Do you grill your fruit?

If your answer is no, you should.

Go run out to your closest farmer's market and get yourself some peaches. Grilled bananas is amazing too. And don't even get me started on grilled pineapple. Heavenly I tell you.

This was my dinner tonight. I'm being serious. Well, before the peach glory, I actually had a piece of peanut butter toast. I figured I got all of my main food groups, so I called it good.

Seriously. Look at the honey dripping off.

Here is what you do:

Peach. Slice it in half. Grill it for about 5 minutes.

Drizzle honey on both sides.

Sprinkle granola.

Enjoy and fall in love.

Because sometimes breathing is necessary.

Oy, has it been a good week.

Take, for instance, my evening last night:

Loving my sunsets by the water!

Loving her evening workouts in the water!

Perfection, eh?

LOVE it. This week has been a nice breather for us. Moments like these pictures show abounded, which we needed. It has been a deep breath kind of week. Sleeping in in the mornings. Late night conversations with friends. Mid-day on Wednesday we were both home so we threw on our swimsuits and played in the water with Sophie; so fun!

We're both taking today off to just have a day away, unplugged, un-everything'd. The year is going to get crazy-busy for us beginning next week and we want to enter into it rested and restored. It'll be fun and I'm looking forward to all of it, but it'll be a pretty quick pace.

This has been a fairly chaotic summer. For me, for sure, but especially for Lane. He has been gone A TON, so even if I've been around, with him leaving and going and leaving and going it still just lends a sense of instability to our life.

I just looked at the calendar, and of the past 12 weeks, L has been home for only 2 of those weekends. We'll both be home this weekend, which has been so unheard of and rare this summer, and I can't wait! This will be only his 3rd time making it to church with me out of the last 12 Sundays! We might as well be living Active Duty Army Life again with that track record!

I'm excited for our weekend- We're doing our day away today: just going into the mountains for a day to read, relax, journal, think. Then tonight is over to a friends house for dinner. Saturday is cleaning out our garage. Saturday evening is over to another friends house for dinner. Sunday is showing up and sitting next to each other at church! So good.

We're just slowing down to catch our breath before the next sprint starts. Summer's are supposed to be relaxing, right? Ayiyi! It's a good life, though.

There are no guarantees...

This might be a doozy of a post, but my mind is thinking about this stuff right now...

At church yesterday morning, our pastor spoke on parenting. He called it 'Mythbusters: Godly homes produce Godly children.' It was basically speaking on how there are no promises that just because you raise your children in a certain way they will chose to follow Jesus. Good parents sometimes have hard kids that turn out not following Jesus, making poor life choices, etc. And sometimes bad parents have great kids who end up loving Jesus later in life and having great families of their own.

And all of this got me thinking. You can try to control things as much as possible, do all the 'right' things, but sometimes there are just no guarantees in life.

Take for instance, my sweet friend Brooke. She's phenomenal. They were (and still are!) some of our most cherished friends while we lived in Georgia. I don't think she would mind me sharing this because she talks about it freely on her blog, but they're pregnant right now but her baby boy has a fatal birth defect. He can live inside of her womb, but as soon as he is born they know that he is not going to make it.

Seriously? It's heartbreaking and doesn't make sense. As she shared the other day, as soon as she found out she was pregnant, she took prenatal vitamins, she ate healthy, works out... did everything 'right'. They're now looking at adopting in Africa- kids who are healthy and living probably despite not having prenatal vitamins/health care/clean water/etc.

Also, take my friend Kelsey- also a sweet friend from our time in Georgia. She and her husband Chris came to Fort Benning for a years' worth of training and they were in our small group from church. He went to West Point, they were strong believers, newly married, a great great couple. He has been in Afghanistan for the last year or so and we recently found out that he got killed. Again... Seriously? He was one of the good guys. Like, really solid, amazing man, great husband kind of good guys. Kelsey is now a 23-year-old widow. It doesn't make sense.

You can be an amazing parent and just have a tough kid. You can do all of the right stuff while pregnant and still lose a baby. You can marry a phenomenal man but still lose him so much earlier than you were anticipating. There just are no guarantees in life.

And this sometimes makes me want to hole myself up. Never have kids in case I would have to say goodbye to early. Not let Lane go anywhere without me in case something happens. Try to protect myself from the (potential) pain.

But. I would lose out on too much. And Jesus calls us to hope. And trust. Believe that this isn't all there is. Show others what it is like to love a good God who is unchanging despite what life looks like and who loves us so much. It's a journey, for sure.

So that's what's on my mind today... sorry if I'm a Debbie Downer- I'll try to not be like this everyday. :) Makes me excited to hang out in heaven someday.

