Sunday Scrapbook: Moments from the Week

 

Friends, Ryan and I are home from our annual birthday getaway, which is one of the longest birthday trips we’ve been able to take since we worked at WillowBridge. We so desperately needed rest and time away from our routine. I will be sharing the tales of our adventures in posts to come, but here is a first look at our fun.

                Last Sunday we spent the day exploring downtown Charleston, South Carolina. It was so, so hot and humid, and because it was a holiday weekend, the place was absolutely packed to the gills. We weren’t able to utterly savor every step because most of the time we were just trying not to be trampled, but we still had a lot of fun! We saw most of the places on our itinerary list, including the famous Pineapple Fountain!

                We spent the entire day Monday at the stunning Magnolia Plantation. We could not get over the amazing live oak trees with all the Spanish moss, the swamplands, and beautiful flowers. It was ridiculously hot and humid, but we had the best time. What a treat to be able to explore together!

                Tuesday provided one of the coolest adventures I think we’ve ever done. I will tell you much more about it later, but we were able to take a boat ride through a stunning swamp. (I realize that sounds weird. Keep reading.) It was the same area used for filming the rowboat scene in The Notebook. You can actually redo the Noah/Allie boat ride! (Sans the swans, which don’t actually live there because the waters are infested by alligators. I tried not to think about that part.)

                Ryan had been lamenting that our trip did not include a waiver signing adventure, so he managed to find one, last minute. And that is how we found ourselves on a boat ride through a creek (think the size of a river…) to a lighthouse off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It was so much fun!!

                Thursday was our last day of true, non-travel-including vacation, and we spent part of the day touring a proper tea plantation on the outskirts of Charleston! It was a lot of fun to learn something new. (Yes, coffee people can be intrigued by tea, too.) We enjoyed some samples, too!

                We planned on a two-day trip home but decided to power through and drive allllllllllll the way back on Friday. It was such a long day, but we had some great talks along the way – and I read Ryan 75 pages of a book he needed to catch up on for work! Had to get my preaching voice back in shape, so hopefully that did it!

                Yesterday was a good day at home. We did mounds of laundry, headed out for a huge grocery haul, and caught up on all the reentry kinds of things. AND we were reunited with our sweet Lexi Grae. Goodness we missed her! I had been super sad that we cut our vacation short a whole day, but I confess when we had an entire day to get reacclimate, I was no longer super sad.

Saturday Suggestions: Inspirations for Your Weekend

 

                Good morning and happy Saturday to you! How in the world are we to the end of May already!? This month absolutely flew, and I’m sure the rest of summer will follow suit. No need to rush that, though. While I calmly look forward to summer at the lake, I also calmly offer you some little gems I’ve found along the way. Enjoy!

I had never heard of these before, but one of my (real life) friends posted about it on Instagram. She got one for her daughter, and I think it is both fun and genius. It’s a memory game – the traditional matching memory game – but it’s on top of a snack tray. So when you get a match, you get a snack. Is it too weird to do this for myself? Ha!

This video is a Homeworthy home tour, but I especially loved the stories the homeowner told as she toured her less-than-one-thousand-square-feet home. I love watching Homeworthy tours, but sometimes they just feel like ads for fancy furnishings and famous artists, and I can’t connect with those as well. But this homeowner had so many stories about the house, what she kept inside…I loved it! (And it’s only a half hour tour.)

I always love reading posts about beach cottages, because I love gaining ideas for our own home. This one could not look more different from ours on the outside, but inside it embodies what I hope our own home does: blue, white, and cozy. I can’t even pick a favorite part, because I truly loved it all!

I have such a growing passion to see people find (and satisfy) a hunger for the Word of God. I stumbled upon this YouTube podcast series by Jen Wilkin that discusses that very thing and have enjoyed listening to and learning from her thoughts. (I haven’t listened to all of them, yet, but I’m working on it.) This is huge for me as I work with the Sunday School and small group programs at our church, and I love getting to learn more! If you want to l earn more about Bible study – check out this series!

I have come to really value clothes that can easily dress up or down. Especially working in the job I have now, I feel the need to look somewhat put together (at least most of the time) but also want to be comfortable. Audrey’s ideas on tops that are both casual and dressy was helpful for me! (I think I’d wear almost all the tops she features in this post. I think the only one that wouldn’t work for me is the bright pink one. I love it, but that shade doesn’t work so well with my skin tone.)

Memorial Day may be over, but Independence Day is coming, and this one is a big number year for the USA! If you want some patriotic touches to your decorating, Heidi has some suggestions for how to accomplish that in a subtle, natural way. If you don’t want to completely transform the look of your house to full Americana, check out what she suggests!

Fun Friday: May Randoms

 

At the end of 2025, Callie wrote this post as a structured roundup to the year. I loved it so much that I earmarked it to revisit at the end of THIS year, but I actually decided to use it as a springboard for a monthly recap. I have written posts with this theme each month so far this year, and I’m back again for May!

