Posts by Jen

Old ladies and Instagram Pics

Something weird has happened to me since moving to Southern California. I’ve recently discovered a lot of beautiful pictures and lives on Instagram from fellow OC moms. Perfect looking lives. Perfect looking people. Perfectly dressed. Perfect messy hair. Perfect kitchen and meals and plates and walls and pets and lives. I found a couple Instagram peeps that I thought would “encourage” me to be a better housekeeper or homemaker or homeschooler. I started following some of these beautiful perfect people. I started to feel ugly. I started to feel self conscious of my home. I started to think that my homeschooling was never enough. I started wishing I dressed differently. I started thinking that my life was no longer adventurous. I started thinking that I wasn’t taking enough risks. I started feeling that I wasn’t enough. I stopped in Target today to get a free ‘trenta’ ice water (I’m addicted…

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Aging or Ageing (if you are british)

Today I sat across from my beautiful husband and was filled with thankfulness and gratefulness. I looked into his eyes and saw the same Justin that I married over ten years ago. The same Justin that I despised thirteen years ago. The same man that I moved across the ocean with. But I’ve been noticing something different lately when looking at him. Yes, the hairline continues to change, but now I see little small wrinkles around his eyes that weren’t there when we were married or when I despised him or when we moved across the ocean together. But he is the same man. A better man, but the same. And of course he must also notice these things in me. We sat together at this little coffee shop. It was Starbucks, Okay!? Starbucks! I wish I could say it was a glamorous little cafe in Barcelona, but I needed…

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A good dad

I was looking through some pictures I just took in the last couple weeks and saw these from one of Justin’s futbol games and it just brought the biggest smile to my face! I am probably living vicariously through my kids’ life, but I think Justin is the coolest dad ever! He represents what my dreamy idea of a good father is and I am glad that I get to see it played out with my own children. Even better than having it myself.  

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I asked for adventure and I got it.

In my last blog post I posted a few phrases that I didn’t realize would challenge me the VERY next day! These are my own quotes: “Isn’t there something so fulfilling about just LIVING LIFE and doing something crazy?” “Why do we take the easy route in life so often?” “Isn’t there adventure to be had?” “Why do we become complacent in our marriages or relationships or personal lives?” Little did I know that the very next day I would be challenged to these quotes. Do I really believe what I wrote, or was it just a moment of inspiration, something to never be lived out? Let me tell you what happened the next day. I got an email from a friend saying that there was a company called Transavia looking for blond children 4-6 and males and females 25-30 who were also blond to do some sort of advertisement…

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Inspired by Surfwise

I love being inspired by documentaries. I remember the first documentary that I watched was one on Keith Green. Justin and I watched it together after being married for two years. Watching that documentary sent us on the journey of selling our house, our cars, and eventually moving to Europe. (Of course it wasn’t the only factor in our moving to Europe, but it did play a significant role.) Isn’t there something so fulfilling about just LIVING LIFE and doing something crazy? It almost brings me to tears of excitement just thinking and writing about it! The most recently seen documentary, just watched a few minutes ago, was Surfwise. Since reading about it a few weeks ago, I knew it would probably be a film that would somehow impact how we will live our lives. The only thing I knew about the film was that it is about a large…

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Ten Years

Ten years of marriage. Ten years of trying to get over my own selfishness. Ten years of trusting a person with who I really am. Ten years of laughing together. Ten years of crying together. Ten years of learning to fight. Ten years of learning NOT to fight. Ten years of pushing buttons. Ten years of getting my buttons pushed. Ten years of snuggles. Ten years of learning passion. Ten years of letting go. Ten years with the best kisser. Ten years of feistiness. Ten years of disagreeing over the same ol’ things. Ten years of getting over the small things. Ten years full of love. Ten years full of growth. Ten years with my best friend. The best ten years of my life.

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Our mini vacation in Budapest

Last week we went on a little mini vacation to Budapest, Hungary. Our annual conference for work was being held in Hungary, so we took advantage and spent a couple days with friends from the organization. We spent 2 1/2 days in Budapest. I was really surprised at how beautiful Budapest is! It is also quite kid friendly! Little parks and little play spaces in restaurants! This is something that is now a plus when traveling with kids! The best part though, were the swimming pools! I remember being excited about swimming pools as a young girl and I guess not much has changed because I really loved spending a good amount of time in the pool every day, but so did the kids! I didn’t take as many pictures as I am used to taking, but that’s only because most the fun times were had in a swimming pool,…

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