beautiful people, watching the sun set from the mountainside.

last month, two of my greatest friends journeyed from boston to our island home in the pacific. what a dream. for ten days, we explored the sea & the mountains, coffee shops & fruit stands. long days in the sand, long nights at the kitchen table, card games & memories. laughing always, or enjoying the quiet bliss of being together, of old friends reunited.

i love this post about marriage and living deliberately.

"I wish you were by my side in Zambia to write what I see and do every day. Today I watched an adorable 3 year old little boy, dirty as you can imagine, fall off the back of his 6 year old brother's bike. He landed hard in the dirt and cried loud---his brother was so dear to him, brushed him off and hugged him and kept saying over and over again, "sorry, sorry, sorry."

the insights in this book are phenomenal. borrow it from me or find yourself a copy.

we celebrated the fourth at the bowling alley. reds, blues, weathered white, we lost ourselves in the competition and crashing of pins. slippery shoes, checkered floors. american family. when our knuckles were sore, we hurried home for warm donuts and midnight gossip, cross-legged at the wooden table.

"We’re not going to survive in this world, temporally or spiritually, without increased faith in the Lord—and I don’t mean a positive mental attitude—I mean downright solid faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the one thing that gives vitality and power to otherwise rather weak individuals." A. Theodore Tuttle

trenton at the burnside skatepark, beneath the burnside bridge in portland, oregon.

oregon is stunning. en route to portland last month, trenton and i stopped at multnomah falls to stretch our legs and breathe cold air. in sweaters and thick flannel, we climbed the stone steps that wind through the forest and smiled into the spray of mist surrounding the falls. what a dream. in the deepest part of my bones, i have both a childlike fascination and spiritual reverence for the forest--for tall trees and shade and green moss, for the messiness of unplanned wilderness. a playground and a chapel, an electric mystery. there is something in the forest that makes you a better person--wonder, and a little fear perhaps. a realization that you are small, a humble acknowledgement of a world larger than yourself.