Happy Birthday, Hannah!

Happy birthday, Hannah! For those of you who don't know, Hannah has been my best friend since we were in third grade. That means it's been 16 years of best friendship! She knows everything about me and I love her so much! Happy birthday, I'm sooo glad you were born!
To celebrate her birthday, God gave us an incredible day up here in the 'ham! It's forecasted for high 80's today, which is something we haven't seen all year. It's roasting and toasting, and as soon as we can, we're headed out to play in the sunshine! But for now, we're stuck in the great indoors, which is why I got a chance to blog. One of Isaac's small group guys is putting together a live worship cd for his senior project and Isaac is playing and singing in it, and this morning is a practice. It's actually a really cool project because he's going to sell the cds and donate all the proceeds to our local foodbank. Way to go, Chris! So we're in the church playing some tunes (actually, I'm just listening, but close enough) for a couple hours. And then it's off to strawberry picking! The u-pick farms opened up yesterday, finally, and we're going to join the throngs slaving away in the berry fields picking monstrous amounts of perfectly ripened strawberries. We LOVE u-pick time! So, yesterday was a pretty great day for us as well. Isaac's bike is finally fixed (did I tell you that already?) and we get to go on bike rides together now, which is so fun! I realize I'm using a lot of exclamation points in this entry, but I really am excited about all of these things. Anyway, yesterday was another perfectly sunny day so we rode to a beautiful park and ate dinner in the sunshine and hung out. Then the sunshine moved, so we rode a few blocks away to another patch of sunny grass and set up camp there instead. About 10 minutes into our hangout time there, we got a surprise...the sprinklers automatically came on, dousing all of our stuff. Thus began a mad rush to collect all of our belongings and rush them off of the soaking lawn. It was pretty hilarious...especially when Isaac went back to get his bike and got hit head on by the spray of water. Lots of shrieking and laughing and thumbs ups from the people in the cars waiting at the stoplight directly in front of us. Good times! There we are, wet but happy to have shared the fun together. We'll take pictures of berry picking today so you all can share in that experience. Happy sunny Saturday, my friends!

Monthiversaries...

Happy ten-month anniversary to us today! Yay! And still happy together...Here are some pictures of us a year ago. Enjoy!




On a ferry in July...






At J and A's wedding in July...







At my house on the day it happened in August! We threw a birthday party for two of our friends, and when everyone was gone and it was all cleaned up, Isaac asked me if I wanted to be his girlfriend!



Oh, the memories...

The weekend that was...

So full and fun! We had ourselves a busy weekend these last few days. It started out on Friday when a couple friends of ours blessed Isaac and me with a gift certificate for a relaxing dinner out. Such a surprise, and such a blessing! We got dressed up, went to an adorable little Italian Restaurant called Mambo Italiano, and had a relaxing evening to ourselves. I've been wanting to go to Mambo for years now, but just never have, so it was especially enjoyable. Thanks J and J! Saturday was a full day...Isaac works most Saturday mornings during these two months of super business with his work, and after he got off of work, we got all dressed up again and headed down to Seattle for the wedding of two of our friends. Minus the fact that I was slightly emotional and moody for a good part of the festivities, it was a beautiful wedding. And once I got over my mood, I was able to join Isaac in really enjoying our time together with friends. Kevin and Jamie are probably relaxing on a sunny, incredible beach somewhere right about now...Isaac played his guitar and sang a love song for the happy couple during the ceremony, so that was cool, too. I know that Isaac sang a couple times at our church group when we were in college, but I don't really remember much about them, so this was the first time I've gotten to see him solo at an event. He leads worship at youth group all the time (and church all of last summer), but it was fun to see him in this setting. Saturday night consisted of a drive home, a dinner of homemade Pad Thai (sooo good!) and a movie to relax with. And then Sunday, we worked in our garden! Isaac built me a trellis for the peas so they didn't curl all over around the ground (I helped, too, but he was definitely the brains behind the event). I know the picture's far away, but if you click on it and make it bigger you can see how well it's doing! We had to thin out the carrots, which saddened me because we pulled up so many of them, but Isaac reminded me that we wouldn't have any good ones if we left them that close together. Sigh. The voice of reason, once again. It's been so cloudy up here as of late that the cucumbers and sunflowers are struggling a little, but there's nothing we can do about that but wait and see if the sunshine can energize them enough. Oooo, and the grossest part of it all...Isaac found a pile of old, rotting grass behind our house and we had to dig into the rotting part (full of crawling bugs and beetles, I might add) and spread the nastiness around the plants as mulch. Dis-gus-ting. But Isaac says I must partake of that if I am to be a true gardener. Awesome.

