we look different now

Tan and I recently had the privilege of going to Iowa for our friends’ wedding. Still rocking the buzzed hair.

The combination of mine and Tanner’s hair off of our heads.

My friend Molly and I went on a walk and snapped a selfie.

summer of weddings

while I still haven’t gotten our official wedding pictures back, I thought I would take some time to post a few snapshots from the several weddings I attended this 2020.

In early June, I made the trip to Indiana to be a part of my pal, Hailey’s wedding.



My brother got married mid-June. Gracie, as usual, filled in as my wedding date.





At my own wedding, our preacher ran a little late, so I had to wait in the truck till he arrived!

thankfulness in color

(in my dotage, i am learning to fall asleep anywhere and be thankful for the moments of rest)

(i have a family full of love and i am thankful for my time with them)

(i have friends and they are full of love, too)

(tanner is home and there is all the love to be shared)

I am worried and thankful, so I guess I must choose peace, but with people like this, it is much easier to make that choice.

summer snapshots

(Lydia and I on our way home from Bek’s wedding at the very beginning of summer. 20 hours one way is a long time.)

(Anna and Wes aren’t together, but that’s the joke 🤷🏼‍♀️)

(Tan and I at yet another wedding, laughing too hard like always)

(Tan and I went to a Brewers game with his family before I went to NY at the end of the summer to see my family.)

(During my visit home, I got to babysit my man Elijah.)

(I think the only thing I went to more than weddings this summer was the beach. Worth every second.)

stillframes

Sometimes I wish pictures were like Harry Potter pictures, capturing not only a moment, but personality and feeling. As it is, here are some recent normal pictures of normal people in my normal life.

(My sweet friend Bek got married!)

(Lydia and I drove 32+ hours without air conditioning to be a part of her wedding)

(Tan and I, plus Wes and Nikki and Christian, went to Devil’s Lake last weekend)

(No caption needed 😍)

May Flowers

Last Friday, I drove home to NY for doctor appointments, which I’m still waiting on results from.  However, my mom and I went for coffee the other morning and as I looked out the window at bright spring blooming around us, I was just reminded of God’s wild attention to detail, His happiness with our wonder at His creative world around us, how slow and all together swift time and seasons are. I hope, friend, you like  the flowers as much as I did.

New Pictures

(My CM Leadership ladies 💛)


(Our after school program had a district-wide sled race. My 1st and 2nd graders made the second fastest sled over all!)


(This is a late picture from Christmas break, but Tan hobbled around the Cobleskill reservoir with me on his barely repaired meniscus.)


(My dad sent me Valentine’s flowers!)

Picture This

(Jay and Eli listening to devotions on Christmas Eve, sporting the matching jammies from Mom)

(This break, we’ve gone to the pet store to play with the puppies a bunch.)

(Kharis and I saw Buttermilk Falls had been closed down for the season, so we walked around the road block and took a few pictures anyway)

recently taken

(Tribal Cup with Marty and Andy)

(Anna and I tied for the win in an ugly sweater contest. Plot twist, I actually had no idea there was a contest.  I genuinely thought my sweater was cute.)

(Some of the faces I get to work with every day.)

more picture memories

(Emily, the lovely lady in the middle, and her husband open their home to me at least two or three nights a week.  They’re basically my school parents.)

(My CM chicas:)

(Definitely a garbage picture, but I like it anyway.  If you look closely, you can see where I have a butterfly bandage on my finger, where I lost a fight with a squash knife.)

lately in photographs

(All my dorm girls out for tacos)

(After school kids prepping me for Halloween)

(Jo and I enjoying the last sunny/hot day)

gluten-full or gluten-free

Brief prelude: I love food.  I also have a sweet tooth. Also, there’s a bakery twenty minutes away that makes vegan, cane sugar-less scones.  And I have some really great friends that went to experience that with me. (With the promise we’d go to a second bakery for them afterward.) Life is good.

(The first bite of a chunky monkey scone 😍)

(Marty, Acacia, Jenny, and me)

(Too many choices. Also, I dress like a hobo. It’s fine.)

I Actually Have Friends

(Part of my crew this year 😊 Left to right: Wesley, Mike, Emmie, me, Tanner)

(Emmie and I at Lake Superior for leadership training, even though you can’t see the lake. It’s there. I promise.)

(We’re very thug. And dramatic. And ridiculous.)

(And this picture is actually from my Montana trip with Gracie this summer, but I can’t talk about friends and not show off her beautiful face.)

People used to encourage me to be more outgoing and make friends because no man is an island, right?  Well, they were right and God has blessed me with some amazing human beings.

Summer Poetry

whispering.

rustling.

waving.

who can guess what the grass is

saying?

gusting.

rushing.

blowing.

who can say where the wind is

going?

listening.

watching.

waiting.

i don’t know why but i am

trying.

(Just some thoughts from the strawberry field earlier this week. And below are two of my favorite views recently.)

PS: Life is good.

Weeding the Weeds

(Looking at a field of baby plants that I helped place in the ground is actually a pretty incredible feeling. Featured here: super sweet corn)

(It’s a bad picture, BUT THOSE ARE LITTLE RASPBERRIES!)

(And the first red strawberry I’ve seen this season 💛)

The days are still long and hard.  Every day this week has found me bent over the bushes like an Entwife, but the hours of solitude are a gift in many ways.  People laugh when I say I pass the time talking and singing to the little plants I’m tending...and maybe it is slightly odd. Somehow though, I find the more I speak softly into the silence, the more it becomes a conversation between God and I that has nothing to do with the bushes.  I’m content there, grateful even, as every day the desire of my heart is more firmly established to do this and every other work as unto my God and King.