{ 2009, in Photos and Words ~ Part I }

{ January }

In January, Grandma Winnie {my Mom's mom} went home to Jesus. It was relief to know that she was free from her suffering. One of the odd things about funerals is that they often bring together people you love who are still alive, but don't see often enough. People like my sweet cousin Julie, her baby Eli, and Julie's grandma {my "other" grandma} Verla.

{ February }

{Back, L - R: Grace, Liz, Megan, Hyemi, Aspen. Front, L - R: Jenn, Sarah, me}

The community group {fancy name for Bible study} where Mike and I met has grown from one group to four, and every few months all four groups gather for a Big Family Get-Together. In February, my three roommates and I {we met in the original group and still attend sister groups} hosted the BFGT. It was a houseful of chaos!

{ March }

On Sunday, March 26, 2009--the one-year anniversary of our first date--Mike asked me to marry him. At sunset. On a pier lined with hundreds of candles and red roses. The same pier where we danced on our first date. Oh, it was Epic. Someday I will tell you the whole story.

{ April }

I turned 26 on April 18, and Mike {with the help of my sneaky roommates} threw me a surprise party. At my house. I had no clue. It was awesome, and not just because it was my first surprise party. I had so much fun, and only took two pictures. Both of the amazing flower-cupcake-cake my roommie Kristi made. There's a reason we asked her to make all the cupcakes for our wedding!


{ May }

Dozens of inner envelopes for our wedding invitations, carefully hand-stamped and laid out to dry on the dining room floor. The majority of the effort you put in to planning a wedding doesn't come to fruition till the wedding day; I think that's part of the reason I really enjoyed the physical work of stamping invitations and envelopes and seeing the results in front of me.


My roommate Lizett also celebrated her birthday in May. The culmination of her birthday party was an evening spent with a group of friends at our house, roasting marshmallows in the fireplace and singing songs to Jesus. It was a beautiful, happy, mellow evening that so perfectly exemplifies Liz's love for her Savior.


{ June }

Chelle, Anna, and my roommates threw me a bridal shower that was the fullness of beauty. It was perfect. I still have a hard time convincing myself that the above photo was my bridal shower and not a Martha Stewart photo shoot!

{ 2009, in Photos and Words ~ Part II }

{ July }

Ah, July. You were a good month. When I see this photo, taken at our rehearsal dinner, I immediately think, "We look so YOUNG!!" I guess that's a good thing....right? I love this picture of us: young and in love, on the cusp of forever, sweetly aware that in less than 24 hours we will finally be husband and wife.

This is Annabelle at our rehearsal dinner. I don't recall why she looked so shocked, or why she was wearing her mama's sunglasses, but I could look at this picture and giggle for hours.

Dinner at The Crouching Lion Inn & Restaurant, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Honeymooning in Hawaii = bliss. {Note: Nikki had a tan. It can happen, people, it can happen!!}

{ August }

Barbecue, sack races, three-legged races, tug-of-wars, balloon toss competitions--the summer edition of our community groups' Big Family Get-Together had it all. Here you see Mike making a valiant effort to reach the finish line in the gunnysack race.

{ September }


{ L - R: Me, Mike, my cousin Christy, Mike's sister Amaryah, my brother Obediah, my sis-in-law Jessica and her husband/my brother Joe}

My parents held a wedding reception for us in Idaho on Labor Day weekend. It was incredibly special to me that we could share our joy with so many people I've known all my life. The whole weekend was a blast--literally! My Dad and Obediah hatched a plan to make us all marshmallow guns out of PVC pipe, and an all-out marshmallow war + hilarity ensued. FYI: Tiny marshmallows launched at high speeds can hurt! Especially when you re-use the ammunition and little specks of gravel are stuck in the marshmallows...

My dear friend Anna got married on September 26. Anna and I were born two months apart. Our moms were pregnant together, we grew up together, and we remain close to each other's hearts. Mike asked me to marry him three weeks to the day before Tim asked Anna to be his bride. Mike and I got married a little over two months before Tim and Anna's wedding. Anna and I marveled in the gift of sharing such a sacred season of life: We were both brides-to-be at the same time, and each of us was a bridesmaid in the other's wedding. I love this photo of Tim and Anna, seconds before they see each other for the first time.


{ October + 5 days }

One Really Sad Thing did happen this year: Chelle and company moved across the state. We have known each other since we were wee lassies, playing dress-up whenever possible, making up pen names and imaginary stories and later dreaming of being missionaries and devouring everything Elisabeth Elliot and Amy Carmichael that we could get our hands on. It has been an immeasurable blessing, over the past six years or so, to live only an hour away from each other--though we still saw each other far too little. Anyway, Chelle called me one stormy November day and asked if I could meet up with her that night for "one last hurrah," because they were going to move in the next day or two...or possibly later that night! We ooh-ed and aah-ed in Anthropologie, scoured the sale section, made a few sweet little purchases, and then had the best cupcakes ever at Trophy Cupcakes. Seriously. Their coconut cupcake is not to be missed, I don't care if you're diabetic or not, eat one. You'll be glad you did.

Then we decided we wanted coffee. After all, it was Chelle's last hurrah in the Land of the Lattes! But...on a weeknight...in a very posh part of town...apparently all coffee shops close early. We were in the epicenter of Seattle's Best Coffee, Starbucks, and Tully's, and we could not find a single coffee shop that was open. And we tried. We marched up and down streets, in the dark, in pouring rain and gusty wind, without benefit of coats or an umbrella. We were still looking for a coffee shop--there must be one on the next block! There must!--when David called to say Jack was inconsolable and it was probably time for Chelle to head home. So we walked/swam back to the parking garage...

... took this "after" self-portrait, climbed in Chelle's car to take me to my car, and got lost. In the parking garage. I don't mean that we couldn't find my car {though we couldn't}. I mean that that parking structure is utterly and completely un-navigable, full of dead ends, and all the different levels and sections don't connect. I'm really not making this up, am I, Chelle? I kind of thought maybe there wasn't a way out. After ages {fifteen minutes? At least?}, we found an exit, figured out where we were, and Chelle dropped me off outside the entrance I'd used and glory be, I found my car AND exited successfully! {I almost ran over a bellhop, but that's another story.}

{In case you were wondering, these photos are actually from November 5, but nothing much happened in October. At least not that I documented photographically.}


{ November }

A $1.99 bag of cinnamon-scented pinecones at Walmart inspired me to try to make our condo a little more homey and festive. I'd been so swamped trying to get things unpacked + organized that I hadn't given a thought to trying to make things pretty. Not until the Walmart pinecones, that is. I put them in tall glass vases scattered around the house, with tealights interspersed. {This is actually the goblet I bought at Goodwill for communion during our wedding ceremony. What better way to use an orphan goblet?} I turned the lights down, breathed deeply of the cinnamon-scented air...and for the first time, it felt homey. Not just the place where we live, but home.


{ December }

Mike's Dad, ecstatic over the Killer Rabbit slippers his wife gave him for Christmas. I don't understand "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," but the slippers--and Dan's sheer delight in them--were hilarious!