you make me a proud sister

One of the bummers of being far away is missing out on significant family moments.

My two youngest brothers really excel in athletics (whatever genes they got were totally lost on me) & both have had great basketball seasons.

Aaron is a junior in high school. His basketball team had the perfect season and were the first team in our county to ever go 22-0.

It was a pretty momentous thing for our (very) small town. Seasons like this bring the community together.

Aaron - we're super proud of you and your thousands of hours of hard work. We can't wait to see what next year will be like!

birthdays and celebrations

February brought birthdays and Valentines Day and celebrations that we did a poor job of documenting.

Jimmy turned 24 and we celebrated at a dinner with friends, which we have no pictures of. The next day was Valentines Day. Jimmy brought me beautiful roses and coffee early in the morning, we hung up the heart garland my family sent on the branch above our bed, and went to a great restaurant here in town for an awesome meal.

We don't do fancy meals out very often so we enjoyed getting to dress up, feel fancy, use multiple forks  for multiple courses... fancy things. And these were the best pictures from that event.

But we may have ended the night eating ice cream in bed, so let's be honest - we're not that fancy. And we like it that way. 

The day after Valentines day, it was warm enough to be outside in shorts, and we spent the afternoon on bikes riding around the city. Last weekend was warm enough to be on the beach. California 'winter' is over, and by the end of the month we'll be back in warm temperatures consistently. We're liking this California winter.

Though February was decently quiet the next few months won't be, and I can't wait for the change of pace!

we touched the jellies

This weekend was spent ALL OVER the Bay area with some amazing friends from Los Angeles. 

Through a friend, we were super blessed to be able to go the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Monterey was unbelievably beautiful. Starting the morning on Saturday driving along the ocean on the 1 was amazing. 

It makes us wonder why we're not in a different town every weekend. There are so many amazing cities within 4 hours of Redding & we're looking forward to exploring more of them in the coming months.

This next creature is actually a type of jellyfish too. It's the only place in the whole world that these are in captivity and on display because they're so fragile.

See these guys? Moon-something jellies. We got to touch one! It felt like mucus-covered jello. (Mmm, think on that for a bit.)

I could have spent the entire day just watching and listening to the beach. Monterey had the most amazing rocks and cliffs, and we even got a chance to see some wildlife. Those are not rocks on that beach.

We could explore new towns every day all day and be happy as ever. We stopped on our way back to Redding to have an authentic Mexican lunch at a place called Cancun.  That food bar in the picture is a salsa bar - 20 different salsas. It was so tasty and everything was organic and farm grown locally.

I wish I had one of the group pictures of all of us (and the ones of Jimmy and I didn't turn out well because of shadows). It was the most refreshing weekend and exploring, great food, many rounds of Settlers of Catan and really good time with friends.

where we've been

So where have we been?  

Truthfully, life has been much more... normal and routine than we are used to and, strangely enough, it's been an adjustment. 

But in our free time when we're not spray painting and building things and spending time with friends, these are the things we're reading, listening to and watching.

Listening to this album, and their other EPs, makes me dream of creating films to accomodate the songs. Perhaps the best worship album I've encountered in a long time.

The most beautiful spaces and hundreds of them.

I succumbed. I knew I would fall fast, and I wasn't wrong. 

Our current favorite album. It's actually from 2010, and didn't go over very well, but we're really enjoying it. If you like "Home" by Edward Sharpe, the whole album has that same sound. 

Jimmy's current read about a whole new way to offer education around the world. He reads a hefty amount of books about new approaches to our education system.

The most authentic portrayal of a family on television. Beautifully done, amazingly honest and pretty funny. I've cried more tears during this show than during any other I've ever watched.

Didn't love the ending (seemed a bit quick and cliche) but this was a fun, light and enjoyable movie. We're all for amazing cinematography and intense stories but every so often it's refreshing to watch one like this, even though the title is awful.

Blessings are a practice that has fallen off the map, but John's writing is beautiful and seems to speak the things that are the most difficult to translate in words.

"Awaken your spirit to adventure;

 Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk,

Soon you will be home in a new rhythm, 

For your soul sense the world that awaits you."

shasta

The beauty of Redding: we enjoy temperatures in the 50s during the "winter" but have access to snow in the mountains when we need our fix.

Saturday we trekked up the mountain with our friends Tim and Britt and we can't wait to go back. The scenery, even on the drive up I-5, is so beautiful and much more Pacific Northwest-esque than anything south of Redding.

The mountains were breathtaking and they have feet upon feet of snow. Majestic was the way Tim described it, and that's probably the most appropriate word for it.

 

scenes from the last weeks

We spent two full weeks at home over the holidays. We didn't do a great job of documenting all of it (no nice photos from Christmas - yikes) but it was an awesome visit that went by way too quickly.

Basketball games, tons of snowy weather, lots of cousins, surprised by a quick gathering of friends from Ashland, a New Years spent in airports. These are scenes from the last few weeks, in poor quality iPhone photo form.

investment and the shoreline

We're heading home to Ohio today (and are so excited!). My mind is trying to wrap itself around the simple fact that we've already been here for four months and the fact that we've only been here for four months.

We could not be more ready to see our families in Ohio and our friends who have become family.

If I'm being honest, though, there is a decent portion of my heart that is a bit nervous. That portion is labeled pride in big capital letters.

There's that prideful part of you that wants to be able to come home with the best of reports, that all your risks were met with wild success and went better than planned. One of those glowing reports that transforms all who ever doubted your choices into enthusiastic believers, and maybe they'd even think they could do it too and that risks were always worth it.

For us, the messy truth is that this risk has been wholly worth it to our hearts but not hasn't always meant wholeness of our bank accounts. And we're okay to admit that. The risk resulted in almost 3 months before I started working and 5 months before Jimmy did. We live with roommates, and that's a bit unconventional for newlyweds.

The whole thing is a bit unconventional.

Last year when we were talking though our options of where to land after June, we knew that in our hearts we wanted to be here. We were also aware that in prioritizing moving across the country to Redding, there would be sacrifice.

If there's anything I've learned over the last few years its that coupled with risk is an ebb and flow of emotions that range from the ecstatic, "I'd live in a cardboard box as long as my heart feels this great" to the victim mindset where you swear all good things have been taken from you. Maybe that's a bit dramatic, but there's truly a swing in the pendulum, sometimes daily. There are moments that you swear you can't take one more step, that your life will never be 'normal' (whatever that is, anyway).

And I wouldn't even classify myself as a very emotional person.

The other day I was talking with a friend about the whole thing, and she reminded me that there has been heavy investment but not that the process isn't through - the profit is yet to be found in all those things we're told make us secure.

Its the part where you've left the shoreline, lost sight of it, and have yet to see the shore on the horizon.

And being in the ocean without sight of land is sometimes scary. But what happens in your heart when you're out at sea - that's the real treasure, the kind that changes life in a way that no paycheck can. The treasure of knowing that you can do it, that you did take just one more step. In fact, you've taken twenty of them.

There are some things that can only be cultivated when you've yet to see the payoff of your investment. Once you're on that end of the process you just don't have to confront all your demons and fears and the lies you believe like you do on those days at sea. And hopefully the process actually changes your concept of payoff anyways. You appreciate the shoreline and landing in a whole new way. Actually, you're free to truly appreciate it because you learned that you can survive without it.

And when we focus on that, the whole "being in process" thing seems a little less hellish. My pride that's fueled by a need for achievement is a bit more quiet and my gratitude for the chance to live this adventure with my best friend wins.