Our House in the Middle of Our Street

I have *so* many trips to attend to on the old blog. I am now keeping most of my traveling records on my Instagram, but this geriatric website seems a permanent spot for some of the excitement. It's my goal to (this Christmas break) catch up on many years of travel!  This trip was a GSW to where our friend Ali was stationed - in Albuquerque, NM, along with some close-by Sante Fe adventures! We did 4 states, 2 national parks, a protected wilderness, did an international event, took horse rides in the desert, tore up Moab on a side-by-side, went to a million (?) museums, and had delicious New Mexican food.  Every single one of these photos, I believe, was from my friend Emily or Ali. The only one I took (I think?) was the picture OF them during sunrise at the Arch.  Nothing is in order, either! Just bear with me (wipes brow from 2022).  Day 1:  We drove to Sante Fe to visit Meow Wolf (WEIRD and I loved it), visited historical Sante Fe (the buildings are beautif...

Aren't these just beauties? My best friend, Emily, owner and founder of Topline Photography , does portraits, often with animals and their people. Or rather, people and their pets! She specializes in that niche and does phenomenal work because of her history at a vet clinic and present work training horses and their riders!  As evidenced by the photos on my banner, we have not gotten family photos taken in three or more years! One thing I really wanted to do this year was get our family's photos updated, and I was so grateful Emily was able to squeeze in some time for us to do this. I've got over 50 beautiful photos just waiting on my hard drive for printing, framing, and book-making. I've got two impatient family members (surprisingly, not who you'd think) who hate having their picture taken and she took these and many more gorgeous photos in less than 20 minutes before they gave up and died a fiery Nebraska-heat death. Now that's great serv...

Wouldn't you know it? I traveled back to Nebraska for a week of wedding, and I didn't take a single photo except a 'plane window' photo the first day, and a token 'bags in the airport' photo on the way home! I didn't take my phone because it doesn't work outside of Canada, so my photo options were limited to my ipad, which I didn't take everywhere I went, though I should have brought it along to document the wedding week lead-up. I was too busy having fun and making memories with my elementary school friends and the bride's college roomates before horsing around (literally) with my friend at her ranch, Hickory Hallow , before I flew back home. Leading up to the wedding, most of the bridesmaids spent the nights in a suite together and the first night out (Thursday), was the bachelor/bachelorette party, in which I had the best cocktail I've ever had (a peach mojito), and the longest I've stayed awake in what feels like a decade (nearly...

Yesterday, on July 2, 2015, Stefan and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary with a less than extraordinary, yet more than ordinary, routine day. We were able to celebrate together with a 3 hour dinner and beach walk the week before thanks to friends, so today felt really 'normal'. It was just as hot in British Columbia as it was on that Saturday morning in Nebraska 10 years prior. We spent the evening having dinner (homemade cheese pizza since we're at the bottom of the barrel for groceries), and then Stefan driving around on his sport bike, getting it ready to sell for an interested buyer ( the more-than -ordinary part) to exchange for a cruiser that will give him a more comfortable commute. It was a really busy evening, and we weren't even really around each other, but that's how marriage is. Some days, it's just so normal and uneventful, but there's comfort in that, too. A friend recently celebrated her anniversary with 'numbers', and I tho...

Costco aftermath This is what my kitchen looks like for at least an hour after a Costco trip. I haul in everything after an exhausting journey through the busiest store (seemingly) in this country and I just can't do a dang thing more. For an hour. While I get a breather. And eat some obligatory reward chocolate. Eventually I'll get to those piles and everything will be put in it's proper place, but usually it stays like this for that necessary hour.                                                                            *** I don't think I'm alone in sensing that our culture has gone hog-wild with unrealistic expectations in just about every department, and I want to tell my friends, and anyone else who will listen, that we can only do so much in a day.  My husband once told...

**This lovely post is brought to you by my writerly friend, Victoria ! ** If my blog were Sarah-fied it would be called “Our Apartment Squished On The Corner”. I am so crazy excited to be guest-posting on Our House in the Middle of Our Street today and I’d like to write about exactly that: houses, streets, and where we belong. Over the years my idea of ‘home’ has shifted. In high school, home was a place I was desperate to leave. In college, home was a fluid concept: dormitories, basements, and guest bedrooms. As a young married and new mom, this settled rambler finds that home is a place where I have begun to lay down roots. I do enjoy homemaking, though I’m far from winning any sort of Pinterest 'Home of the Year' award . But if I’m not careful, I start to believe that home is confined to four walls, a ceiling, and a toy-strewn floor. Home, if by ‘home’ we mean a place of belonging, cannot be defined with geographic coordinates. C.S. Lewis’ words are helpfu...

Believe it or not, but there is no filter on this Birch Bay sunset photo, just the black rubber phone case that got in the way. It's almost impossible to capture the water -sunsets here, but this photo comes pretty dang close. The thing about not having a lot of money to spend on extras, is that it makes you incredibly resourceful. Because you have boundaries, you have to create your own environment within those boundaries, and it's a well known fact that boundaries create geyser-like surges of creativity . For example, you should see the gourmet meals that come from my kitchen when I have very, very little in the fridge. After having kids, my few hours of time by myself (naps, then quiet time, or early morning hours) is the time where my mind is clear, I can get a lot done, and I put the pedal to the medal with the projects I want to work on. It's as if the constraints forced me to narrow my focus. When we moved here 18 months ago, without close family nearby (our...

