by Emily Wenzel | Aug 11, 2016 | Personal Posts
A secret keeper, I am not. But I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping a fairly large secret from the internet for nearly five months.
I didn’t do it to see if I could keep a secret. I didn’t do it because I don’t want to share. I did it for a lot of messy and complicated reasons – work, personal, feminist – that I may get into at a later date.
But yesterday, I got a couple rounds of earth shattering news. And my first response to all of it was #fuckcancer. I don’t know that there is any more appropriate response than that. But my second response was to realize that, while we’ve kept this news to ourselves, instead of sharing it with the internet at large, it was for reasons that, in the long run, don’t matter.
It doesn’t matter that I may not get a job because of this news.
It doesn’t matter that I feel like it’s not my duty to “perform” for the world at large.
It doesn’t matter that I want to keep everything private, to share the news in person.
What does matter is that good news should be shared with the people we love. And since so many of the people I love are not nearby, since my greatest dream in all the world is for all of my family to be in the same place for just one day (a dream I may never, ever, get to see happen), this place has become a space where I can share my work and my life with those who love us.
And who doesn’t love a good Christmas present?!?!
We’ve visited Europe and attended half a dozen weddings together already this year, so I guess it’s time this sweet babe made his or her internet debut!
by Emily Wenzel | Aug 4, 2016 | Personal Posts
I’m beginning to wonder if I can keep up with monthly posts! Here goes:
JUNE!
June started off with us flying back to the US from our trip to Germany & Greece. I second shot for Ashlea Terhune Photography out at Trezzi Farms just a few days after we returned. It was my first wedding at Trezzi, and what a beautiful space! Plus, nothing like long day photographing a wedding to cure jet lag! 😉 This may be my new trick, you guys, because my jetlag was more or less gone after I shot the wedding. Win!
June included a lot of work on the house too! We’ve been crossing off a few small things, but in the major news, we replaced four windows upstairs and now have opening windows in our bedroom! I’d forgotten how nice that is, after 2 summers in this house. 🙂 We also tore out the nasty old carpet in our room to find wood floors, just like my office has (our room, left and the office on the right). The floors are in pretty rough shape, so we debated putting in new carpet, but I think we’re going to repaint the floors and grab a couple area rugs. I’d love to strip the paint and stain them, but there are some pretty serious gouges that need to be filled. Thoughts on colors? We haven’t come to a consensus yet.
Somehow, in all the madness, we also ended up “accidentally” (oops…) peeling off a bit of paint from our bedroom door. At one point, the trim was lavender! H made it clear that our trim will never be lavender, even if that was historic to the house. Haha! It’s okay, I love white trim, and I think the original color underneath that was white.
One day, when Shadow was out at daycare burning off energy, I came downstairs to find Lola like this. Chilling in his bed. She’s pretty sassy when the dog isn’t around. They still aren’t the BFFs I was hoping for, but it’s getting better every day.
My new favorite Haribo! Every time we go to Germany, we try to leave extra space in our suitcase. This time, since we knew we were stocking up, I slipped a duffle bag into one of our suitcases, and we brought back so much new candy and goodies. We’ve eaten most of the Haribo already, but I’m trying to save some of it. These have been my favorite so far.
JULY!
I second shot another wedding over Fourth of July weekend, but managed to carve out a few hours on the 4th to hang out in our backyard with a book and the hammock. I need to do a book roundup soon, but I just have to say that this book – Lost Horizon by James Hilton – was a great unknown to me classic! I had a ton of weddings in July, and I think all I did was shoot weddings and blog previews. I’ve been slowly catching up this week, but I can’t wait to have a little more time to read later this month.
With it being so hot, I’ve been pretty against eating or cooking a hot lunch. One of my go-to lunches has been yogurt with a little bit of granola and fruit on top. I’ve been rotating through whatever fruit I snag at the farmer’s market. Plums and nectarines have been my favorite so far!
A few months back, I picked up a Fitbit Charge HR, and I loved being able to track my steps, stairs, and heart rate. But it didn’t fit my wrists very well, and I ended up returning it. Bummer. So in early July, I finally picked up the Fitbit Alta after a review from a friend. It doesn’t track my heart rate or stairs (which turns out, is okay, because the Charge struggled with my shorter than normal old home stairs). This was from the first weekend I got it, but I’ve been loving it! Last week I grabbed a second band for it, and it looks really nice and sharp on a wedding day now. I’ll have to write a full review on it later this summer. 🙂
What I’ve learned is that, while I’m powering through my steps on the weekends, I don’t get enough steps on weekdays. So we’ve been hitting up the dog park with Shadow a couple times a week, and last Friday, rewarded ourselves with a post-walk trip to The Scoop. Did you know they have doggy ice cream? Shadow got his treat too, and it was a great way to kick off the last weekend of the month – and my first one off in ages!
