Our Arbor

By now those of you who actually read this know I’m a total sap!  When we got married Kyle asked his grandad to build the arbor we got married under.  I described something simple and he built something magnificent.  When he showed me the plans I was floored and honored and couldn’t wait to see it come to life.  The day I first saw it was just a couple months before the wedding and I smiled and shed a few happy tears and knowing one of Kyle’s strongest role models helped build such an important part of the ceremony where we would join our lives together.  All the feels!  The day of the ceremony the yellow wood was fresh and bright and the craftsmanship was extraordinary.  After the wedding we didn’t have a yard so we left our beautiful arbor at Norma and Evans’s house for safe keeping until we moved into our “grown up” house with a yard.  They often sat on it to enjoy their coffee and every time we visited them we sat on it and dreamed about our future.  Just as Kyle and I have aged a bit and settled into married life our arbor also shows some signs of weather and being lived in.  But I still think it’s just a beautiful if not more so than the day Evans first built it.

This year we made a big move to the suburbs.  We found a house we loved with a beautiful yard to make our own.  It took us a few months after getting settled but in October we enlisted the help of some wonderful friends to help us move the arbor to our own yard.  Some of the guys who helped were the same ones who stood by us on our wedding day.  When they finished and I saw our wedding arbor in our very own yard I definitely had a few happy tears.  Every time I look in our back yard and see it I smile and think of all the wonderful new memories we’ll build in this home and I am reminded of our beautiful wedding day where our journey as a family began.  

Chihuly Glass Garden

I decided to make the 20 minute drive from Bellevue to Seattle.  The biggest motivating factor was my fondness and obsession with Dale Chihuly’ s work.  Seattle is the home of his glass factory and he has a beautiful glass garden exhibit in the city.  The greenhouse with the installations and the view of the space needle was my favorite!  If you ever get the chance to visit Seattle it’s a definite must see for art lovers.  His art really does take your breath away and the way it transforms and changes in the light is pure magic. 

Trip to Charlotte for Katherine’s 30th Birthday

It’s been tough having friends move away since we don’t get to see them as much but we’ve had some great trips going to visit friends.  Katherine decided to have a backyard party for her 30^th complete with a bounce house.  Being an adult is seriously awesome sometimes!  We made the trip with our good friends Blair and Jenna.  Before the party we checked out a few great breweries and then the spent the evening acting like grown up kids and it was so much fun.  Seeing how happy Katherine makes Alex was icing on the cake, they are seriously adorable together.  

Landscaping Plan & Progress (Stage 1)

We were fortunate to get help from the mom of one of my good friends.  She just retired from the school system and is working towards starting her own landscape design consulting business.  We happily volunteered to be guinea pigs since we know very little about landscaping planning and had a totally blank slate in the backyard.  She came out and took measurements, pictures, and asked what types of plants we liked.  A couple weeks later she sent us a landscape plan and explained ways to plant everything in phases so we don’t get overwhelmed with the cost/maintenance all at once. 

Here is the plan which we’ll put in place over the next couple of years.  I’m in love with the climbing roses along the fence line.  So of course I had to plant those right away!  We’ll put in the trellises in the spring so they can start climbing.  I can’t wait until a few years from now when they have filled out and we’ll have our own personal secret garden in our backyard.  Roses require a decent amount of maintenance but I think it will be a labor of love for me.  The other items we put in this fall are very low maintenance.  We decided to start with the camellias, rhododendrons, burford holly, and the ornamental grass.  In the spring we’ll plant the ferns, hydrangeas, and knockout roses.  

Complicated

Our lives changed forever 10 years ago.  My feelings every year on the anniversary of the accident are complicated.  The way my emotions rise and fall as I read the social media posts.  Some posts are nostalgic, some are still heavily laced with sadness, and others are simply commemorative.  The way those posts stir up old feelings and bring tears to my eyes so easily.  It’s complicated because those tears surprise me since I so often feel like I’ve found peace about it.  I suppose there are some things we never heal all the way from.  Perhaps the depth of our pain is because of the depth of the love we all felt for the person we lost.  It is a lot longer between waves of sadness now.  My thoughts of him are more often fond memories and funny stories and simply wishing he was still present for moments in our lives. 

Loss leaves a hole in us, some days it feels like a tear and other days it feels like a frame to view our memories through.  A reminder that our lives are tied to the people we love in ways that extend beyond the time we have together.    

Clendenin Scholars Dinner

I am so proud of Kyle!  It was such a lovely evening and I truly enjoyed meeting the other previous and current Clendenin Scholars.  It took place in the art gallery on campus which is very beautiful and had some very impressive pieces on display.  My heart swelled with pride when they announced Kyle’s name and presented him his lamp of learning.  He continues to inspire me with his academic pursuits and I’m excited to see his journey continue to unfold.  

Rainbow Pilates

Moving and settling into a new place is also hard even if you have lived there in the past.  One of the things that made the transition easier was finding Rainbow Pilates.  Working out has always been a big part of my life, I sit so much at my job that I have to stay active outside of work.  It helps tremendously with my stress level and re-energizes me.  I searched on google and asked for recommendations and my mom mentioned Rainbow Pilates.  I looked at the website and was thrilled to see that they offered Barre, Yoga, and Pilates.  I tried several different classes my first week and I was hooked.  Everyone was so friendly and it really helped me feel more at home in the suburbs.  Plus I feel myself getting stronger after every class.  The owner of the gym Sonya has really created a special place and I’m so glad I found it!

High School Camp

I was so excited that I able to chaperon the youth group trip again this year.  It felt so odd last year not being able to go down to Florida with them.  God always shows up in big ways at camp and strengthens relationships in ways that would take months to achieve on Sunday nights back at home.  We had always gone to BigStuf in the past but decided to make a change and go to High School Camp.  It is run by the same group but is for high schoolers only instead of combined with middle school students.  I had a wonderful group of senior girls in my room and truly enjoyed seeing them wrestle with the topics and the things going on in their lives.  It is so valuable to have that time in the room and in between sessions on the beach to bond and develop meaningful relationships.  I always enjoy seeing their commitment to pursue their faith and I always feel re-energized in my own faith after spending a week away from distractions and being fully focused on my faith and serving the students.    

Housewarming

I was a bit nervous before our housewarming party that our friends wouldn’t be willing to make the longer drive out to our new house.  Thankfully my anxiousness was frivolous (as it often is) and we had really nice turnout for our combined housewarming/birthday party for Kyle.  I have always felt that it is not the space itself that makes a home but filling it with memories and the people you love that makes a place feel like your own.  This was certainly the case for me.  Seeing our friends and family in our new home made it really begin to feel like it was ours on a deeper and more meaningful level.  Everyone had such nice things to say about the house which was really nice since it’s my first decorating a more traditional home.  My dad was a wonderful help and manned the grill for the afternoon which is a pretty grueling task in June in Georgia.  We played outdoor games (the perks of a yard) and ended the night with bonfire to break in our new fire pit.  The food was good but the company was exceptional.  This was the first of many events to come!