There’s this thing that happens when you are a professional photographer. You photograph clients and have every intention to document your own family but just completely forget to grab the camera, left it at work or decide your IPhone is good enough. My biggest hurdle as a photographer and mom is that I don’t want to be hiding behind my camera to capture the moments with our family, I want to be part of them. That’s why I have so often left the camera on the shelf and haven’t documented those moments.

At the end of each month I back up all of our family photos and recently started to notice I was relying so much on my IPhone and rarely taking any photos with my “real camera.” I saw a friend on Facebook documenting her family by taking a photo memory a day as well as watching the beautiful images on You are My Wild. That seemed simple enough to me and all I had to do was make sure my camera was on hand, even if it was just at home that I took the photos. I started at the beginning of May and it’s been really fun. I just leave my camera out so it’s easy to grab to capture a quick moment. Zane has gotten used to it now and asks me several times what I took pictures of that day.  I am realizing I can snap a couple of photos and jump right back into the action. I’m not holding myself to some strict rule that I absolutely have to take a photo everyday of our family but I’m trying to keep with it because I’m loving the everyday moments I’m capturing of our family life right now. This stage of our family is going by so fast and just looking back on this past month’s photos made me smile and remember how fun this crazy, stressful time is for us all.

Playing peekaboo with Jude on our Friday mornings together.

Jude wants to be so much like his big brother. He wears a backpack to the bus stop each day.

He also uses the backpack for hide-n-seek.

Zane’s school had a Bike to School Day and he was so excited about riding with his friends to school.

We try our best to have a variety of healthy snacks for our boys but every once and awhile I buy them Trader Joe’s breakfast bars and they treat them like they are candy! One day after school we attempted making homemade breakfast bars for a healthier, gluten free version. They liked making them but not so much eating them.

Spring means our house has new guests including rollie polies/basketball bugs, whatever you call them. The boys found one, named him Nicolas and tried to keep him. Nicolas didn’t do so well in the Tupperware container so we told them he went back outside. Now they keep finding Nicolas and his family outside. At one time I looked over from yard work to see Zane with five bugs crawling on his arms and more in his hands. Gotta love boys!

This photo scares me…he looks way too old. He is going to be a teenager before we know it.

Jude loves playing any kind of game, especially when it involves chasing him. After the bus stop one morning he wouldn’t come inside and just wanted us to chase him around the cars. I wish the camera could capture the sound of his belly laughs.

Luna is our family dog but really, she is the boy’s dog. They have a bound with her that is so precious and she eats up every minute of love from them. I walked into the playroom to see this quiet moment with her and Zane and ran quickly for the camera.

Preschool is over for the summer so we have jumped into full-force potty training with Jude. This means lots of underwear time and jumping on the mattress half-naked too.

There’s been lots of random rain the past few weeks which always makes the bus stop an interesting time. Jude seems to think this umbrella is just his size.

After Seattle we headed towards Sisters, Oregon where one of my good friends from high school would be getting married that weekend. This meant lots of time in the car so we decided to leave Seattle early and drive with intending to stop when we saw something cool. When you are in the car for awhile with your spouse things start to become really funny for no apparent reason. Except when your husband yells out “Look there’s Mount Everest!” And after laughing for a bit you realize he’s not laughing and says “What? When we go around this curve you’ll see Mount Everest.” I laughed so hard I didn’t know how to tell him that we were not looking at Mount Everest but Mount St. Helens. After he found out he was wrong he said he totally knew that and was joking. Not so much honey…you were totally serious.

We knew we’d be driving by Mount St. Helens and wanted to get as close to it as we could, even if Pat forgot the name of it. Unfortunately we were there just about two weeks shy of being able to get to one of the observatories that looked really cool. The roads were still shut down from snow. We stopped at one of the visitor’s centers though, walked outside to get some fresh air and took pictures of the view of the mountain from as close as we could get.

We drove through Portland knowing we’d be back there soon and headed into the Western Cascade Mountains. There were times when we didn’t see another car for several miles driving through the mountains. And those were the moments that we had car conversations that went a bit like this – Pat: “This would be the perfect place to come if there’s a zombie apocalypse.” Me: “What? Who says something like that?! Stop watching that weird show.” About 15 minutes later as we were driving through a section of super tall trees surrounding us I said, “This is just like Twilight.” And I realized I had no right to make fun of his zombie stuff.

I was trying my best to keep my eyes on the road as I drove (with my car sickness, Pat driving those curvy roads would have made me puke). I would slow down if no one was behind me to take in the views of the rapids below us, water flowing on the edges of the mountains and huge beautiful lakes. We stopped at the Detroit Dame to get walk around and take in the view while people were fishing around us.