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This post contains Amazon affiliate links, which means I get a little bit of money if you use my link to buy the item. I only recommend products I love (or want), so whether you use the link or not, I hope you find the information useful!
by Emily Wenzel | Jun 16, 2016 | Personal Posts
I fell off the face of the planet in late April, thanks to a cold that wouldn’t go away, and too much work on the house. By the time I was starting to feel better, I was too busy catching up on all the stuff I’d let fall to the side, decided to take a break from all things internet to clear my head, and then we were off on a trip to Europe for a little vacation time and a friend’s wedding. And since we got back two weeks ago, I’ve been scrambling to catch up. Oh, and it’s wedding season.
I’m tired just telling you all of that.
Because of being sick, my photos from April are…pretty slim. And then, on our trip in May, I was so busy using my new favorite camera – this Fujifilm Instax Mini 90 that I bought in April – and my Nikon FG-20 film camera, that I didn’t take many photos with my phone. I’m still waiting on my scans too, but once I have those, I’ll share them with you as well!
Like I said, the photos from April are pretty much non existent. Before I got sick, we drove down to Mattawa to celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday! Which was exciting, and kicked off the last two months of travel. When I wasn’t sick, we were doing work on the house. Our built-in bookcases have been thisclose to being done for weeks, but now that I’m better, and we’re, ya know, HOME, we should be able to finish them out. Which is great, because my books are crying from being in boxes too long… 😉 They have totally transformed our living room, and I cannot wait until they’re ready to fill with books!
One of my favorite perks of being my own boss is being able to travel with H when he has work trips. He was at the Suncadia Resort for a couple days for a conference, and while I spent most of the time working on my laptop, I did sneak out on our last afternoon to read a book by the pool (pro travel tip: always bring a swimsuit) because 78 degree days in April deserve to have some pool time. We’re already hoping to come back here some time for a weekend with our pup because it’s dog friendly!
May started off…at a run. H ran his 2nd Bloomsday (my mom ran her 3rd!) and my dad and I cheered away from the sidelines. H was awesome, coming in at just under an hour for the 12k, which shaved 10 minutes off his time from two years ago. He said it’s apparently much easier to run with you’ve been training with a dog as your running buddy, because you’re not getting pulled every which way. 🙂 While I was sick, I had started re-reading some of the Harry Potter books, and while I was trying to finish one early in May, Lola decided that I shouldn’t read, but instead, should pet her.
In late May, we flew off to Europe. And here’s where I get to geek out. I’ve been dying to visit Greece since…forever. And we were finally able to squeeze in a short trip, along with our trip to Germany for our friend’s wedding – as guests! – and it was a dream come true. Many many thanks to H, who put up with me dragging him all over old buildings and repeatedly freaking out about how something was over 2,000 years old. Thanks, babe. Below is a panoramic view from the Acropolis, which was sadly, being renovated and covered in scaffolding, but still very impressive. 🙁
Going to Athens did allow us to cross another city off our Olympic List. [We’re trying to visit every modern Olympic site, so far we’ve been to: Vancouver, BC; Munich & Berlin, Germany; Beijing, China; Paris, France; and Athens, Greece] This is the Panathenic Stadium, which is super cheap to enter and has an awesome little museum of Olympic Torches in the catacombs. And, you know, is built entirely of marble.
From Athens we flew to Mykonos, where we spent a couple days exploring the town and beaches, and went to Delos, which is another archaeological site. There we climbed a hill (I wanted to call it a mountain, but it wasn’t) and were able to see a bunch of the surrounding islands. The Aegean is very cool, and I’m a fan.
A little contrast here: on the left, a photo of the two of us at the Acropolis. It was sunny and warm (~82 that day, I think). Five days later, we arrived in Germany, and it poured (and I think was ~57 that day). Only about 3 hours by plane, but such a different world. It’s so hard to pack for travel in May, because you never know what the weather will be like!
Lastly, we entered the US through Detroit this time around, which I have never flown through. Our Global Entry cards made it easy as can be (seriously, 10 minutes for immigration. We waited longer for our luggage), and had plenty of time to check out this cool, underground walkway between terminals. The walls change color with the music….although this was technically on June 1st, I’m including it as the end of our trip!
And that was it! Now it’s June, and I promise not to be late on the next recap post. 🙂
All photos taken with my HTC One M8 and edited with vscocam.
This post contains Amazon affiliate links, which means I get a little bit of money if you use my link to buy the item. I only recommend products I love (or want), so whether you use the link or not, I hope you find the information useful!
by Emily Wenzel | Apr 5, 2016 | Personal Posts
March flew by in a haze of sickness for the first half of the month, and then in the struggle of recovering from it in the second half. Whew. Last weekend we got outside and got some spring work done on the house for the first time since fall, and the fresh spring air felt amazing.