 Today we've been living in Blaine for one year. We moved into our place exactly 365 days ago, even though we left Lincoln on February 18th, 2013. Outside of a 3 week stint in Europe, 3 weeks and 1 day was the longest I'd ever been away from family, and from my hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska. The first month was a really odd feeling. We were on vacation and living our life! We're still living our life, but we feel a little less vacation-y and a little more real world-y lately (car fix,  school field trips! grocery shopping...) and it's winter, grey, and raining, and consistent sunshine is still months away. The snow here is a one-day thing. The clear days are breathtaking.  We went into this cross-country move with very realistic expectations. We knew we'd miss our family and friends most of all, we questioned the work atmosphere Stefan was leaving (meaning, if he'd find another great job that suited him as well as his in Lincoln did), and we ...

A baby crab We are slowly discovering the culture and what the Pacific Northwest has to offer, more and more everyday. We have places to go, things to see, and people to meet. This has helped our transition to a different part of the country so much; the invitations for dinner, the beauty of the seascape, and even what a decent end-of-winter feels like with rain instead of late snowfalls. We've come at a good time. We're 'getting out there' and getting our feet wet (literally, me in the Vibrams) exploring nature and also meeting new people. Last week, however, was a killer . A morning view of the Blaine public fishing pier Not one to miss the irony of a dose of my own medecine , but the past month and a half of Stefan's long hours had finally caught up with me and it was taking an extreme toll on Thursday and Friday. I know part of the problem was because it happens every month (ahem) that I get a little bit irritable, snarky and overly tired. The o...

To even begin this post, seems overwhelming to me. I don't even know where to begin without making this a novel, and inevitably, never hitting publish. I'll try to summarize as best I can the actual moving week, and hurry along to the more exciting part of it--where we've settled. *** On February 19th, we hit the road for a long drive with a fully packed Penske truck at roughly 8:30 in the morning.  We drove through 4 hours of the hardest wind I've even driven through, and then it was flat and stark Nebraska horizons until we hit Denver, for a late dinner with my grandmother who lives there. We were able to stop and visit with her for a couple hours before going onward to Laramie, WY, where we'd hunker down and fall asleep, exhausted, within minutes of checking into our hotel.  Driving; morning, noon and night with only stops for bathroom breaks, and gas-refills, with one long hour stop allotment for dinner, until we arrived in Bellingham, Washington, l...

A regular morning routine. 6:40AM.

A second shot, for the second day.

An excellent way to start the December Photo Project . December 1, 2012. My mom's wedding day. 

Source: google.com via Andre on Pinterest This week we're travelling to Vancouver, British Columbia for 6 days. We haven't been back there in about 2 years so we're looking forward to some down time exploring, resting, and seeing Stefan's friends. I'm taking a blogging break from now* through next week. I'll be back on Monday, June 18th. 

One of these places we're travelling to over the next week. Can you guess which one it is? Source: media-cache3.pinterest.com via Sarah on Pinterest Source: sunsurfer.tumblr.com via Sarah on Pinterest Source: sunsurfer.tumblr.com via Sarah on Pinterest Source: sunsurfer.tumblr.com via Sarah on Pinterest Source: Uploaded by user via Sarah on Pinterest Source: sunsurfer.tumblr.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Source: imgfave.com via Sarah on Pinterest My goals for 2012 are short and tidy, but the hardest part of any resolution is simply trying to squeeze out more time than is available to us within a twelve month period. I like to take this list and jot out thoughts and intentionally sit down to think about, overall, what I want to accomplish with the time I'll be given, God willing. As far as physical health goes, I'd like to continue on my path of making sleep, exercise, proper nutrition, and portion control important, and other than loosing a bit more weight (just to be back at college weight, so close!) I'm in maintenance mode for this, but it's still a goal. I learned a couple years ago that I'm the best version of myself when I get between 8-9 hours of sleep at night and get plenty of exercise. Another goal is something that we've had to really compromise on. We have a goal of not having one, or both of us, away from the house during evenings more than 2 tim...

Bad blogger. Bad, bad blogger! Ach, I couldn't even make it on the right day last week. I don't even know why I was so busy, but I do remember what I was doing on Friday ! Although I wasn't an early riser for the marriage of William and Kate , I did happen to witness the balcony greeting & double kiss, which I thought was a fun thing to catch morning-of. I remember reading loads about the royal family throughout my life, and I remember a lot about Princess Diana's death. I'm not a trivia person, but I do think it is fun to watch 'history' events like this when I can, perhaps because they are just so extravagant, and the only thing similar in the states would be the inauguration of the presidents (without the amazing wedding dress and coach !). Enjoy... ROYAL! (had to totally include this little punky...every time I saw her she was making a stink face! love it!) all images found via weheartit.com