My weekend project

My entertainment this weekend consisted of turning this fun box... holder... wood... thing:

Into this:

Isn't she way cute?!

Technically, I didn't create it from scratch. Actually, not even technically- I just flat out didn't create it from scratch. I saw her at a garage sale and just knew the possibilities hidden within that rough exterior.

I took her from her wooden plank boringness and led her into this beauty.

She was painted with leftover paint from my living room walls but she still needed some oomph. So I was totally inspired by this project and put my own mark on it. It brought my sweet little box to life.

She is currently sitting by our back door but I still have absolutely no idea what her purpose is... maybe a shoe holder? Blankets when it gets colder? Magazines? We'll see. But for now, she is just making me happy by just being herself.

The brilliance of local

I swung by our local farmer's market yesterday afternoon and absolutely fell in love. There's something about them that speak to my heart. Knowing I'm getting better food grown by hardworking people that live 5 miles away from me rather than 3000. Supporting farmer's directly and ensuring that they are being paid fairly. It's such a different environment than a grocery store.

I walked around, chatting with each farmer... asked where their farm was, how to tell if their produce was ready, how long they've lived here and little pieces of their story. I love interactions like that.

I got to the corn guy and he had me take a bite of the corn. Raw. Seriously. He pulled down the husk and I took a bite right there in the farmer's market. It was Delicious. He said that corn sold in grocery stores is developed to ship; to be hardy and last a week or two. But true, local farm corn is grown to be eaten that day so it is much more tender and much sweeter so I could bite it right off. All it needs is to be warmed up enough to melt some butter on it. Fascinating, huh?

I liked him so I bought a lot of corn. Some squash and zucchini at another guys place. Fresh Colorado peaches at another. Green beans too.

And I could carry it all around in my cute pink tote!

I heart Craig's List

Just this year I have begun something new.

I have entered into the world of Craig's List and it has been epic.

In the fall I dabbled my toes. I needed a new coffee table and found a BEAUTY on there. She's perfect. I'm looking at her right now and still just as in love as I was on Day 1.

Then I took some time off. But this week I was realizing that we had some things we needed to get rid of to open up our house because we have just accumulated some junk in our years.

So I returned. Craig's List was beckoning me back.

Yesterday we put up a desk. SOLD within the afternoon.

This morning we put up some dining room chairs. SOLD within 2 hours!

I now have cash burning in my wallet which is a dangerous, dangerous thing. It feels like free money to me. The responsible thing would be to put it toward vital things like groceries, gas, etc.

That is boring.

In an ideal world I would use this new money to buy shoes maybe. But in my old age I think that I am becoming responsible and will put it towards something necessary.

Still. Craig's List ROCKS!

GREAT weekend!

Hey friends!

It is now officially Day 2 of August.

School starts in 2 weeks.

Summer is winding down. We've checked off pretty much every box that we wanted to accomplish this summer... except one. But more on that later. :) But we wanted to go to Costa Rica- Check. We wanted to go backpacking- Double Check. We wanted lots of time with our family and friends- Check It Up. We wanted to get rested and restored before we enter into another year of chaos- Absolutely Check. It has been good.

And. We wanted to climb a 14er. We got to check that one off this last Saturday.

Now. For any of my friends not from Colorado or not familiar with the glory of 14ers let me tell you- 14ers are mountains that are above 14,000 feet in elevation; there are 54 of them in Colorado and it is kind of a big thing here to try to climb as many 14ers as you can. I grew up climbing them, and this was the first one that Lane and I had done in awhile because our first years of marriage were way out in Georgia far away from anything close to a 14er.

This is our crew at the trailhead at 6:30 am about to begin our way up. Me and L on the right, with his sister and her hubby on the left.

We ran into 5 of these guys on our way up. True, wild mountain goats. So fun!

Capturing the boy as he summits. (And yes, if I was at the top taking his picture as he came up... that means that I SUMMITED BEFORE HIM. My tough Army Ranger is no match for me on the mountains. :) Just kidding. He really could have kicked my bootie if he wanted to, but still. I wear that badge with pride.)

Standing on top of my 11th 14er. SO AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL.

If you haven't been able to pick it up yet, we LOVE the outdoors. It's a way that we connect to each other, and absolutely a way that we connect with God. These pictures seriously don't do it justice... the view was INCREDIBLE. Being out in nature, and especially on top of a mountain you get such an appreciation with the CREATIVITY and GENEROSITY of our creator, and it makes me appreciate my body and what I have been given. I love being outside because it just shouts to me of a loving God. I love meeting him out there and love experiencing such neat moments and such accomplishment with Lane.

Yes, it was a good good weekend.