Well, we love you guys! And a special welcome to the newest member of the clan...Isaac's little niece was born yesterday! Congratulations!

The intelligent nerd that I am...

I know, I've mentioned it a few times, but I am LOVING the library! Reading is one of the most relaxing things I could do, which I understand not all of you will be able to relate to, but bear with me. I know you're probably thinking, how on earth is this a relevant thing to blog about? but work is a little slow today, so I have a little extra time on my hands. Lucky for you all...

Who knew that you could have thousands of book so freely at your fingertips?? (We were sadly devoid of a library out in the sticks where I grew up). Here's a list of my latest readings...at least the good ones:

1. Beautiful Boy by David Sheff. I just finished it this morning (at work, actually. Yes, it's that slow today). It's a father's journey through his son's addiction to meth and it's fascinating. I'm waiting for the son's memoir of those same experiences called Tweak, which is on hold at the library.

2. Prince Caspian by the great C.S. Lewis. Believe it or not, as much of a reader as I was growing up, I never read the Narnia books. My first experience was three summers ago reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which intrigued me with Lewis' capability to write a book so famously loved by such a wide age range. Prince Caspian was entertaining enough, and I read it just in time as Isaac and I saw the movie last weekend.

3. The Red Tent by some woman whose name I can't remember. It's biblical fiction...the story of Dinah in the OT (Joseph's sister) told through her eyes and the eyes of the other women in that family. Yes, that was a good one.

4. Three Cups of Tea is the story of Greg Mortenson's years of devoting his life to building schools for the children, and especially the girls, of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Definitely a book to recommend.

5. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer is also on hold for me. It's conveys the story of his near death ascent on Mount Everest. Krakauer is the man who wrote Into the Wild, so you know this one's going to be good.

6. Add two nutrition books to that mix: The A to Z of Vitamins, Minerals, and Supplements and The Nutrition Almanac. I haven't started either of them, so I have no idea what they hold for me, but I'm excited for them nonetheless.

There are many more, as I usually have five or six checked out at once, but I'll spare you. It's hilarious to me that the one thing I juggle now in my schedule is figuring out in what order and how quickly I need to read whatever books I currently have based on when they are due, if they're able to be renewed, and what new books are arriving. Ah, the life of the resting. Feel free to send along any recommendations if you've read something good as I am always looking for the next read.

I'm dating good genes...

So, I just found Isaac's cousin, Sarah's, photography website! Soo good! I'm sure all of you on Isaac's side have seen it many times, but for those of you readers on my side, you should check it out...sarahmcallisterphotography.com. Amazing.

My rest...

Near the start of this blog, I wrote about how it was time for me to rest. I had just been busy for the past ten years of my life...not necessarily in a bad way, I loved those years. I thrived from being very involved with school, family, youth group and church, volunteering with students at camps or at my church, expanding my social life. But it just seemed to all catch up with me about six months ago. And after a few more months of feeling completely overwhelmed with my pace of life, I stopped anything outside of work to rest. I stopped volunteering with the youth group, stopped leading my small group, stopped playing piano on the worship team, stopped babysitting, stopped anything that gave me the semblance of a busy life. It's been about four months now and I am beginning to feel my strength return. It's been four months, wonderful months, of relaxing, reading tons of books (yes, I am a nerd, I know), having plenty of time to exercise, bake bread (although not as often as I want since I can't eat it anymore. Boo.), relish the beauty of the world God created, just enjoy being. And enjoy simply being loved by God because I exist. It's just been wonderful.

