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Friday, October 12, 2018

Announcement Time!


 Hi everyone! I've been missing this space...

But I have a good excuse. The last several months I've been hard at work on a new project. My sister Kaitlin and I have officially started Honeyclad, a place to connect and share the beauty of people, place, and their untold stories. We'll be celebrating the world--at home and across the globe--and trying to be as honest and transparent as we can about real things that matter along the way.

So if you love travel, pretty photos, conversation, art, or just want to stay in touch, please join us. Our new website is honeyclad.com and our Instagram is @honeyclad. Check it out and let me know what you think! There's lots of fun stuff on the web site, like itineraries with good info, links, and tips from our trips. There's an interactive map of our stories, and even a little shop selling favorite items from inspiring spaces and artists that we discovered while traveling.

Like these earrings from a designer we found in France...


So far we've posted stories from...




And we have lots more on the way, including Iceland and Banff, Canada! 

The whole venture has been such a learning and growing experience that I'd love to write about sometime (building a website on Wordpress is not for the faint of heart). I'm already super thankful and hope that it can be a way for us to give to others as well.

Thanks for your love and support here and wherever else we may meet!

Friday, January 19, 2018

Family Photos - from back when it was still warm enough to leave the house

Ran across the file of photos from our Christmas card shoot this year. I realized that I forgot to post our card here, so I'll do even better and post lots of my favorites. It's so hard to choose a few for a card when there are so many special little face expressions I want to treasure always. 

In keeping with our yearly tradition, there was plenty of whining and a meltdown or two (Cetty!), but I'll choose to remember the best parts of that warm fall afternoon when our family explored an overgrown field until the sun set.
Poppy loved the photos with this thistle bush because, in her words, "It looks like we're on a safari!" And Cetty is trying to use my sweater as a blanket because she's still obsessed with blankets and her thumb--especially together.

Oh these two...first cousins born five days apart. We have newborn photos of them together so it's really sweet to have these a year and a half later. And convenient since Kaitlin was there with her family to swap Christmas photo sessions.

Friday, October 13, 2017

Nebraska Love

This summer our family vacation was a business trip. Bry needed to spend nine days working in Nebraska so we rented an airbnb in Omaha, packed up the girls, and decided to do our best to make it fun. And I have to say, Nebraska surprised me. I wouldn't have thought there would be much to take photos of, but as you can see, I had a difficult time narrowing them down for a post. 
 First off, this is one of the most inspirational buildings I've ever visited. It was built on a hill above the interstate like a glass lighthouse for travelers and is a breathtaking, quiet place to stop and be with God. I want this to be my house.

 Over the weekend we headed further west on a road trip to the sand hills. Barren, wide open spaces built from sand and not quite like anywhere else I've been. They have one of the best golf courses in the world, though it's completely private so no chance of sneaking in to see it.

 And then there was Uncle Buck's. I don't know where to start. A dilapidated, family-owned Lodge in the smallest town in Nebraska (Brewster, population: 17). The land that the lodge and ranch are on has been in the family since the 1800's. There were homemade ribs for dinner, teddy bear pancakes in the morning for the girls, a grandson who took us to see the new calf and told us about his rodeo life, and lots and lots of mounted heads and strange taxidermy. There was a random old man (the grandpa?) watching horse racing on an ancient television in the living room. Cetty went and stood by him for a while and then came back and whispered to me, "I said hi to Uncle Buck." Ha! This was decidedly an essential part of the true Nebraska experience.

Nebraska National Forest. Largest hand-planted forest in the country.

And then we had to go see a real rodeo for ourselves.

On the way back to Omaha we stopped at the pioneer living history Stuhr Museum. It was fantastic and especially cool since Nebraska was part of both the Oregon Trail and the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Loved the Pawnee earth lodge! 

Our airbnb was the perfect home base for us while Bry was at work. It was in the most fun part of town, within walking distance to everything and surrounded by incredible architecture. Plus that porch!
 What did we do to occupy ourselves all day? Tea parties, selfies, walks, shops, a favorite bakery, parks, new library books (including a few about Nebraska of course), and some schoolwork thrown in there. Homeschooling is the way to go for families that like to wander and thrive on flexibility (me!).
 We were there over the 4th of July. Unexpectedly, at about 10 pm, I decided that the girls must have sparklers. I hunted high and low, waited in a ridiculously long line in a hot, stinky firecracker tent for that one tiny box of sparklers, and then got the girls back out of bed. I just kept thinking, the weird things we parents do for our kids. But you know what, totally worth it. I mean, look at them!

It turns out this was what our family needed. Time away from all-day-long distractions to slow way down and be together. It was like a good, deep breath. Just enough exploring, without the rush and pressure that a typical vacation in a more exotic destination can tend to have. Because in the end, it's not about the place.