Hiking and Birthdays and Graduation...OH MY!

Staying busy can really be exhausting, but deep down I think Will and I prefer staying busy- and packing our schedules...primarily if that means a long camping trip at the end of a busy week. But, OH, how the time flies when you are busy.

Last weekend we went hiking with my brother at Rocky Springs, a park that my family used to go camping at a lot when we were younger.

Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it

It is just about summer. In Mississippi.

The time when spring flows into summer in MS is simply heavenly. It is hot, and humid, and sticky, of course, but it's also late nights, sno cone breaks in the middle of the day, lying on the concrete gazing at the stars, swim parties and cookouts, watermelon, peaches for lunch. All things glorious under the sun. Summers are where memories are made and stories are told. It is the time to soak in life and dance through parks. For early morning walks and late night jumps in the pool. Summer is my favorite time of the year. Especially in MS.

Breaking Out the Moves: Important for Your Marriage

Marriage Makes Me Marvel

Will here -

As Clare has noted in her posts, marriage has been anything but "settling." In a way, of course, Clare and I do feel much more settled now than ever before in the sense that we have found our life partner, that person with whom we have each decided to spend the rest of our lives. To repeat: the rest of our lives. That is a big deal, and I think it is precisely because it is such a big deal that getting / being married has thrown not just our relationship into stark relief, but also our own lives and what we want out of them. Essentially, marriage is the first decision that we have made that bears with it the connotation of an entire lifetime. Neither one of us entered into it lightly, and neither one of us has since been able to shake the shocking feeling of mortality that comes with a lifetime decision.

Not that this is a bad thing. In fact, I think we'd both say it's been quite the opposite - finally, a full-fledged, no-bones-about-it reason to take a step back, re-evaluate, re-examine, re-set the compass, re-read the maps, re-think the pathway, re-visit our inner selves, re-explore what really makes us tick.

It's a Wonderful Life

Goodness! Has life been busy lately or what!? Will and I have been crazy busy with work- and when we're not running camps, or doing health fairs, we try to fit in a camping trip (beginning our training for Denali!) Life is great and we are just trying to soak it all in! We do like to relax, but we definitely like to be on the move. We both feel that there is so much to do- we want to try everything. Something that we are both always striving for is to learn more, educate ourselves even more, become better, more informed citizens, become better friends, siblings, children, spouse etc. I never want to stagnate. I want to always strive to push myself. I try to live fully in the moment and not live in regrets, or always be worrying about what others are thinking. (You'd think that once you're an "adult" you wouldn't worry about those things anymore. At least I thought that.) I can't say that I always succeed in my goals, but I try to always attempt growth and keep my goals in mind. When we have children one day, I hope that we can teach them to always grow and expand their horizons. All in good timing.

So here are some pictures of what we've been up to lately!

This is the little green space outside of our apartment. It WAS really overgrown with weeds and brush. This picture was taken after I had already cut all the weeds off the fence. You couldn't even see the steps through all the weeds! After all was said and done, we had 3 garbage bags, and a trash can full of sticks, rocks, and brush!

It now looks like this! I planted morning glory along the fence, and we planted a crepe myrtle!

One Month Anniversary!

As hard as it is to believe, Will and I have been married for one month as of yesterday! It has been completely wonderful- but really the time has gone by so quickly! Time always goes by so quickly when we are together- but it's making us realize that before we know it we will have been married for 10 years! I don't want time to zoom by too quickly- so we have decided we are seriously going to start documenting more of what we do. I think one reason time has zoomed by lately is that we have been SuPeR busy with work lately- Not only are we so busy during the day, but almost every weekend since we got married we have been working also! Then when we get home at the end of the day we are so tired- we manage to make dinner, try to exercise, and then it's already bedtime. So, all of that is changing. This is such an exciting time in our lives- the honeymoon phase, as some call it- I want to look back at old pictures and remember all the changes that took place.

So, we have set a few goals for ourselves. We are always trying to find new ways to learn from our surroundings and push ourselves to become better people. We tend to have different ways to accomplish this goal, but some of the upcoming changes are.....