Best Personal Adventure: My best personal adventure this month was actually work-related! I completed writing a Sunday School series for the college and career class at church. God put the idea on my heart last year about this time, and I’ve been working on the planning portion throughout the last year. I wrote the actual framework of the series this month and was thrilled as could be with how it all came together! The teachers for that class will present it this summer.

Best Adventure Together: This one was a tie. I loved working with Ryan to bring the exterior of our home to colorful life for the summer! We went to the greenhouses together to choose all our flowers, and then we worked together to plant them (and the garden) and get the boat ready to go back in the water. It was so much fun to spend those days together, and we both love how the house turned out!

I also loved working with Ryan to overhaul our home office (again). It took a long time and created QUITE a mess, but the end result was so pretty. We love it! (If you missed the big reveal post for this room, you can catch it here.)

Best Milestone: Our milestone this month was my birthday, and I loved everything about that day. Ryan made it so much fun for me. I’m thankful for another year of life and the chance to learn and grow in all the ways I have this year! (Recap here, if you missed it.)

Best Faith Grower: This was a hard one for me to answer this month, because I feel like I’m still in the growing. My birthday always feels like a secondary new year celebration (because it IS a new year for me!) and this year I was very purposeful in praying that the Lord would help me just remain open before Him for whatever He needs from me. I love my itineraries, so these open-ended yeses are kind of terrifying and exciting all at once. Just being in that place with the Lord is stretching and growing me, even though He hasn’t actually asked me to do anything new or different! (And He may not!)

Best Lesson Learned: When Ryan took me out for my birthday (to the uber fancy restaurant) the atmosphere there was so much slower than what we’re used to. It was so good for us to be forced to slow down, talk more, and enjoy the evening. In a season of life when I’m working to slow down more overall, this was a needed lesson.

Best Purchase: Ryan bought the spinning bookcase I had on my wish list, and I love it, love it, love it as much in person as I did online! I am so excited it’s part of our home now! (Note: This shelf comes in 1, 2, 3, or 4 shelf versions. I have 3, but if you want one in a different height, you have options!)

Best Habit Created: One of our chapters in the Nehemiah Bible study talked about living in the joy of the Lord. As we talked it over in our group, we discussed ways we can demonstrate the joy of the Lord. I talked about a friend of mine who posts to Facebook almost daily about the ways she’s choosing to praise the Lord for His presence in her life. I said I wish I had the guts to do something similar – to focus on joy. One of the ladies challenged me to actually do it, and I did. I’ve been posting each day since – about what’s bringing me joy that day. It’s been a great exercise for me and has pushed me to look for joy in each day.

Best New Recipe: It feels kind of like cheating, since this feels more like an assembly than a true recipe, but this Chicken Club Lettuce Wrap was the new thing I tried this month that Ryan seemed to like the best. Maybe after a long winter of warm soups and comfort foods, having a fresh-feeling dish was best?

Best Tradition: Before being married, I didn’t really plant flowers much, and I certainly didn’t have a garden. Our first year of marriage, we got a few flowers for the patio, and we’ve done a few more each year since. I feel like I’ve found my footing with it since moving to the lake. Lake houses seem to beg for good flowers. We also started an annual tradition of going to an Amish greenhouse for said plants, because that’s what you do here. So those two things were our best May tradition!

Best Little Luxury:  Having said that about our best tradition…the flowers are also the best luxury for my list this month. I remember years when we simply couldn’t spring for something as frivolous as flowers, and it isn’t lost to me that we are able to dress up the house a little bit with colorful blossoms.

Best Date: Oh hands down, my birthday dinner was our best date! I so appreciated Ryan spoiling me rotten with a super fancy dinner!

Best Answer to Prayer: It may seem like a silly thing, but I was so stressed over our plants that we bought! In our county, you have to shop early or they are gone. So we went on our monthiversary, but the plants had to live in the little seedling trays for over a week and a half. It was so cold, it wasn’t safe to plant them in the ground. By the time we did plant them, despite pulling them in and out of the garage daily, some looked really sad. I literally prayed over those plants – the flowers and the garden plants. And I believe God really did care about each little plant. They all pulled through! It was a great reminder to me that God cares about even tiny things like garden plants.

Travel Thursday: Pandemics and Birthday Trips

 

                I am so glad I scrapbooked my way through the pandemic. While it’s not a time in life I particularly enjoyed (though I didn’t hate working from home one bit), I find that I’m now far enough removed from it to find the documentation of it fascinating.

                Our 8^th annual birthday trip fell during the pandemic, though we had it scheduled long before “pandemic” was a household term. We planned to go to Hocking Hills State Park and even booked a genuine tiny cabin for our lodging. We didn’t know if we would be able to take the trip, because so much was still closed, and Ohio was reportedly a pretty strict state, but we heard some trails were open, and so was our cabin, so we went!

