Deep Breathe

I've been avoiding blogging about the last few weeks. I don't know how to explain it,

its just been hard. That's life though, right? Hard?

I'll give you a rundown and explain more later when I understand stuff better. My brain takes longer to process things I guess.

I applied for the SOAR scholarship - totally went out on a limb and applied, even did a video of myself as a part of the submission! AH! I know, something that I usually shy away from, but I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone. So if you're interested check it out:

http://www.soarwithmera.com/Galleries/Submissions/10499462_eeZj4#742613144_H2ENV

Its video #37, and if you like it leave a comment??

We find out the three lucky winners January 8, so cross your fingers and pray. :)

A more serious note - right before our vacation, Charlie was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. Kind of a shock to be honest. He's always been really healthy, eats rights, exercises... then BAM! Our lives have changed overnight and we're reeling with how steep this learning curve actually is; I knew nothing about Diabetes until 2 1/2 weeks ago. Now we're working with needles and finger pricks, logging every bit of food he eats and trying desperately to understand it all. Thankfully he still has his student insurance so that's helping us pay for all the new equipment.

We don't know what this means for us long term, we're still trying to figure it all out. Just please keep us in your prayers. He's only 23 - and this is a lot.

First week of the Christmas break Krissy, Charlie and I all flew to Chicago/Michigan to spend a week there in the snow, with our dad and seeing old friends.

Good times.

I'll post a blog about it soon. :)

Now we're home, Christmas is over and the New Year is around the corner. Is anyone else really excited about 2010???

The Little Train That Could

I think I can... I think I can... I think I can...

I know I can? I know I can... I know I can.

Hello December

Is it really December already?

I'm so excited for the end of 2009 - 2010 is going to be MUCH better :)

I feel like I'm reading the story of my life and I'm counting down the pages of a chapter and can't wait to get to the next one to see what happens.

Christmas is around the corner. I love Christmas.

This year with our current living situation I'm not going to have my tree up,

or my awesome Christmas decorations - but I am putting up our stockings at least. :)

and my coffee mugs with mittens on them will be out. lol

Charlie and I (and maybe my sister) are going to Michigan for a week before Christmas. I'm excited to see WINTER! and see my friends, eat yummy food and be where my soul calls home.

I'm trying to get Chicago Bulls tickets. Yes, I live in Southern California and am NOT a Laker fan. I stick to my roots and am loyal to my team. I want to go to Anthropologie in Chicago - somehow I just think it'll be sweeter? My two loves, in one.

Today is my awesome cousin Nick's birthday. I feel so blessed to love my family and have friendships with them. Life is good.

I know I'm rambling... I'll be done. I'm debating on getting frozen yogurt. So until tomorrow. :)

Perspective

I hope all of your Thanksgivings were super awesome?!?!

We did the usual Thanksgiving lunch with my giant Smith family, ate too much and then played games. I really do love my family; and I'm pretty sure I have some of the best cousins around.

This Wednesday my grandma was diagnosed with Lymphoma. :( So after we were done at my uncle's house we went up to the nursing home to visit her - it really puts things into perspective. Be thankful for every moment you get with your loved ones.

I have so many things in my head that I feel I need to say, but don't know how and then something like "cancer" really puts life back into perspective. Life is so short. I love my husband, family and my friends. I need to focus on the things that are important - surround myself with positive people and things, negativity is everywhere and it just drains the joy out...

Thats all...

Giving Thanks...

today is thanksgiving.

a time for reflection, family & friends... and of course WAY too much food. :)

just remember to make sure those in your life feel

appreciated

welcome

&

loved.

remind yourself of what today is and why its an important to be thankful.

i woke up this morning and was instantly reminded of what i'm thankful for.

my boys.

i married my best friend & the love of my life.

and

we have the cutest and most lovable puppy EVER. :)

Dream #4 - Travel

Ok, I don’t know if you guys know me – but I LOVE to travel. I got bit with the Travel Bug when I was 15 and my mom took me to Thailand. Maybe its in my blood and that mission trip triggered something inside of me? I’m what you would call a European “Mut” haha… but I prefer Heins 57. J My mom’s family immigrated here a LONG time ago from Germany, Norway, Sweeden and we think that somewhere along the way there is some French in there? My dad came here to the USA when he was in college from Iceland. So I have my citizenship there as well as here in America, and am one of the few Icelandic people. Go me! I’m very proud of both sides of my heritage and I’m looking forward to my many travels over to Scandinavia to explore my roots and the cultures that blended to make up me.