The month started off with me crying about vet bills. Well, okay, me drinking lots of wine to cope with vet bills after we took Shadow in to the emergency vet because he had kennel cough (read: puppy cold) and then took shifts for the next three days as he coughed so hard he threw up nearly 24/7 (read: I know know how people with small children feel). The next week I took Lola in for her annual kitty check up and we had to run crazy blood tests. She’s fine, but we had a scare and now I feel broke. I’ve informed our pets that they need to stay healthy for at least 6 months, because I can’t handle too many more vet bills.
Bonus: the walk-in vet in Spokane happens to be next to this random rock with a decent view of downtown Spokane. Since Shadow wasn’t supposed to socialize with other pets, we hung out up here for most of the time.
The only exception to my no-Tv-during-Lent rule was college basketball. So, basically all Gonzaga games and then March Madness. In a surprising twist, I won the bracket challenge I was part of (winning prize: bragging rights). That’s the first time I’ve had a team correct in the final, much less won the final or a bracket! 🙂
I also had the chance to tour a great new place in Spokane that is being renovated, check out these tile floors!! One of the greatest perks of my job is getting to tour all these great spaces in Spokane.
In the midst of all the crazy vet bills, we also pulled the trigger on something we’d be saving up for: a new car. We’ve officially gone over to the dark side, and I am in love. This baby is a dream, and as a bonus, we have a car that our poor pup fits in.
I popped over to Gonzaga the other day to chat with a few of my old mentors, and it felt so good to be back. One of the many, many, things I love about GU is that I can stop in and chat with my old professors and mentors to get advice, even though I graduated nearly 6 years ago. It’s nice to know that the community extends for years afterwards. I don’t know many schools where you can drop by and catch up with old professors, and get advice from them on what you’re currently working on!
And, that was March! Easter was low-key, and we have been working on some spring cleaning and trying to finish – and start – a bunch of projects around the house before wedding season really ramps up again…which means finally blogging the last of my weddings from 2015. Oops.
What did you do in March?
xoxo,
E.
by Emily Wenzel | Mar 30, 2016 | Personal Posts
Yesterday’s weather felt like the first kiss of summer was in the air, as I took Shadow to the dog park and ran into two lovely friends and their pups. It was the kind of day where you dropped all post-work plans to take your pup to the park for some sunshine.
I’ve got tomato starts in my pantry – wonderful light and off limits to my crazy pets – and plans for long days spent lounging in the yard. I can’t help but think back on these images, which I snapped last September, as summer was slowly slipping away . Summer is a crazy time of year for us, but it’s also my favorite time of year.
Most of these are from a trip to Seattle, but the last one is what has me most excited for summer — my tomatoes! 🙂 What are you most looking forward to this summer?
by Emily Wenzel | Mar 3, 2016 | Personal Posts
It’s sunny outside and I can hardly believe it’s March. February is a short month, but it flew by. Probably because we did a lot of work on the house. This year for Lent, we gave up watching TV. It’s been hard, but on the other hand, we put the finishing touches on the bathroom, and redid the pantry. Which I have no photos of, because they are all on H’s phone. Oops. I’ve got one more big project to finish, and then I’m going to take some photos with my real camera, so I can do some side by sides from when we got the keys.
We flew down to Portland! It was a rainy, cold day, but that didn’t stop us from taking a shoe selfie with new carpet. It’s not nearly as strange as the old carpet, but I’m glad it’s still a thing.
While we were in Portland, we had a great dinner with Bethany & Peter, and got to see a Gonzaga basketball game with our friend Mellie. I also dragged (not really) H to the Tabor food cart for a fried cheese sandwich, because I was feeling homesick for the Czech Republic. As a bonus, I got to have a lovely chat with the owners and brush up on my Czech. We also got to do (not) boring stuff like go to Ikea and Powell’s. 🙂
Because the weather was so nice, I spent a lot of time outdoors with Shadow. We’ve gone to the dog park quite a bit, and taken walks through the neighborhood. We’ve met lots of our neighbors too! I can’t wait for more warm weather. Shadow is no longer pulling me around as much, although he’s still a punk who climbs into the back seat of my car.
Miscellaneous stuff: We have the best realtor, period. She was awesome when we were buying our house, and she’s always sending us sweet little notes, like this one that celebrates two years in our house this month! Tulips are starting to be in season, and I love that! Here’s a sweet bouquet of them in my living room, featuring the gorgeous blue walls we picked out and sunshine! Lastly, more sunshine, and after months of growing my hair out, I realized I didn’t like it and went short on the sides again. I’m waiting for it to warm up a bit more before I go short in the bangs too. 🙂
Next up: March! We’re hoping to get some more house projects done, wedding season is ramping up, and I cannot wait for the farmer’s markets to start, and for warm weather!!! What did you do in February?
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