Annual Camping 2019

For Labor Day, we spent another year camping in the mountains of North Carolina. This year, Kellie and her family were able to join us (I'm pretty sure for the first time), and of course, my parents were there. The campground that we stayed at was just a step above a KOA, so not as fabulous as other places we've camped, but it did have a nice river for tubing and good hiking nearby. I really love the photos I took, so prepare yourself...

Summer 2019

In the summer of 2019, I was in the middle of a two year long master's degree program, and I was spending a minimum of four or five hours a day on my classes (though sometimes as much as a full eight hours). That meant no epic summer travels, but we managed to squeeze in a few quick trips and activities.

Of course, we spent a week in Kentucky visiting family, including a zipline tour so my mom could cross that off of her bucket list.





The boys did a mud run with the youth from church, and Rylan went to Scout camp.





And at the end of the summer, we rented a beach house for a few days in the Outer Banks. The last day there, Michael had to work, so while he chilled at a Starbucks all day, the boys and I did a ropes course. We were too slow to make it all the way to the top, so goals for next summer!

Two Big Milestones

Eli graduated from middle school.



And wittle baby Ry graduated from elementary school.

Massanutten 2019

We have reached a point in our lives where living is cyclical; we do the same things every year, wash, rinse, repeat. If you look back at the history of this blog, you start to notice patterns: every year a post about Massanutten, then our epic summer travels (including a trip to Kentucky), then Labor Day in the mountains, than the obligatory Halloween post, followed by Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I am writing this in April of 2020, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, which has finally given me the time and space to update this blog after nearly two years. One reason I fell out of the habit of blogging was the feeling of redundancy as I blogged about the same things over and over again, year after year. But this week we were supposed to head to Massanutten for spring break, and instead, we are trapped in our home, afraid to get within six feet of people, afraid to touch anything. Suddenly, when our tradition has been snatched from us, the repetition of our lives feels special. My backyard, where I'm sitting as I write this, is beautiful, but it's not the mountains.

How many years have we been married?

Michael and I were geniuses when we decided to get married right after Christmas. At the time, the reasoning was that we'd be on Christmas break (we were both still in college), and we'd have time off for our honeymoon. We didn't realize the true benefit of a Christmas anniversary: a built in babysitter for every anniversary date since we're already spending the holidays with our parents.

We spent this anniversary in Nashville, not doing anything special, but we did take a good photo!