I am nowhere near close to having seen all the places and things that I want – but I’m also not a stranger to traveling. Before I was 2 my parents had taken me to Iceland twice (not that I remember it all that well J ) but being on planes and sitting in cars for long periods of time isn’t foreign. In the 6^th grade my class raised money to go to Canada, that was awesome! I’m looking forward to going back. My junior year, my awesome cousin Whitney graduated from high school and took me on a Mexican cruise.

The trips that had the biggest impact on my travel experience though are those to Thailand. Like I said I went in 2002, when my great uncle was killed – he and my Aunt Jean had spent 17 years of their lives, raised their 4 sons there in Thailand as missionaries. What was meant to be a 50^th wedding celebration for them turned into a very different experience. My great-uncle died less than 2 months before the trip; it became a mission trip and my mom decided that we would go to spend time with and support our family. The trip changed my life.

Ignore the 15 year old me. Haha

In 2004 we went back to finish the church that was dedicated to my uncle.

Over 100 people went on that mission trip, Charlie and I started dating there, Tim and my sister went with us this time – all reasons why this place has a lot of meaning to my family.

It is my favorite place. I love the smells of the food – not the city… I love the people, I love the all night train rides through the jungles, I love looking out over rice patties, I love mangosteens,

I love fresh fruit, I love the night market, I love the beach, I love Thai boxing and elephant rides. Ugh… It hurts my heart to be away, and I won’t go back for a few more years.

This last summer I was able to go back to Thailand – 4 years later. Being older made a lot of difference in my experience. I was able to explore more, I felt more confident being a 21 year old vs. a 17 year old. I tried speaking more Thai, actually got to go see Thai boxing, went zip-lining through the jungle, just trusted my own capabilities more.

(You can read more about this last Thailand trip in the blog postings from last summer)

Also last summer (before going to Thailand) Charlie and I FINALLY got to go to Europe! I’ve been wanting to go to France since I was 5 when my neighbor Amy went to the Adventist school there, and she brought me chocolate coins J I really wanted to learn French before going, and being fluent in the language has been something high on my bucket list for years. When I met Charlie he was finishing up 5 years of private French lessons and IS fluent, so I took the first two years of college to take classes.

I planned out 5 weeks of Europe trekking to make up for the year we had been planning, and last summer we went, Ireland first,

then Scotland,

England

and then 3 weeks in France.

It was heaven. I didn’t want to come home. I could live out of my suitcase forever. Ok, that’s an exaggeration – I could live there, and travel all over the place very easily. J

I’ve lost a lot of my French, although I could understand everything around me and read, I struggled to speak it. I can’t even begin to express my frustration. I fully believe that trying our hardest to respect other cultures is an important and exciting part of travel. Learning French is something is a part of my dream of travel so I had to include that. Charlie and I are going to buy the Rosetta Stone: French and work on it together. Our children will speak French in our home and hopefully other languages. We want to be well rounded and create a home where this respect and knowledge of other cultures is the norm.

Our experience in Europe last summer only strengthened my love of travel. I felt like my soul resonated in that environment – those experiences brought joy to my heart.

On my bucket list I have included a time on many of my goals to give myself some motivation. So by the time I’m 25 (2012) I will have seen all 50 states here in the USA. By the time I’m 30 (2017) I’ll have been to all of the continents. I have Alaska, Hawaii, North Dakota and the New England states north of Pennsylvania left. The continents are a harder challenge, hence the longer time to complete that goal: I have North America, Europe and Asia checked off and only have South America, Africa, Australia and somehow Antarctica left.

