(gr)attitude

I hope you guys, whether you're celebrating the holiday or not, are cozied up with your loved one(s) today.  While Thanksgiving itself has a troublesome history, giving thanks and expressing gratitude is always a wonderful idea and that's what I'm spending this day doing.  There is so much to be thankful for.  I'm most thankful for my sweet love and our little floof.  They bring me so much joy and happiness on a daily, hourly basis, I can't imagine life without these two

Living in the Pacific Northwest and being a part of a creative community puts me into contact with so many incredible artists, entrepreneurs, and makers.  One of those people is Tiarra Sorte and last Saturday we met up here in Tacoma for an in-home photo session.  Dan and I hadn't had photos of us together (other than tripod photos that I took of us) since our wedding, and I wanted to have photos of just us together before we decide to make a tiny human.  We've also been talking about moving to Seattle sometime next year for a new adventure, and so I wanted to have photos in our very first (owned) home.  

The session was so fun and I'm totally in love with the images Tiarra created for us.  I didn't realize how special it would be to have photos in our home and around our little neighborhood for us to look back on and remember our time in this house forever.  It will be so fun to show our kids what our first house looked, and a peek at our neighborhood.  Whenever I'm in Sacramento with my parents we usually do a drive-by of their first homes.  One I don't remember because I was a baby, and one I just barely remember living in before we moved up to Anchorage.  I imagine driving through Tacoma with our kids showing them our first super tiny house, and then this house just a few blocks away.

I hope you are with people who love you today.  If you aren't, or if the holidays are stressful and your family situation isn't awesome, just know that you are loved and that you are so worth loving.  And I am thankful for those of you who come take the time to read my little blog and comment, or follow on instagram or facebook.  Blogging and social media can be weird, but it's so nice to have connections with other humans, even if it's just over the web.  So here's a big internet hug to you guys. 

What are you grateful for this season?

adventures in joshua tree

'm sitting in SeaTac airport right now, headed back down to California for the GoLive workshop, and I realized that I never posted these photos from my last adventure to California!  Dan's parents live right next to Joshua Tree National Park and his mom is actually a park ranger (so cool!).  His parents are super outdoorsy so when we were there for Christmas we spent a couple days exploring the park and climbing around on all the incredible rock formations.  I hurt my foot last year and had to stop climbing so I was super out of practice, but it was really fun!  Dan and I really want to head back to Joshua Tree again sometime this year to really climb around more, there are SO many unbelievable routes and a lot of it is bouldering, which we both prefer.  Rock climbing outdoors on real rock is such a different animal, a lot scarier in some ways, but I really enjoy both types of climbing.   Well, I have to hop on a plane to LA now, but you can stay tuned with the hashtag #LizIsGoingLive to follow along, and I'll be sharing exclusives for my VIP members so sign up for that here!

three years

t's been three years since we stood on this beach, in our fancy outfits, exhausted at the end of our wedding day.  It's so funny to look back at the photos from our wedding day and think about the people we were just three years ago.  Sometimes it feels like we were just kids.  Today was low key, and we had some fun plans for an anniversary weekend out on the town up in Seattle, but something came up so hopefully we can have a fancy night sometime soon to make up for it.  I got a sexy red dress for it, so we'd better reschedule!  I'd say more but I gotta go pick up my love and I think we might hit the town for a quick anniversary beverage (or two).  G'night!

those anarcho punks are mysterious

Tomorrow Dan and I are headed to an Against Me! show and as I walked Dusty yesterday I was reminiscing about the last time we went to an Against Me! show together back in 2007.  For a second I thought that my math had to be wrong.  It couldn't have been seven years since then, but yes, 7+7=14.  Seven years ago we met up in Seattle to see Against Me!  20-year-old versions of us.  Dan with his scruffy hair and me with my rainbow streak.  He was my best friend and I was hopelessly in love with him.  We were both still in the process of becoming the people who'd eventually promise their lives to one another.  It would be three years before we found ourselves gravitating towards one another, thousands of miles apart, talking on the phone, texting, and facebooking.  It's a little bizarre to me to think that we've already been in one another's lives for almost 9 years.  Has it really been that long?  From the moment I met Dan he's been one of my favorite humans and I can't begin to express how thankful I am that I get to share my life with him.

It's fun getting to see a band that so permeated the beginning of our friendship.  Dan was the one who introduced me to Against Me! and hearing those old albums takes me right back to freshman year of college.  Against Me! has changed over the years and so have we, but I'm so excited that we get to go see them again.  And this time I can totally make out with Dan after the show.

the simple life

Two years ago I was putting on a white dress, strapping a veil to my head, taking a deep breath and walking down an aisle towards a man I was choosing to walk alongside for the rest of my life.  It's only been two years of "the rest of my life" but I couldn't have asked for a better start.  We spent the last two days exploring our city with the eyes of a tourist, visiting museums, the zoo, restaurants, and more.  It was fun staying home, but experiencing it from a new perspective.  
Today we're chilling out at home.  I'm sipping on a hot cup of coffee while Dan concocts some sort of breakfast smorgasboard and a tiny corgi meanders around the kitchen, trying to find dropped crumbs to vacuum up.  Maybe we'll go climbing later, pick up some new Magic cards to play with, or stop by the store for some ingredients for a fancy-ish dinner.  But it doesn't really matter what we do, because we could be doing anything, and I would be happy that the person doing it next to me is Dan.  

photos by arrow & apple