I know that this time won't be forever in my life, although I do desire to implement this way of life much more into the rest of my years than ever before. I don't want to be too busy to have coffee with a friend, go on a walk, enjoy a sunset, take a catnap in the sun. I want to go through life one day at a time, breathing in life slowly and fully each day. It won't look like the amount of doing nothing that it does now, as even now I am beginning to desire to fill my life with a little more. Not much, but I'm desiring to join a small group, which will be the first time in three years that I have been in a small group that I wasn't leading. I can tell that I am gaining strength from my resting because I wouldn't have been willing to commit to even one night a week for a Bible study (or anything else for that matter) a month ago.

I just wanted to share that this time of rest is really blessing me. I know I will begin get a little restless in a while, but for now I will embrace this resting with my whole heart.

The monumental affair of deserts...

Last week our dear friend, Katy graduated from high school, a monumental affair! She's been in our lives for the past three years and is wonderful! And she's staying up here to go to college, so we still get to hang out with her...yay! We double-dated with the Allynes and went to her graduation party, where hundreds of people meandered around her house waiting to be graced by her presence. So fun!
So, on another note, our weekend was officially great! We had the family get-together and Isaac's grandparents on Saturday and I got to meet a few more members of the extended family...from HR! And the best thing was that they knew where my little home town was, and no one ever knows where my home town is. And they knew several people that I had grown up with. It was just fun to find the things in common with people who were strangers to me when I met them. It was sunny, relaxing, and very enjoyable company with the family and all Isaac's brothers and sisters running around. And Nicole came up from California! Yeah, Nicole! Now we just need to get the Petester up here so Isaac and I can officially meet him...
On Sunday, we went to my parent's house and spent the day with them...and it was such a beautiful, sunny day in A-town. So sunny that dad got the barbeque out and they fed us a feast, picnic style! It was a good visit, very relaxing. And sort of an adventure because we decided to take the back way home. Mom and Dad insisted it was an hour shorter, and it was (45 minutes at least), but we sure got a lot of humor out of how ugly the landscape was...just barren and deserty. Not my style of beautiful countryside. It was a fun adventure, though, and we're glad we at least did it once. Here's a shot from the ugliness, although I suppose some would see that as beautiful. To each his own, I suppose. Either way, it was a really good weekend! Thanks for having us, families!

Headed Home...

We're headed home tomorrow! First to Isaac's family's house for Saturday's get together and then to my parent's house to spend Sunday with them!

See you then!

Prayers

So, I know a lot of you out there are pray-ers and I'd like to throw out a request to you that may be a little odd, but I'm going to go for it anyway. I have had the desire for the past ten years to work with teenage girls in some capacity, loving them, walking with them through life, just being a friend and an older voice of experience and encouragement. I've done this so far through working at youth camps during summers and working with the youth groups at my church, but as most of you know, I have recently taken a break from all of that to remember how to rest. The past several years has been growing in me the desire to focus more with working with girls with beauty/body issues and eating disorders, encouraging them, walking with them through recovery, speaking God's truth to them, however I've never been sure about the context with which I would be able to do that since I don't want to become a professional counselor or psychologist. The past year has brought a new potential focus for me to enter into that world with - nutrition. I have been learning a lot about how our bodies were designed to work and what specific foods they were designed to work most efficiently with, I have been reading a lot, talking with Isaac's mom some as she is a Doctor of Naturopathy, and have become fascinated with the topic. Thus, my new potential goal is that at some point in my life I want to be working with girls with eating disorders, teaching them how they can remain healthy and at a healthy body weight with proper nutrition.

This could require a long process for me, though, and it would be a process that I don't know much about right now. So I want to ask you all if you consider yourself a pray-er to please send up a couple prayers for wisdom in how to best go about this and knowledge in choosing the right path. And of course, if you have any tips or advice, please feel free to send them my way. I know it would require more schooling, but I am very wary of that right now because I am working full time and don't particularly want to overwhelm my life with full time work and school. I don't know what type of degree I would need or if any of the online nutrition schools I am researching on the internet are held in high esteem by the world of nutritionists or are legit. I know this process will probably take place over several years of my life as I am past the age of going full time to college and getting a degree in just a couple years, so there's no hurry for me right now, but I would like to at least be exploring my options.

Thanks for taking a couple minutes to listen. I'll keep you posted on how things are working out (although, like I said, I'm expecting it to be a long process).
Talk to you soon, hopefully in person as we are going to see the families this weekend!

Bikes, Seaweed, Books, and Peas...