                As I read back over our adventures of this long-weekend trip, I’d forgotten so much of what made it so very odd.

                We took all our own food and cooking supplies so we could eat in our cabin every meal if necessary. We had no idea if we’d be able to find anything open for getting food out.

                We were in the application process for WillowBridge and needed to submit fingerprints to move on. Alas, most fingerprinting locations were closed entirely or only open one day a week and booked months out. Ryan researched everyplace he could find between Kokomo and Hocking Hills and found an appointment in little Connersville, Indiana the very day we would be driving through. So our first stop on vacation? The Connersville, Indiana Police Department to be fingerprinted. That was a new one for vacation.

                Our tiny cabin remains one of my favorite places we’ve ever stated. It was entirely secluded and had a hot tub. It was so clean, so well-labeled, and the perfect place to be alone for vacation! I declared if we ever lived in a tiny house, it should be set up like this one.

                We loved the hot tub but were sad that the fireplace on the porch didn’t work. The owners even came to look at it, but it was broken.

                We weren’t far from The Coffee Emporium, which was open for business and had open air seating on the porch. We went twice on this visit and loved it so much that we went back when we had our do-over of this trip a few years later. It was (and still is) SO GOOD.

                Hocking Hills State Park was closed entirely while we were there, so we had to hike in nature preserves and other parks. It was still beautiful, because it’s all the same gorgeous land, but we did miss out on a bunch of waterfalls. Apparently those all live in the state park. This was the one-and-done waterfall we found.

                We mostly had the place to ourselves, and that was fun. We like seclusion.

                Signs you are living through a pandemic: you get a blister on your foot and use a spare mask to wrap your heel so it doesn’t blister more.

                Ryan thought this was so fascinating he took a picture. It was the first time we were inside a restaurant (McDonalds allowed ordering in for carry out) after social distancing markers were added to the floors.

                It was one strange vacation, but we were glad we got to do something, anyway. And our do-over a few years later was worth the wait!

Wednesday in the Word: Generous Giving

 

As I studied along in Psalm 37 this week, I found verse 21: The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives.”

                I have learned many good things from sharing life with Ryan, and one of those things has been generosity. I don’t know that I’ve ever known someone who is as ready to share as Ryan.

                If he hears of a need and has the ability to meet it, he doesn’t hesitate. He’s first in line to help.

                And while sometimes that means he’s helping financially (which is what most people think of when they hear the word “generosity”) – it also means he helps in so many other ways.

                Like the time we changed our mailbox and one of his coworkers asked if she could have our old one. He cleaned it until it sparkled, drove it to her house, and installed it in cement.

                Like the time (when I worked at WBCL) he found out one of my coworkers needed a car hauled from Fort Wayne to Muncie, so he borrowed his step-dad’s truck and trailer, drove to Fort Wayne, picked up the car, and hauled it to Muncie.

                Like the time(s) in our dating days when he drove to my house every week – or multiple times a week – to take care of the yard, because I was busy and commuting and didn’t always have time to tend to it.

                Like the time we happened upon a stalled car on a busy road in Fort Wayne (in the middle of winter) and he hopped out, somehow managed to talk me into doing the same, and we pushed that car off the road, UPHILL into a parking lot. I was wearing heeled boots, too. EEK!

                On and on it goes. He sees needs, and he generously meets them. He gives of his time, his talent, and his treasure, and in so doing, he has taught me that this is not only the right thing to do, but it’s the joy-giving thing to do. I am thankful to learn this from him – and to still get to learn this from him.

                My hope and prayer for my heart is that this will come to me as naturally as it comes to him!

Tuesday Tales: Gardens and Plants

 

Our Indiana spring was…frustrating…from a planting perspective. We had some warm days early on – the kind that get your hopes up and then disappear, rudely, never to return. The closer the days got to planting gardens and flowers, the colder and windier it became. As I’ve shared before on here, we had a bit of a learning curve with plants when we moved to our current county. We’d always purchased our plants at big box stores, but apparently when you move to Amish country, you start buying your plants at greenhouses, and you buy them early if you want to have any chance at selection.

                So we went early – on our May monthiversary – and bought all we would need for this year. And then for the next week and a half, we played a not-so-fun game of pulling the plants out of the garage every single morning and put them back in every single night. It was frustrating. I did not think some of the plants were going to make it until we could get them in the ground!

                At last, we were able to plant, and it was such a joy. It took two days to get complete all the planting, and for the first time, I permitted myself to slow down enough to thoroughly enjoy the planting. I soaked in the beauty of being outside. I prayed as I planted. I breathed deeply. I told those little plants to take root and grow tall and strong.

                After three summers at the lake, I feel like we’ve finally figured out what grows well and what colors work best. I love the way it all looks this year, and I am excited to take another round of pictures in a month to see how much they have grown in these few short weeks!

                Summer feels alive at the lake, and we love seeing how beautiful it looks in our little planters and garden beds!