Berrylicious!

Saturday was opening day for

U-pick strawberries here at our local farm.

David, Brendell and I got up nice and early

to pick our share of my favorite berry.

Brendell was so excited to find unusual shapes.

I heard more "Look Mom's!!" in the hour we were there

than I have heard in a long time!

After living in Southern California for four years,

we have been spoiled when it comes to sweet strawberries!

Biringer Farm berries come pretty close though!

The annual Strawberry Festival in Marysville is

this coming weekend.

It is a four day event including a carnival,

craft booths, talent show, parade, and of course

plenty of delicious strawberries.

If you have been following my blog for a while,

you will remember last year's festival

which occured just a week after David deployed to the

middle east onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

My what a difference a year makes!

Marysville was an unfamiliar town full of strangers

last year, and we hardly knew where to go

to participate in the events of this festival.

Now this year, we are all looking forward to it so much

and David gets to experience it with us!

Biringer Farm in Arlington has over 22 acres

of strawberries to pick from.

We got two flats full picking from just

three or four rows!

Wondering what we did with all those berries?

After eating about a third of them like potato chips,

we sliced up the rest to use as topping for

strawberry shortcake,

waffles, pancakes,

and ice cream.

Yum!!

If you want to pick your own strawberries

or any other fruit in season,

just google "U-pick" and your state or county

and see what comes up!

Happy picking!!!

I heart faces... Sepia

I always enjoy photography forums and sites

where I can connect with other photographers

and "oooh and ahhhh" over their work.

I found I heart faces a few months ago

and as you know,

I like to enter their weekly contest if I have

a photo that I think applies well to their theme.

This week, it's Sepia toned photographs.

I am almost done wrapping up my marathon family

session edits and this little angel is among

my favorites of the day.

This is Mattie, my friend Jessica's little one.

She's such a sweet little girl

and I think this photo captures her cherubic qualities...

even without the wings!

Head on over to I heart Faces by clicking on the

icon. Enter your own photo or just

"oooh and ahhhh" like I do!

Weed Killer

Last Wednesday I stood in front of a group of new Navy wives

to present my section as part of the Compass program.

My section is called Local Insights and the purpose of it is to

encourage these new wives to get involved in their community.

My friend Melissa and I present this section together.

Melissa had the great idea to compare our lives

as navy spouses to that of a garden.

Our motto is "bloom where you are planted".

We have the cutest board where we have a big tree,

a sunshine, clouds and flowers

all representative of an aspect of our lives.

Melissa tells a story of her daughter bringing home from school

a painted pot with a marigold seed

tucked deep into the soil.

She brought it home in December.

Doubting that it would ever bloom off season,

Melissa and her daughter cared for it and

watered it every day until one day

they got a little sprout.

Surprisingly, the marigold grew to produce flowers

in less than ideal circumstances.

And so goes our theme.

I'm sure you can plainly see our analogy.

So there I stood, very convincingly telling these girls

that embracing the "bloom where you are planted"

motto for themselves will transform their

quality of life from merely surviving to thriving.

Sounds good, right?

Fast forward six days

and here I am sobbing at my computer desk

over so many thoughts swimming around in my head.

I wasn't blooming at all yesterday,

I was withering fast.

Weeds of doubt, longing, discontent and jealousy

were choking out any hope that

the flowers in my life would raise their colorful faces to the sun.

And so there I sat feeling sorry for myself.

Replaying over and over again how hard it is

to be on a separate coast from my family.

How much it stinks that my parents can't see

the daily happenings in my kid's lives.

How sad it is that their sporting events and

school events are attended by just David and I

and more often just me.

How frustrating it is that I have to uproot my business

every couple of years

and never really get a chance to live up to my potential.

I was allowing the slugs of "poor me" eat away at my fading leaves.

At times in my life it has been very difficult to maintain contentment.

This is one of them.

Yesterday it started with two little weeds of

"Gosh, I miss my family"

and

"Will I ever get this photography business off the ground?"

and those weeds grew into

"I have ruined my kids by moving so far away from family and

uprooting my kids in the middle of the school year four out of the last six years."

and

"I might as well just give up my dream of ever being a full time photographer

because it is just too hard to keep starting over!"

And then the weeds continued to choke out my blooms with,

"I didn't sign up to do this alone with an often deploying husband

and way too distant grandparents, uncles and cousins!"

Ug! I just hate attacks of the killer weeds!

I know in my heart that all of these are lies.

Sure we have it hard.

My kids don't get to benefit from having family around them.

I do have to hold this fort down alone much of the time.

They do have holes in their education.

I will have to postpone my ultimate dream of owning a real studio for at least

the next decade.

But,

on the other hand,

God has put us here for a reason.

I really do believe that.

He knows where I am and why I am here

and he promised to handle this all for me.

He hasn't left me here alone.

He has definitely blessed me with an awesome

navy family of other spouses while I am here

in Washington.

During times like this, I cling to my life verse

and use it as my weed killer.

Jeremiah 29:11 says:

"For I know that the weeds are going to come and try to overtake you,

but I am the master gardener and I've got plenty of weed killer

ready for you. I won't let those weeds choke the life out of you.