We checked into Five Pine Lodge and were blown away by the rooms, I mean small cabins, there. We had just left our small city-room hotel to walk into a separate, private cabin with a huge bathroom, fireplace with comfy chairs and outdoor seating overlooking the beautiful trees and a creek. I wanted to grab a book and just relax. We gathered with our friends and headed to the rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal dinner had an amazing view…we don’t get to see this in Indiana!

After staying up late outside wrapped in robes (because we all forgot warmer clothes) and talking as we tried to be louder than all the frogs, we head back inside and completely passed out after all the driving and having a warm fireplace to fall asleep to. Pat and I got up the next morning and headed into the little town of Sisters to get breakfast. We then met up with everyone and explored the fun shops together. We stopped in at Sisters Coffee Company and I was convinced to get the blended chai tea after I asked what was the best, unique drink they had. Think chai tea milkshake…yep, it was good.

Then it was wedding time! Talk about a beautiful location for a wedding. This was my view when I looked up.

It’s so much fun to be a wedding guest after photographing 30 something weddings a year for several years. You realize you can’t be picky on photos as a guest though. I didn’t get a super good spot to take many good photos during the ceremony so I’ll settle for this photo of Jate and Megan walking down the aisle as husband and wife. I know I mentioned this before about my friend Jay’s wedding, but I love seeing my guy friends from high school fall in love and marry these beautiful women. Jate was all choked up as Megan walked down the aisle and it took a lot to not cry seeing him like that!

It’s been almost been 15 years since we graduated high school. Okay, I need to breath after typing that. It feels like yesterday and yet so long ago. Regardless of how many years have passed since then I feel blessed that for some crazy reason our small group of high school friends have kept in contact. I know it’s super rare for that to be the case and I am so thankful for these guy friends I have (and now their wives) and my girlfriends (and now their husbands) that have known me so long and understand my past. Pat and I had so many wonderful conversations with them over the weekend and I was reminded why I was so thankful to have them as close friends in high school. I also think I realized why I never dated anyone in high school…I was always with these guys. Meet my best guy friends from high school…Jay, Chad, Jate and Bryan.

Here’s a view of the Five Pine location. Pretty beautiful huh?

Pat and I are so bad at taking photos of us together on trips because I’m a little weary of handing my professional camera to a stranger to take one and the majority of the time the photo comes out completely out of focus. But at other times it works out, thanks Jay.

After a super fun night at the wedding dancing and then hanging out together in one of our cabin/rooms (really not sure what to call them!), Pat and I woke up early, hit Sisters Coffee Company for some fuel for the road and started to drive through the Eastern Cascades on the way to Portland. I had to get one last shot of the view from our place though. Wish we could have relaxed a little longer there.

We decided to take a different route back to Portland to get in some different views. Talk about a dramatic change of scenery. The Western Cascades were lush and green and the Eastern Cascades felt as though were driving through the desert. In fact, it’s called the “high desert.” We drove by Smith Rock and headed towards Mount Hood.

We had been told by several people to take the Fruit Loop around Mount Hood so we opted for a bit of a longer drive for some stunning views. As we drove up towards Mount Hood we started to hit some snow/rain mixture and I was getting nervous and had to go to the bathroom so bad! We found some random place to stop and got out of the car to freeze. We were both wearing T-Shirts in 30 degree weather. There was a family there too, bundled up and sledding. We certainly were not dressed for that! The weather had changed a lot for sure.

Apparently we were driving through the Fruit Loop area at the wrong time of year, again about two weeks before everything begins to be more lively. It still was a fun to drive through fields of fruit trees and we stopped several times to take in the view. It was a bit too cloudy to get Mount Hood into the photo though. At one point, we saw a random sign for a glass blowing artists’ workshop and turned to check it out. I think Pat could have sat there all day and watched the guy as he moved the glass around so gently. It was a fun little stop along the drive.

Our scenic route drive lead us right to Multnomah Falls. I of course left my wider lens in the car so I couldn’t get the whole stinkin waterfall in the photo! Ugh…oh well, it was an amazing site.

We walked up to the bridge in the above photo and realized we could keep going to the top of the waterfall along some paths. I looked at Pat and he laughed knowing I wouldn’t want to do it. Something in me wanted to get over this stupid fear of heights I have though so I said “let’s go” and we started along. I have never seen such a random selection of people as we were walking up. It’s not like we were dressed in hiking gear or anything but we saw several women in heels, HEELS people, walking up the steep inclines. Interesting…just not my optimal choice for that kind of walking. We got to the top and you could stand on this platform to look over. My hands were shaking a little bit but I did it, with one hand holding onto the railing. I did it…I stood on something really high and didn’t panic. I think it did wear me out a bit though so Pat and I sat on a rock and listened to the water rushing by before heading down. There was a girl sitting on a giant rock up there reading her Bible. That struck me as pretty cool to do in that location.

