30 Days of Thankfulness

A bunch of my friends on facebook started updating their statuses with "30 Days of Thankfulness: Day 1". I thought this was an awesome idea, so I joined in! Here's what I updated my status to be -

I am so thankful I have the best husband ever. I can't imagine what the past few years have been like for him. He works harder than sooooooooo many people! Way harder than me, that's for sure! ;) Love you dude!!!!

Every day I find myself more and more impressed by Jacob's dedication to his education and his willingness to sacrifice so many years of his life for the good of our family. He is so incredible. I am the most blessed wife out there. I'm so glad that God knew what he was doing with us. We haven't always been able to figure it out, but God does. :)

Looking forward to another Thanksgiving with the love of my life. Thanks Jake. I love you SO BIG!

Camping!!!

Last month Jake and I went camping for the first time since we've been married! I couldn't believe we hadn't gone sooner as we both LOVE to camp. We went to Ohanapecosh Campground at Mt. Rainier for 3 nights. If they had shower facilities I would have stayed a week! Unfortunately 3 nights without a shower is my limit. ;) On our last night some AWESOME friends joined us to hang out. Here are a few images I snapped, enjoy!

My wonderful husband...

Making a DELICIOUS potato, onion, jalapeno breakfast scramble. It was sooooooo good. :)

We got this tent from Jake's parents... They used it when their boys were kids. When we were folding it up, we discovered a date on the bottom of the tent. 12.1.75. Or something close to that. I know it was December and before 1977 when Jake was born. ;) The thing is, it's still in great condition! I bet we'll be using it for years. Plus it's my favorite color. :D

These are our rad friends, Chris & Brooke who came to keep us company. And of course, play with fire. We had a roaring campfire the night they were there. Aren't these two just adorable?!

They're a little nuts too. They fit right in!
I almost forgot the rest of my favorite pictures!! The night before C+B arrived I played around some with high ISOs and long shutterspeeds (for my photog peeps ;)) and got the following shot (processed two ways):

Here's one of us together (thanks Brooke for grabbing it!).

The same night I was shooting stars, I grabbed this of our picnic table. I love the way the light from the lantern came out.

And on our last morning there I looked out from our picnic table and saw the sunlight streaming through the trees and could not resist grabbing my camera. What a sight to wake up to. :)

Next year we're planning a minimum of 3 camping trips. One of them will be for my *gasp* 30th birthday. I can't wait!!!

I didn't have to cook tonight!

What a blessing. My dear sweet husband helped me out by tossing together some whole wheat pasta with a DELICIOUS meat sauce. I have no idea what he did with the cheapest sauce I've ever brought home, but it was wonderful. I wish he had time to cook more, he's so brilliant at it.

ABOUT: Jake

So, after writing the entry about Tianna, I decided to do a whole series on my family. They're all pretty awesome. The one I'm most thankful for is my husband. I'm not sure that there's another person who could live with me for nearly four years and still love me as much as he does. I'm so blessed. I married a bright, wonderful, incredibly hard-working man. I'm enjoying each day of our marriage and thrilled about what lies before us. Thank you my dear, sweet husband. I appreciate you so much.

Ten on Tuesday - the Jake Edition! And yes, it's late. Deal! ;)

1. He says a lot of funny stuff. I wish sometimes I had translator.

2. He just texted me to say that he ROCKED his philosophy essay test. That's my husband!

3. Jake builds fences. No, not for just anyone. You have to rate REALLY high to get a Jake fence. He's built two at our house and they are good looking fences.

4. Currently he's in two fantasy football leagues. One of his teams is doing very poorly, but the other is ROCKING. He's in first place! ( As of last night he was solo in first place and somehow this morning he was back to sharing first place. I need to follow up.)

5. This won't be a newsflash to anyone who knows Jake, but he LOVES his family. His brothers and parents mean the world to him. I'm so thankful that I married a man who loves his family as much as I love mine.

6. He's sick this week. It makes life interesting.

7. Jake went to chef school... And yet he loves my cooking. Go figure!

8. This kind of piggy backs on a previous item... And has probably appeared before... But he is an EXCEPTIONAL student. He spends SO much time on his homework, he participates in class and masters the material. It's awesome.

9. He's so cute. Nuff said.

10. I love him today more than I could possibly have imagined when we met 14 years ago. I'm tremendously proud to be his wife.

He went for it!!!

I have the most wonderful husband ever. Last night he was almost to our house when I called him to ask that he stop at the paint store and get a test quart of my Orchard Plum paint. Being the fabulous guy that he is, he indulged me. The phone call was a little exasperating, but those of you who know the Jake guy know that this is par for the course. ;) While I was out shopping for CUTE little girl stuff with my girls Heather & Deborah, Jake painted four purple spots in the bathroom. I am in LOVE. Seriously, in love. The plum is PERFECT. I'm going to pick up the rest of the paint we need this weekend and hopefully he'll get to it Sunday night or Monday. I CAN'T WAIT! It's going to be AWESOME.

Side story - When I got home a little after 9pm (later than I expected but there was a baby to snuggle and shopping to be had!) Jake wasn't home. I checked all of the rooms, called his cell, all to no avail. The weirder part is that both his car and his scooter were home. I could not find him, get a hold of him, or figure where he might have been. Finally around 10pm I started to get REALLY concerned. Enough so that I grabbed the only (wimpy) flashlight I could find and walked the perimeter of house. I was afraid he'd fallen in the yard or something and didn't have his phone. Thankfully, he was not out there. I tried to call him for the fourth time and FINALLY he answered! He'd gone to play racquetball with a friend of his. Yes, he told me the other day... Yes, he wrote it on the calendar... I just COMPLETELY spaced. Boy was I happy to hear his voice!

Spring break in Hawaii - round 1!

Jake and I spent 8 GLORIOUS days on the beautiful south shore of Kauai. We had a wonderful time. We stayed in the same condo as we did on our honeymoon at Kuhio Shores. We absolutely love it. :) Over the course of our trip we snorkeled, rode horses, went to a luau and just hung out. It was the best. I'd forgotten how dark the island gets after 7pm. I love island hours. :)

Here's a few portraits I took of Jake. Isn't he darling? ;) We have TONS of pictures yet to go through, there will probably be several more rounds!

The end of June...

I haven't blogged recently because I haven't picked up the camera much. I've been feeling a little frustrated. I'm reading "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson but I still don't feel like I get *it* yet. I did however get an early birthday present (thanks Dad!) of Photoshop Elements. I don't think my computer has quite enough RAM to run it efficiently, but it's working for now! Here's a shot I took of Jake today while he was chopping wood:


A couple of weeks ago Jake picked up his old scooter from his parents. Oh boy. ;) Even though he now has a helmet, he wouldn't wear it while I took some pictures of him. Brat! Check him out scooting up and down our street:


These all need some processing... I'll get to it eventually!