Through the Mona Vie business I’ll get Hawaii checked off next summer from our Diamond Run trip to Maui (WOOT!), as well as going to Brazil (South America) next summer to work on the More Project. Check out our blog to read more about this AWESOME opportunity (post will be up tomorrow, Wednesday) at www.ckshealth.blogspot.com I’m really excited about going to work in Brazil! Charlie’s and my relationship started on a trip to give to others and work on bettering their lives – what better than a business to work on together than one that focuses so heavily on doing just this.

I don’t know what else to say… I want to go everywhere. See everything. Meet all kinds of people. Love them. Help them. Learn from them. Share with them.

That’s all.

I want to go to there.

Dream #3 - Photography

Hi! So its taken me a long time to sit down today and write about my personal goal/dream. I’m not sure why I’ve avoided talking about it? Perhaps because it means a lot to me and I get frustrated by all of the things that are in my way? I get really excited when I talk about Photography, it gets me out of my daily funk and I find myself looking forward to something.

My love of photography began when I was planning Charlie’s and my wedding two and half years ago. (Has it really been that LONG? Geez…) I looked through so many magazines, trying to find out what style I actually liked, what things would be necessary in my wedding photographs, that I became more entranced by the story an image tells more than the pose or lighting… Some of you know that Charlie and I only had 7 months to plan our wedding and at 3 ½ months to go – we had no photographer! I brought in a stack of magazines to work one day and sat pulling out every ad that I saw for a photographer, went to their websites (if it sucked – I threw them out) and then I found Me Ra. J I LOVE her pictures, and follow her blog to this day (www.merakohblog.com and her website is www.merakoh.com). To make a long story short, she and her husband Brian flew down from Seattle and shot our wedding. Our pictures are probably one my favorite parts of our entire day – they were able to capture moments that I would have forgotten or missed completely. How priceless is that? This ability to capture a memory for someone else (and yourself) to be able to preserve for eternity is something I sought out after this experience.

That Christmas Charlie bought me my camera, we got a kit on ebay, a lovely Rebel xTi, it goes with me almost everywhere I go.

I played with it for the first 6 months and then we went to Europe – the difference between our point and shoot and this baby was amazing, and I had SO much fun shooting our summer abroad.

and of course I have my own personal puppy model

Sadly, it would be par for the course that the one hobby or creative outlet that I really enjoy would be… well not inexpensive. Haha So I play with my camera and have been working more on getting familiar with the different settings and saving up to expand my arsenal of equipment J

In May two of our best friends got married, Jessica asked me to take pictures of the getting ready process – so I felt like it was time to buy a new lens (my awesome 28mm 1.8). This day was a turning point for me. I LOVED shooting their special day, seeing the results and learning more about the processes.

So after this I decided to save up and actually go to one of Me Ra’s workshops. Charlie and I talked a lot about it, and we decided that it would be worth it for me to at least explore this love for photography at the next level – I put some of my graduation money towards flying to Washington DC this last month. What a life changing experience. I had no idea I would come back alive like I did. I know it sounds dramatic when I say that the last four years of my life has drained the life out of me – but that’s how I have felt. Getting my degree, pouring my life, blood, sweat and tears, night of NO sleep, studying until my eyes were going to fall out and missing out on seeing my husband, friends and family really took a toll on me. Then to graduate and have NO idea what I wanted to do, what I enjoy, what I’m good at? Where do I belong? This has been quite crushing and when I sat down after the first night at the workshop, uploaded my pictures and saw what I was able to capture… I can’t describe it. Something came alive in me that I had no idea had been out of commission.

You can check out some of my favorite pictures from the workshop in an earlier blog – or check out my shutterfly account: http://thestoryoflife.shutterfly.com/

I have some potential portrait sessions coming up – I’ll keep you guys posted on what is going on with this Dream of mine. I’m really excited about this path that my life may take.