I love traveling with this man. We both have the same interests which makes it super easy and although we usually get into at least one fight, normally over me being hungry and us being lost, but it all comes back together and we just take in our surroundings together. I hope we can pass on this love for traveling to the boys.

I have been frustrated recently. That is okay to admit right? There are so many things going on in our lives and big decisions we have to make and I just want to rest from it all. Our West Coast trip was wonderful but it felt as though something heavy weighed over us and we had to hash out a lot of stuff while on our trip. What is going to happen to The Blank Space? What does that mean as we plan ahead for the future? How can we find funding while we still await the 501c3 status and who do we connect with people who have a heart for high school students and art? It feels like this huge daunting to-list that doesn’t have a for-sure beginning. We have put so much of ourselves and our resources into this.

And then God is just funny sometimes. Last year as we opened The Blank Space and were getting it ready for the school year, we felt the push to go to Haiti with a team of high school students. This spring rolled around and we had to decide if we were going to go to Haiti again this July. After a couple of days of thought and processing we decided, yes, we would go again. So here we are again, trying to do a major push to get support to keep The Blank Space going, and preparing to go to Haiti again with another set of teenagers. How can we ask for people to support The Blank Space and at the same time ask for support to go to Haiti?

In all of it I would just like a clear path. Is that too much to ask? I’d love to know our exact next steps, the corner we should turn and how on earth all of the pieces are going to fall together. But God does not work that way and his lantern of showing the pathway is just before us, just to get hints of our next step and as we take each step he lights the next area. That is not how my mind works so it’s hard for me to stop to realize it’s okay not to know the entire path. It’s not supposed to be crystal clear to see ahead to all that is next.

We continue on…asking and praying for the lantern to guide us just enough for us to have faith and trust in what we feel we have been called to do. It’s not an easy path. It has drastic curves and dramatic scenes along the way but it also holds times of beauty and moments of complete awe as we are made aware of God’s hand in it all.

We feel as though we are asking so much of others when we ask for their support for The Blank Space and support to go to Haiti, but yet we know that each person has their moment that they want to jump into their path and support someone too. We’ve been there and know how that feels. Below I have noted some ways to support our Haiti trip. We are choosing to go back during the midst of all this unknown because sometimes it just doesn’t make sense but that’s the direction where the lantern is showing us to go.

We are ending our ten trips for our 10th anniversary this year and we started it out with a trip to the upper West Coast for a friends’ wedding. We decided to make the most out of the trip and start off in Seattle. It cracks me up that we’ve been home just over a week and everyone is asking why I haven’t posted photos yet. Goodness! You all can leave comments here sometimes too…that’s okay. Ha! You’ll be happy there are photos finally!

I’ll do two more posts from the trip…one from driving through Oregon and one from Portland. But let’s start in Seattle first.

When you think of Seattle you think of Pike’s Place Market right? In all my research for the city that was the number one place that came up and number two…the gum wall. What?! We actually just stumbled upon it our first night there when we got lost trying to find dinner and saw it. We came back in the morning to see it in all its glory in the daylight. I honestly don’t know what to think about it. It’s disturbing in the most disgusting way and yet slightly cool. Pat and I were wondering how on earth people got gum up so high. I didn’t want to get close to it for fear of touching all of the nasty used gum.

We were meeting up with someone early for breakfast so we walked through the market right when it opened. It was super quiet and fun to see all the vendors getting ready for the day. I have read a couple of books about the famous fish market and their style of leadership so it was fun to see it in action. Trying to take a photo of fish there is pretty funny as they kept moving the fish trying to scare me.

The “someone” we met for breakfast is one of my former high school students from youth group. Micaela has been studying creative writing at Seattle University so I was super excited when we decided to visit Seattle that we could catch up with her. She took us to The Crumpet Shop in Pike’s Place. Amazing pick Micaela to introduce us to the many amazing tastes of the city! We were asked if we had crumpets before and I felt kind of cool that I could say, yes we had, in London. And then I asked the people working there what I should get and was directed to the lovely combination of cream cheese, maple butter and crushed walnuts. HELLO! I am attempting to recreate this at home. They also have bottomless tea and their Crumpet Shop house blend was so good I had three cups of it. I had to make myself stop drinking it.

Micaela took us to where she works, DeLaurenti, and showed us around, which we loved first for the name and then the crazy selection of items they have inside. Pat and I came back to share a sandwich there later in the day. It was wonderful to spend a couple of hours with Micaela and catch up with her! It’s so fun to volunteer for so many years that you get to see the high school girls turn into young women and launching into the next stage of their life.

We of course had to be dorky tourists and find the first Starbucks. There were too many local coffee/tea places to actually stop in and get a drink there. We spent a lot of the morning in the Pike’s Place area and walked down towards the art museum and then decided to not go in and explore more of the city instead. Art museums pull us in and then we never get out and say to each other, “I wonder what the rest of the city was like?”

