us out and about and tell us how much the blog means to you and your family; how often our blog would be shared between friends, neighbors, coworkers and family members as a prized resource for new CT parents or parents new to CT. That has absolutely been the most rewarding part of our blogging experience. Thank you!
To help us commemorate this milestone year, we’d love to hear from all of you about some of your favorite OAAM memories, whether it’s learning about someplace new from our blog posts, meeting new friends at one of the classes or playgroups we’ve highlighted, discovering a community of like-minded parents or just laughing at all of our missteps and bumbles along the way (we tell it like it is here at Out and About Mom!). So please help us celebrate by leaving a comment on this post about what Out and About Mom means to you.
It’s been an incredible 10 years exploring our state, connecting with so many other local parents, and watching our own kiddos grow up before our eyes in thousands of blog post pictures (this blog is the closest thing I’ve got to a scrapbook– no joke!). With the help of new Out and About Moms (and Dads!), we hope to continue helping you find new, fun things to do with your family right here in (and around) Connecticut. Because as we’ve always said, the world is even more amazing when you see it through the eyes of your children!
Thank you again for TEN wonderful years! It’s been a great adventure!
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