At the end of our workshop with Me Ra, she had us do a writing exercise of writing a letter to ourselves. I really didn’t want to do it, lol - I was pretty emotional about the whole weekend, the experiences I had had and the prospect of returning home to the unknown. It took me a while to find things to say to myself, but I eventually got it out, put my letter in an envelope, addressed it to myself and gave it to Brian. I got it in the mail yesterday. I sat down and read it, cried a little bit, because I needed the reminder of that passion and excitement that I felt after the weekend. Writing all of this out on my blog – even if nobody reads it – is just another way of reminding me of where I need to be.

(Thank you Me Ra)

Come back tomorrow – I’ll talk about Travel J

Dream #2 - Medical Schools

I don’t know about the rest of you – but I’m so happy that it’s the weekend J

Today’s post is our #2 Dream/Goal – paying for Charlie’s medical school. We aren’t going to take out loans for him to go to school, and the price of the school is not a factor that we’re even looking at in the decision making process. As of today Charlie has received 9 secondary applications to medical schools all over the country. So granted there are factors that are playing into where we want to be, New Hampshire or Ohio? Portland or Chicago? Wisconsin or California? How much do we want to travel to be with our family and friends? Weather… we want it! I personally am a HUGE fan of all 4 seasons.

Here are some of the exciting options: J

Option 1: Dartmouth, in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Option 2: University of Wisconsin, in Madison, Wisconsin.

Option 3: Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon.

There are more schools but these are some our favorites J Its exciting to think about what will be happening a year or two years from now. I think that if (when) the business really takes off we’ll take a year off next year – deferring admission into the medical school and spend some time relaxing and enjoying life. We’ll see. J

Come back tomorrow – I’ll talk about Photography J yay!

Dream #1 - No Debt

Good morning everyone! Ok, so as promised I’m blogging about my dreams that have become my motivation. The first reason – the thing that will be the first one to be checked off is paying off our enormous amount of debt. I know that this isn’t as fun as travel or photography, but its an essential MUST in order for us to continue on checking off those dreams.

The student loans that we’ve taken out over the last 4 years is overwhelming and quite depressing. I would never trade my education for a dollar amount and having the accomplishment of earning my degree is truly priceless – so with that disclaimer out there I can rant a bit? Haha no, I’ll behave. The harsh reality of our situation is that Charlie and I didn’t receive any federal or state grants for retarded reasons – but ya, everything over our little university grants had to be loans. It’s a long and tangled mess that usually puts me on the bitter-train so I’ll spare you the details. J

I can tell you that having the stress and pressure of having the loans piling up every year, getting those quarterly statements of the interest that is accruing, trying to pay for living expenses, enjoy life, keep eating…it gets exhausting. As much as we don’t want it to, it consumes our thoughts and ability to do a whole lot. The idea of having to start paying off my student loans was a huge factor in my decision to go into the Masters program here at LSU – even though I’m not 100% sure that’s where I should be in my life.

So this motivation of getting everything paid off and being financially “free” is a HUGE dream. We don’t want to say that money is the number one motivation in our lives, but rather we want the freedom that comes with not having to worry about every cent that leaves the bank account. I don’t want to spend my life hours working hard, missing time with my husband, someday my kids, and not enjoying their lives because I’m chained to the reality of paying off debt from my education and trying to provide a life. I want the freedom of being able to going on vacations – guilt and stress free – taking my kids on trips, being able to be at their soccer games or dance/music recitals. I don’t want to be absent 24/7 and constantly occupied by the stress of money.

Right now our goal is to have at least my student loans paid off by next year – Charlie’s by next Christmas? Its possible, the business is taking off and this is the main flame under our butts. J I don’t know how many of you have student loans hanging over your heads – the idea of grad school is looming in front of you and its terrifying (& expensive), or mortgages, credit card debt… things to pay off and that are looming over your heads is stressful and it adds a negative shade on life. Lets work on getting rid of that, de-stress your life a bit? It’ll be worth it.

