Bainbridge Island

Our family just got back from a wonderful long weekend on Bainbridge Island. It was the first road trip I think we've taken since Jude was a baby. I wasn't sure how everyone would do in the car for a 4 hour trip, but they did well! Our 4 hour trip turned into a 6 hour trip with bathroom breaks for the kids though, haha! But as Josh reminded me, "it's the journey, not the destination." I don't know, my lead foot really wanted to get to the destination! :) But we made each stop fun, even sat outside at a little coffee place until we got chased off by aggressive bees, but even that is a sweet memory in my mind. :)

We were spoiled with gorgeous weather up there, and I got to do an engagement shoot at the Bloedel Reserve with the sweetest couple on Saturday. Fun, fun!

We stayed in this really cute cottage right by Fay Bainbridge Park. It was a wonderful place to stay, complete with a relaxing garden in the backyard, that the kids picked zucchini and blackberries from. I'd love to stay there again sometime!

(Selah unaware of the shark sneaking up on her.)

The kids did puzzles, played go fish, made up games with scrabble pieces, and we got outdoors to play a bunch too.

Selah LOVED this sea glass! (And this is the face Benjamin makes when I'm comin' for him and saying, "I'm gonna get you!") :)

Saturday morning we went down to the beach and spent time throwing rocks into the water and collecting shells. The kids played on a great little playground down there too.

That afternoon I photographed Scott & Libby in some beautiful places! Can't wait to share their photos later this week.

And thank you Scott & Libby for sharing a piece of your beautiful world with us! We loved Bainbridge!

That evening after dinner we drove into town to get sorbet at Mora Ice Cream. Such a cute spot. It was warm enough to sit outside and eat ice cream! Selah dropped her ice cream right off her cone as she was running for the table and burst into tears. Josh, being the most selfless person I know, didn't skip a beat in handing her his, and taking her empty cone. I love that man. xo

The next day we woke up to rain so we drove around exploring the island a bit, and then the dark clouds blew out in a jiffy and it was blue skies! I was so excited! So we went to the Bainbridge Harvest Fair. It definitely ushered in fall for me. I had kind of been dragging my feet about fall, because summer was just too short this year, wasn't it?! But everything changed when we arrived at this little farm and walked through the orchard looking at little booths, watching people make cider, and watching the kids go down the giant tin slide... hello fall!

Jude, our little photographer, took this picture of us. :)

We thought it would be fun to take the ferry over to Seattle before driving home. The kids loved it!

I thought this was so funny, us trying to get a photo with the city in the background. Just a tiny. bit. windy.

Seattle is beautiful on a blue-sky day!

I'm so glad we got to spend a long weekend exploring such a beautiful place!

Baby Bump in the Road...

We can do our best to plan ahead, but we never know what we may run into when we get there. :) I'll explain a little further below.

Our family took a much needed long weekend away to the beach. Ah, so refreshing to get some rest, read, play in the sand, soak up time together and just enjoy simple things. And what amazing weather we got to enjoy all weekend! My brother Matt joined us too, which was a lot of fun having his company! His wife Gina was out of town and my younger brother Caleb had other commitments, and my Dad & Janet were hosting a special birthday party for Janet's mom, so it was just us and Matt for the weekend. But we had a great time! Thank you Dad and Janet for letting us stay at Cornelius House!

I rested a lot this weekend, more than usual, because I've been taking it easy much more these days. I thought I'd give you a quick update on my pregnancy, since there's been a change in my shooting schedule for the rest of the year.

Basically, long story short, I've been receiving progesterone injections to help remind my body that I'm pregnant. I've had some pregnancy complications in the past (losing our first baby around 22 wks due to my water breaking prematurely and then also going into pre-term labor twice when pregnant with Jude & going on strict bed rest), and I received 20 progesterone injections weekly when I was pregnant with both Jude & Selah. Thankfully there were no complications when I was pregnant with Selah and it was really wonderful to experience a first "normal pregnancy!" with her!