You are going to be a beautiful fruitful garden one day.

I promise."

Well, it really doesn't say that....

but that's how I am applying it today.

Here is what it really says:

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.

Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.

Plans to give you a future and a hope."

So, even though I might feel like my family is being harmed

right now, and I feel like the weeds

are wrapping tightly around my roots,

God has a plan.

He promises to give me a future and a hope.

So, take that you stupid weeds!

I end my presentation with a list.

I wrote this list to remind myself of how thankful I will be one day

that we really did bloom where we were planted.

Here it is word for word from my presentation notes:

Having been a navy family for 17 years,

we have lived in all four corners of the United States.

We have moved 6 times and have been through 14 deployments.
Some may say that that seems like a fragmented life

full of longing for family and familiarity,

and in some ways, they would be right.

But when I look back,

I’m so blessed to know that we have good friends all over this country

and we’ve really lived in every place we’ve been stationed.
My kids have swam in both oceans of America's coasts

and the emerald waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

We’ve seen Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon and Mt. Rushmore.
We’ve been to Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam.

We’ve seen the stars on Hollywood Blvd

and have sipped sweet tea underneath the Spanish moss

in the thick Southern heat.

We've seen Mickey Mouse on both coasts.

We've cheered on the FSU seminoles in Tallahassee

and the Dodgers in Los Angeles.

We've wandered through old western ghost towns

and the historic streets of Saint Augustine.

We ate pizza at the oldest pizza parlor in NYC

and had beignets in New Orleans.

We've thrown snowballs in New England

and have held starfish from the tidepools in Southern California.

We’ve gone deep sea fishing ,

toured “old ironsides” (the USS Constitution)
and have ridden the fastest wooden roller coaster

on the west coast.

We've been to the geographical center of the United States

and high up on a ski lift in New Hampshire.

We’ve walked the freedom trail in Boston and the sandy beaches of Malibu.
We’ve visited countless museums, aquariums, gardens and state parks.

We’ve led full, vibrant lives

all because we decided that we were going to embrace

the best side of this Navy life.
I’m thankful that we made it a goal as a family

to visit as many points of interest in each of our duty stations

because our kids will be able to look back at all they were able to see and do

just because their dad was a sailor.

Ferry Land

When you come to the Pacific Northwest,

one thing you must do is ride a ferry.

Ferries are a way of life here.

They are a common way of getting from here

to there and they offer

a beautiful view of the surrounding area.

David has been taking one to work everyday

while the ship is in the yards in Bremmerton.

His ferry ride is an hour long

and leaves directly from the base in Everett.

When we decided to go to Bremmerton a few weeks ago

to scope out some venues for a family marathon shoot,

we took the Edmonds Kingston Ferry

which is a 45 minute ride.

It was a grey misty day,

but we still really enjoyed ourselves.

Dare I say that we might actually be becoming

acclaimated to the weather here?

It seriously is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

I will admit though that the hardest part for me

has been these last two months.

I don't mind it being cold when it should be cold,

but when it's April and we are in heavy jackets,

that is not OK with me.

However, the weather here has recently reached record highs,

with blue skies and searing sun,

so I'm not complaining anymore!

Brendell explored the Ferry and

loved it so much.

She looked for otters and seals,

eagles and seagulls.

It was so fun to watch her get so excited.

Half way through the ride, we gave her the camera

and let her shoot us for a little bit.

She shot about 50 photos in 10 minutes!

Click...click....click....click...click!!!!

Some of them are featured on my blog header.

Here are some others.

When we got to Bremmerton,

we drove to Manchester State Park

which was recommended to us by my friend

Jessica who met us there.

We walked around and I did a few test shots

to see how the area would work for

the sessions I was scheduling for the following week.

It is such a gorgeous park with lots of different

photo opportunities.

I can't wait to show you some sneaks from the

family sessions I held there!

I've been burried in the editing of those sessions

ever since.

I'm working in two and three hour spurts

and am working my way through them all.

I'm two thirds of the way done,

so check back soon for some

sneaks at some goregous families.

David was in his uniform all that day because

we had to stop by the sub base in Bremmerton

for him to meet with some XO's.

He managed to stay mud-free despite pushing

Jessica's kids in a stroller

through some sloppy trails.

He's such a good sport!!

I Heart Faces birthdays!

I've been so busy this weekend and

the beginning of this week,

that I wasn't going to take the time to

enter a photo at I Heart Faces today.

But when I saw that the theme was birthdays,

I could not resist!

We've barely gotten the cake icing out of Bren's hair

from her party a few weeks ago,

and we've got birthday on the brain again

this week because Madison is having a big

shin-dig on Saturday night.

My entry this week is a favorite from

the 2.5 million photos I took at Bren's 6th birthday party.

The look on her face is "so her".

Don't forget to click on the logo below to see some other

awesome birthday photos and to enter your own!

*

I'll post some photos soon of what I've been so busy with.

Aside from the hours and hours I have been putting in

to finish editing my first marathon family shoot that I held

last weekend,

we've been beautifying the yard and overhauling the studio.

It's been super fun, but really exhausting as well!

I can't wait to share the results with you!