Tomorrow’s post will be more exciting – Medical Schools! Yay! I’m super excited to share with you all the possibilities that are coming up for next year. I’m so proud of Charlie and we are blessed with options.

Can dreams come true?

So school is in full swing – and I’m really not sure whether or not I’m on the right path. I’ve been working on going through each of my life goals and trying to figure out what is a possibility or what is a complete dream…and there is a part of me that gets angry at the fact that there should even be a dream category, why can’t these dreams come true? One of the reasons I didn’t blog a whole lot this last summer and almost dropped off the radar is because of this conflict. After graduation I felt at a total loss, not sure what I’m supposed to do now. I didn’t know where I was supposed to go, what school program or field I should be pursuing, everything was up in the air (and if you know me, I don’t do well with everything being up in the air.) I need more security than that. I have the constant security that is my marriage and my relationship with my best friend Charlie – he is the one person who I know I can trust, say anything to, fight with and laugh with, cry on his shoulder and no matter how bad of a day I’m having he’s going to love me and we’ll survive anything. Other than that, things seem unsure for me.

At the end of July two of our closest friends Steve and Jessica invited us to their house for a “tasting.” Charlie and I weren’t sure what it was, but decided that we were going to support them and show up – and we are so thankful we did! They were in their first few weeks of starting their Mona Vie business and in that one night Charlie and I decided that we were going to join them. (If you want to check it out, www.ckshealth.blogspot.com) That first night I couldn’t sleep, not because of weird dreams or a feeling of hopelessness but because I was so excited that I get to have hope for my dreams again. I have a lot of dreams for my life. J Since this night Charlie and I have no doubt that our dreams are possible and that things are going to work out. A few of the big ones are

1. We don’t want to be in debt – student loans and all debt paid off

2. Be able to pay for medical school for Charlie.

3. I want to pursue photography – I enjoy it and need a change of pace.

4. Travel…everywhere!

5. Buy a home.

6. Go work (without the stress of missing work (money) ) on the MORE project in Brazil and go work in Thailand.

7. Basically we want freedom.

We know that some of these will take more time, but they’re possible. We have a “why board” up in our room, with this list plus or minus a few, there is a picture of the car we want to get, the Eiffel Tower, my bucket list is posted up there… and a checklist of things to do everyday. Things are going to happen – my dreams don’t have to be put in a little category of “never going to happen.” I’m thinking that for my own sanity I’m going to blog about a dream a day… does that sound good? I know I have like 5 people following me, so to all of you, sorry you can ignore my dreaming. It’ll be good for me.

Me Ra Koh Workshop - Washington DC

Hello all! Ok I’m sorry its taken me so long to put these pictures up – but I’ve been working endlessly trying to make sure they look as good as possible as well as keeping up with household/life stuff J So I guess a little intro to what I did, why and what the end result is and what it means for me. As many of you know Charlie and I got really lucky for our wedding and had Me Ra and her husband Brian shoot our wedding photos for us. It was an amazing experience and they are truly extraordinary people. One of their main focuses is to help women gain confidence in themselves and discover what their photographs show.

This last weekend I had the privilege of finally going to one of their workshops in Washington DC, spend two days with them and 19 other women learning, growing and stretching as an individual and a photographer. Saturday we spent all morning working on camera stuff/reviewing settings and such. That afternoon we had mothers and their babies come in and model for us. I got to work with Becky and her baby Clara – adorable. Steph was so kind to let me borrow her camera with her super shnazzy lens that I used to get some of these shots:

I also got to take some shots of first time mom Paula and her beautiful baby girl Jane.

And this is Stephen. J

The next day we got to work with families, everyone was so nice and helped each other out, I got to use other lenses, cameras and learn from everyone around me. Here are some of my family shots.

I honestly don’t have any words for the way the weekend changed my life. I knew that I loved taking pictures and capturing different moments in my and others’ lives, but I had no idea how the pictures were impacting me. I’m looking forward to taking more pictures and seeing where this new path leads me.

I hope you guys like the pictures! Let me know what you think!