We then walked along the water and rested at the Olympic Sculpture Park and watched the boats go by. I don’t think we could have asked for better weather that day. We headed towards the Space Needle to check out the area around it. I have a fear of heights and I didn’t want to relive my top of St. Paul’s Cathedral moment where I planted my body against the building and didn’t move while Pat enjoyed the view and took in the experience. So no going up in the Space Needle for us (but I did get over a height fear later in the trip…more on that in another post).

After doing a bit of research and finding out there was Nirvana exhibit we decided to check out the EMP Museum. What exactly is the EMP Museum…this alone brought us into the doors – it’s a museum “dedicated to the ideas and risk-taking that fuel contemporary popular culture.” Right up our alley! I think we spent most of our time in the Nirvana area studying each piece of handwritten paper, Kurt Cobain’s high school artwork and smashed old guitars. They had a huge IMAX-like screen showing music videos with couches you could just chill on and watch. Perfect.

After leaving the EMP Museum we stood at a map trying to figure out what we wanted to do next. A lady walked up and was asking us if we knew where the “trailer park trash Taming of the Shrew was?” Wait, what did she just say?! I love so many things Shakespeare and especially love crazy adaptations of his works. I was wanting to go right away until we found out she was already 30 minutes late and I hate being late to shows so we opted out, but we did help her find where she was going. Instead we did some window shopping and pretty much ate our way through the city. I say this and kind of laugh at it though. Since we changed the way we are eating we tried our best to stick to it on vacation but with several treats for sure. Until past trips, we just didn’t feel like eating junk all day so searched out places that we could get real food, and Seattle had plenty of choices for this. But while you travel treats are a given and Macrina Bakery was right across the street from our hotel. How can we not stop and have a treat at one of Seattle’s best known bakeries? My almond cup was the perfect mix of cake and chocolate. We shared a coke too…a real coke however, meaning all the pure sugar you can get. We noticed everywhere in Seattle pretty much only sold “real coke” with the pure sugar cane. Wish they did that here!

Two days before we left for our trip I randomly decided to call our hotels to double check our reservations. I don’t normally do this relying on my confirmation emails but for some reason did this time. Thank heavens I did because the hotel we first booked had us down for the wrong dates! They had nothing opened for when we were there. After trying about five other hotels that were fully booked I was starting to get a little worried. Thanks to Twitter and Facebook though someone suggested the Ace Hotel and it had an open room. You all on social media know Pat and I well because it was a great fit for us. Simple, contemporary and we ended up with a room with an amazing view of the water.

Yes, I take pictures of the hallway at our hotel. I want that art piece in our house someday.

After getting a sugar buzz from the bakery we walked all the way to the Capital Hill neighborhood. There were some fun shops there including an Everyday Music which Pat loved. We planted ourselves at Elliott Bay Book Company after Micaela told us about it. We found a spot upstairs, grabbed a pile of books and ended up being there over an hour. I loved the recommendations the staff had all over the book store with handwritten notes about each book. I managed to fill my Goodreads app with new books to check out or classics I had forgotten about and wanted to read.

We finally were ready to eat and headed to Quinn’s Pub right down the street from the bookstore. I had read a bunch of reviews that it was one of the top, low-key local places to go in Seattle with great food. It did not disappoint and we loved the local beer and food. We happened to be dining there on a Dining Out for Life night which made us decide to get another drink to support it.

We ended the night with watching the sunset along the water and an amazing view of Mount Rainier in the distance.

We are dorks, have I mentioned that before, and we wanted to get to our room to see the view before it was completely dark. Pat wanted to take “artsy” shots so we started playing around. The first photo below is mine and Pat’s is below it…as usual he kicked my butt in the artsy part.

We truly loved Seattle and felt as though we still had a lot of areas and places to explore. Whenever we travel without the boys we pay attention to whether it would be a good place to bring them one day. I think Seattle would be a good family fit for exploring together and we took notes on the many things we could do as a family in the city.

There is just something about being a Momma of boys. I know I’ve wrote about this several times but I’m am constantly reminded of it in our daily lives. Yes, boys are rougher and crazier at this stage of their lives but oh my word do they know how to love on their mom. The amount of snuggles, kisses and hugs I get per day is amazing. I want to bottle them all up for the teenage years when they don’t want to dish all the love out anymore. I get annoyed sometimes because I don’t have my space…like how Jude likes to sit on my lap when I eat breakfast and talk to me, making it impossible to eat around him. Each morning my day starts with huge, long hugs from the boys with their bedheads resting on my shoulder, sometimes both of them in my arms at the same time. How can it really get any better than that, right? Oh how they steal my heart.