Hello friends and family! I'd like to start you off today with a little Arizona sunset. I believe I mentioned this before, but the sunsets in Arizona were so beautiful, way more than this picture can even express. It still amazes me that God paints us an incredible, unique, so colorful, beautiful sunset almost every night! So this morning, I woke up to a few little patches of blue sky this morning and with the optimism of a small child, donned my bike helmet, packed my little backpack and took off to work. Not thirty minutes after I arrived did it start to downpour...and I mean downpour...and it has continued to downpour consistently for the last four hours. All I have to say is that I hope Isaac likes the look of a drowned rat because that looks about like what he's going to get to come home to tonight. So yes, in case you were wondering, it has still been raining and pouring up here in Bellingham. There have been, however, small windows of sunshine, usually in the afternoon or evening on occasion, which have held us over through the clouds. Soon the sun will come out to play forever and I cannot wait!
Remember how Isaac and I love to cook together? Well we took on a new recipe a couple days ago and put our skills into making California Rolls. Although seafood is not usually my thing, Isaac loves it, so we decided to give it a shot and it turned out pretty well! Have a look. A few of them are a little misshapen, but what can you do? I thought I would be able to escape the seafood aspect by refraining from putting the shrimp into mine, however I soon realized that the small issue of the seaweed with which it is wrapped in was too much for me to handle. So Isaac finished them off and I ate some rice instead. It was a fun recipe, though, and we're planning to make it again in the future.
Guess what?? Isaac got a bike last week! He got it for really cheap from a guy because it was in need of a lot of work, but since we have a couple good friends who know a lot about bikes and since Isaac loves having his projects to work on, he went for it. He spent some time on Saturday shining it up and went to a bike place for a couple hours last Friday to fix a few parts. We're excited for him to get it finished so we can go on bike rides together! And Tommy, Morgan, Justin, and Alex have bikes too, so now we'll be able to go on group bike dates...so fun! Speaking of Isaac's projects, I believe I promised you pictures of his latest work on the coffee table. Unfortunately, this is all you're getting for now. We decided we'd rather you all see it in it's finished state, but you can at least know that Isaac painted part of it with a white primer coat. Fascinating, I know. I know I say this about all of his projects, but I'm really excited to see this one painted! I've seen it assembled and it's very creative, and the paint will add the perfect final touch. As you can see in the corner as well, there was a little blue sky on Saturday!
As for my life, my resting time is so good. Like I said earlier, I have become best friends with the library and am loving soaking up books for hours during the week. Currently I'm reading Daughter of the Saints by Dorothy Allred Solomon and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. I like them both a lot, and I already have three others waiting as soon as I get done with these two. Yes, this is what a bookworm who majored in English Lit does in her free time. There are some times that I get bored, but I'm teaching myself that that is okay and that it is okay to take a break and read or watch a movie or relax and just hang out. It's just my season to rest and my soul feels a hundred times better than it did three months ago! Oh, one more picture to show you...our garden! It's growing! It's a little hard to see because of all the grass around it but the peas are several inches tall and we need to build a trellis for them now. You can click on the picture and it will get really big for you. Everything is sprouting right along schedule. So fun! I've been forgetting to bring my camera around places with us, so that's why the posts have been a little less frequent, but I am renewed now in my goal to take more pictures. Talk to you soon!

Watering our garden...

Hello! I'm home from sunny Arizona and my greeting has been rain, rain, and more rain. Apparently it always rains most of June in Bellingham, but I don't remember that. Isaac's been saying all spring that this was going to happen because we had more of a dry winter and the wet is going to have to come at some point, but I didn't want to believe him. Alas, the forecast agrees with my smart man...rain for the next ever. At least its watering our garden!
I don't have any pictures from Arizona, but I can tell you that my niece is adorable and my sister and brother-in-law are well. And the sunsets are incredible! They nearly rival Bellingham's, which is a feat in itself. I also don't have the pictures I hinted at earlier of Isaac's latest project...but those are coming. I just have to remember my camera. He just told me the plans yesterday for his next little table when this coffee table is done and now I'm super excited for that one, too!
This week's going to be pretty chill and we're home this weekend with no plans except to play and relax, so we're excited for that.
And it's still pouring outside my window. Awesome.