I Have a City Love

When I was seventeen and Dave was seventeen, we met at church summer camp through a shared friend.  We immediately bonded over a mutual affection for the movie, Newsies, and love for the great city of New York, in which the movie was set.  Having spent at least half of the next hour talking about Newsies and New York, David vowed that we would meet up in New York City one day to enjoy it together--I was a little dubious... However, due to unforeseen events later that year, we did just that!  David came to New York City with his church and my little sister and I took the train from Connecticut, into the city for the day.  We spent eight glorious hours together exploring the city, hand in hand.  Two years after that we were wed.

For our honeymoon, we explored the great city of London together for ten glorious days.  We came home with London in our hearts, smiles on our faces, and lots of new shoes in our suitcases, but much to Dave's mom's chagrin, no pictures whatsoever of anything touristy one might hope to see in London.

With the way things started--travel wise--it should be no surprise that we had high hopes for traveling together to many other great cities in the future...  But as our anniversary rolled around each year, we schemed and planned... only to end up enjoying each others company on a picnic date somewhere nearby, dinner at a restaurant, or a day together in nearby San Francisco (which counts as a city, by the way, but we live near it, so its not quite the same).

Finally, as year nine crawled slowly toward year ten, David put his foot down and said, "This money is earmarked for our ten year anniversary and this year we're gonna go somewhere." I was little dubious.

Despite my dubiosity (I just made up another word), or lack of faith, our ten year anniversary rolled around and we found ourselves on a plane bound for Portland, Oregon! Another city to explore together and (thanks to Allison for babysitting) six glorious days to do it.

Now that we are twenty-nine and thirty years old, ten years into our marriage, and parents to two lovely children, I find traveling and exploring with David even more enjoyable than before.  I am so thankful for such a friend and constant companion and look forward to visiting many more cities together in years to come...  Hopefully before our twentieth year of marriage.

There were so many interesting things to see in Portland, I couldn't stop taking pictures! Ten years ago, in London, we didn't have "camera phones" and we didn't have cellphones at all twelve years ago in New York.  My, how times have changed!  This year--thanks to the iPhone--we have plenty of pictures to share with Dave's mom and to share with you, as well... 

It looks like we got home just in time, because Caiden had already put up missing person parent posters!

Kids' Club

When I was little, we were constantly creating secret clubs and forts.  My siblings and I were always looking for loose floor boards, false walls, and secret passageways (I still do!) so when my brother discovered the attic crawlspace above his room, we were all suddenly thrust into kid-club heaven.  My brother called a meeting in his room, showed us the hidden space, and told us we had to have a secret club name.  We might have called it the Black Widows Club, but there's a chance my memory is a little rusty.  Oh man--we were so excited to have this huge space with so much potential.  We started scheming and planning and that dirty, rickety, old crawl space seemed like heaven above was shining into it.  That was... until Dad came home and couldn't find any of us anywhere except for our baby brother who was sleeping in his crib. It must have been a great secret club, because my dad was ready to call the cops to help find us and we all got in big trouble for hiding up there.  Needless to say, our club suffered an early demise.  We never went into that attic again.


Caiden and Elliott have similar club aspirations.  We host a Friday night church gathering at our house and Elliott and Caiden have created "Kids' Club" to compliment the adult discussion time.  They are always planning, scheming, purchasing for, and touting Kids' Club.  They have name tags, schedules, rules, folders for everybody, and possibly prizes.  They even made a Kids' Club flag...  Our upstairs neighbors, who are teachers, recently moved out and during the packing stages they put a tupperware tub outside which the kids promptly raided for "Kids' Club" supplies.  The kids assured me that the supplies were "up for grabs," but when Dad came home we discovered that those supplies were not, in fact, up for grabs--oops.  It felt like the "Black Widows' Club" fiasco all over again!  Despite the minor setback, Kids' Club is still alive and kicking, unlike my own Black Widows' Club of yore.

Though, the sad thing is: kids rarely come to Friday night church.  Its tragic.  But kind of funny, too.  Elliott and Caiden are "the leaders" in this perpetual anticipation of a club that can only begin when they get members.  It never happens, but its always a dream.

In the meantime, we take our 2-kid-club on little adventures of their own and encourage them to bring the flag along...  Kids' Club for life!

Luckily, Dad knows how to make a swing on the top of a mountain with a bike chain, cinching strap and a piece of wood, so we're all good!

Caiden Turns Six

The littlest lady in the family turned six this month!  We really enjoyed celebrating her little life with her.  She didn't want a big party this year, so she decided to do something special get frozen yogurt with one of her friend's on Saturday instead.

For her birthday dinner she wanted curry. Specifically, she wanted a restaurant called House of Curries here in Berkeley--mostly because she wanted naan and free chai. 

Since we were having a family birthday dinner, we decided to call the whole family which happens to be our church family, and many of them showed up at House of Curries to eat dinner with us and celebrate Caiden's life.  We are so blessed to know Caiden and so thankful that we can enjoy her with each other.

She had a fun day!  One of her classmates really wanted to pick her flowers for her birthday, but he ran out of time, so he made his mother promise him to go get flowers and bring them to Caiden by the end of the day.  Another friend gifted Caiden a little dixie cup filled with collected rocks, a bead, and drizzled with water.  Caiden loved it!  Still another friend's mom sewed the cutest little stuffed elephant for Caiden to cuddle with.  They were all perfect gifts.  Lots of church family and blood family gave her gifts, too.  She was totally blessed with gifts.

My favorite part of Caiden's birthday, however, was seeing her pass out cake to each of her classmates... every single one of them--on her own--before serving herself.  And then again at dinner, she served each party guest a slice a cake.  I loved seeing Jesus' servant heart in my little six year old.  That's the best kind of aging: maturing in Christ.  I still can't believe she's six years old!!!

Elliott and Caiden Visit Carpinteria || 2013

Carpinteria, 2013. We've been vacationing there every summer since 2004.  This year Caiden and Elliott were 5 and 8, respectively.  Its fun to see how they change each year and Carpinteria is a good measuring stick to see those changes.  Each year they get a little bit braver, a little more independent, a little better at riding bikes and staying up late...

Although Carpinteria is known as "the world's safest beach," Dave had his first run in with a sting ray while we were there this summer.  He was pretty miserable for about 5 hours and all I could do was keep refilling his bucket with hot water to try to get the toxins to release out of the cut from the sting ray's tail.  That was the very first day of vacation, so Dave was hobbling around the rest of the week on the beach.  No more water time for him...

But that didn't keep the rest of us out of the water...

The best part of Carpinteria is spending time with family.  Grandma and Grandpa put this whole thing together every year and all we really do is show up!

No Carpinteria trip would be complete without lots of beautiful sunsets, campfires, and s'mores.

Its always hard to say goodbye and drive the 6 hour drive home.  But then we just start looking forward to next year...

Do you have vacation spot (or memories of one) that is meaningful to you or your family? I would love to know about it in the comments!

Check out some of our previous trips to Carp here: 2008, 2009, 2009 again, 2010