Reflecting on the Past: Celebrating SahmReviews’ 10th Anniversary

When you stop and look back at the last ten years of your life, what do you see? Hopefully it’s filled with joy or maybe even surprise. Each decade of my adult life has brought about something noteworthy, but when I started this blog 10 years ago, I couldn’t have imagined the doors it would have opened.

As a family, it has given us an opportunity to play more board games in a year than most people see in a lifetime. Multiply that by several years of gaming and imagine how many we’ve played! We’ve met a multitude of game designers in person, many of whom we now call our friends. The girls conducted interviews of the creators of Bop It and Jenga during one of our trips to the Chicago Toy and Game Fair and that’s only the tip of a very large board game iceberg.

It hasn’t been all about games though. We’ve received exclusive invites to Walt Disney World, a Disney Cruise and have visited two different Beaches resorts out of the country. How many people can say they rode the roller coasters at a Disney park before it opened for the day and a different one elsewhere during a private party after the park had closed? Not many, but we can.

The girls and I were invited to Nintendo of America Inc. Headquarters in Redmond, Washington last year where they had a chance to record a video with a couple Nintendo Minute stars. It was part of a fun filled whirlwind visit. The fun has even extended beyond our immediate family. Several years ago, I was able to treat my dad to a dream when we walked inside the ropes at a PGA tournament.

We’ve worked with a number of amazing brands to feature their products over the years, but the things that have absolutely blown me away are the once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to go behind-the-scenes during visits to various corporate offices. The list includes trips to the headquarters of Netflix, Dr. Pepper, Domino’s and Pixar. Netflix flew Scott and I to New York for the release of Season 2 of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. On one occasion, I recorded a video with Grant Imahara for a YouTube series presented by McDonald’s and acted as their brand ambassador at a blogger convention at a different time. Last year I toured Marshall Space Flight Center and stood atop the S-1C Static Test Stand that was used to test the Saturn V in 1965-66. It was breathtaking – both figuratively and literally.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how cool it has been to join Disney on the red carpet for Inside Out and Captain America: Civil War, go on-set for some of their TV shows and interview a variety of talented actors and artists. That’s a very abbreviated list of the things I’ve participated in with them!

While I started this blog on my own so many years ago, it wouldn’t have flourished if Scott hadn’t joined the team. Not only does he process all our images, he acts as site administrator and does all kinds of other technical stuff that frees me up to hobnob with the people that make all these things possible.

What comes next is yet to be seen… but I’m okay with that because it’s been an amazing ride this far. Thank you for reading, for supporting the blog, for sharing your thoughts along the way and for joining us on this adventure.