We began the progesterone again with this pregnancy at 16 weeks, just like normal, but 4 of the first 5 injections I was having reactions/side effects to. The doctor said that I was most likely developing an allergy to progesterone, which is clearly not a good thing. So we stopped the injections and I'm being monitored weekly through ultrasound to just check and see that everything is ok. I'm at a high risk of pre-term labor now, but so far, the past two weeks of ultrasounds have shown that I'm doing fine. But, since stopping the progesterone, Josh and I talked and prayed and decided it was in the best interest of this baby and my clients to cancel all of my photo shoots from mid-September through the rest of the year (baby is due Jan 3rd) so that I can rest and take it easy. Everyone I had to contact has been so wonderful and understanding and supportive! Thank you!! :)

I'm wrapping up a bunch of editing (which has gone slower than planned due to extra dr. appts. and resting) and will finish up shooting these next two weeks. I'm sure you'll see a lot more of my kids on this blog the rest of this year. :)

I feel good, and am confident that God has this little baby in His hands and we are so excited to meet this little man come January! And he has a big brother and a big sister who are already enthralled with him. :) I'm really grateful for the care I've been receiving and the amazing husband I have, who I couldn't think higher of! {heart}

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend!!







Thank you Matt for snapping this family photo for us, and a little belly shot of me too! You have so much natural talent.













Pretty funny... Jude just learned how to play a video game. Uh-oh. :)

Odell Lake Family Camping Trip

Josh and I took the kids on a short camping trip this week. Just two days (one night) but it was a lot of fun! We joined Josh's family (Josh's dad and a family friend... Grandma couldn't make it this year) at Odell Lake and Grandpa Mike took us out fishing twice. I LOVE being out there on that lake. It is SO gorgeous! The 360 degree view is spectacular of the mountains and trees, cabins, beautiful water, and boats. Ahhhh, I always forget just how much I love Odell Lake until I'm out there again. Josh and I camped there each year before we had kids, then took 2 years off when they were babies (I figured it would be more work than enjoyment during those "put everything in your mouth" baby stages.) Now that they're 2 & 4 it was just so fun to watch them soak up everything around them! :)

We arrived Monday, ate lunch, then went for a walk along the lake. What breathtaking scenery just walking the small paths along the lake, full of wild flowers and beautiful ground cover! Jude loved every time there was a fork in the path. He would stand there and say, "hmmm, which way should we go?" then we'd move forward again. :) The kids enjoyed throwing tiny rocks in the lake, riding Jude's bike, counting the camp site numbers, making smores (Whole Foods managed to have gluten-free everything for that), fishing, jumping in the tent (they thought it was a jump house), telling tent stories at night before bed, listening to the thunder, playing with Grandpa, blowing bubbles, going through Grandpa's tackle box ("toy box"), building fires, and eating meals at the picnic table in camp. It was a great experience and I'm already looking forward to going again next year!

I didn't take my Canon 5D Mark II camera since I wasn't sure how dusty/dirty it would get, and I didn't know how cold it would get at night, and I didn't want to feel like I had to carry it with me everywhere I went. So just before we left the house Josh found our old point-n-shoot Sony camera. I still remember the day we bought that cute camera 7 years ago. We had only been married a year and were on a super tight budget and saved to buy a camera that was 5 megapixels, and we paid $400 for it, which had felt like a small fortune/investment. What's so funny about that camera is that it "re-surfaces" every so often. We lost it for over a year once and then it re-surfaced again. Anyway, I hadn't used it in a really long time and we were on the road to camp when I realized the batteries were dead and there was no memory card in the old camera! Rats! :) So we stopped at the store and I hoped they still made memory cards for it... and much to my amazement they did! And a 2 gig card was only $20. Made us laugh since 7 years ago we paid a lot to have a 512mb card, haha. Anyway, I had forgotten how much I love our little camera and had a great time using it at camp!
I hope you had had a wonderful weekend!

Oregon Beach

Josh, the kids and I spent the weekend at the beach with my family and had a great time. It's always so relaxing there. We stayed at the Cornelius House and I'm telling you, I LOVE that place. It's a home away from home for me, and every time we stay there I wish we had planned ahead to stay longer. We were a crack up, though... among seven adults we had seven computers there. It sure shows the age we live in; none of us felt like we could leave home without our laptop!

On Sunday afternoon my brother Caleb's girlfriend came out to the coast and brought along some friends, and a couple of those friends were visiting from another state. We went down to the beach to take some fun pictures and play around. This was a great group!! They were singing, full of laughter and personality!