Re-introducing Collective Joy

Hi friends. If you’re new here, we are too. Kind of. We are the Allard family, Mary and Aaron at the helm. We’re a mid-30s couple living in Colorado Springs with our three kids 5 and under. We’re of midwestern stock, but just moved to CO after 2 years in San Antonio, Texas. Aaron is an attorney and officer in the United States Air Force, hence all the moving around. Mary is also an attorney, working remotely in Environmental Policy for a large midwestern Corporation. Kids are Magnus (5), Charlie (3), and Clara (1). We also own a small business that focused on wedding and event floral but we’ve pressed pause on taking new clients given our latest move and COVID-19, so we’re leaning back into blogging as an outlet for our creative and celebratory endeavors and this time on a brand-new site.

What should you expect to find here if you follow along?

Fun Food! Do you like food? Do you like it even more when it’s on theme? You’ll find lots of that here.

Cute kids! Do you like ridiculous and adorable children? We’ve got three!

Elaborate Celebrations! Do you like to celebrate? We’re all about it.

Underplanned Projects! Are you interested in the occasional DIY project? Us too, but we have a habit of just jumping right in and making it work.

We’re going to use this page to keep our far-flung friends and family up to date on our happenings and holidays, but welcome anyone who wants to follow along. We also plan to slowly add some of the content from our old site and our photo archives to catch-up, chronicle, and share fun we’ve had along the way.

Even in a tough year like 2020, there is still SO much to celebrate and we intend to make the very most of it!

We’re calling our site Collective Joy, because a) it’s the name of our little floral & design business and B) because we think bringing people and ideas together to create and celebrate our joy is a pretty great thing