leisure

practice

beachcombers

ferry boat

oh, canada.

in canada, on mayne island again for the week.  words + pictures coming soon.

a perfect meal

four courses of gorgeous + my best friend + my high school soundtrack

a curious babymoon

this family online journal is rarely written in these days, as we pack up our house & prepare for a move, a tour, a new home, & a new baby*.

this is sheppy doing his favorite thing--playing with cars.  from dawn to dusk, matchbox cars.  he even chooses a new one to sleep with every night, & constantly takes inventory of each car's whereabouts.  at the playground, rather than running & climbing, he plays with his cars on the sidelines, in the wood chips.  all day he asks, "which car do you wanna be, mama?" and asks for a bedtime song or a story about the particular car he's chosen to sleep with that night.  the other day he was asking for another matchbox car, so we emptied out his little mason jar bank of its $3 contents & headed to target for three $.97 cars--a forest service SUV, a white racing bmw, & a black 80s pontiac firebird.

heron emptied her bank for some target toys, too.  money earned from chores & watering our neighbor's garden : $9.23.  after fifteen minutes on the princess aisle, then the fairies & the my-little-ponies, i asked, "do you see anything here, or do you want to buy some more art supplies?"  to my delight she awakened, as if from some deep, disney-induced slumber, & shouted, "art supplies!  i want to buy art supplies!"  oh, heron.  it's a pleasure to see you making wise choices at age four!  there is some serious princess peer-pressure everywhere these days.

right now josh is driving heron & shepherd up to grandma & grandpa's for three days.  we will be here, childless & quiet, packing up our house during the day, going out on dates at night, before the littlest garrels arrives.  not quite the pre-baby (babymoon?) trip to peru we'd imagined, but we are thankful for a few days, just the two of us, before we're five.

*also, in the name of complete transparency i must confess my other pastime over the past week--all 644 pages of this book.  that's right--this english lit. major has scarcely read a novel in five years.  truly what is always on my bedside table for late evening, early morning, fifteen-minute breaks throughout the day, & middle-of-the-night-pregnancy-insomnia, is a missionary biography or autobiography.  it's the only inspiring read for me these days.  (though i wouldn't recommend this particular book to all my friends--it is really kind of all about the Holy Spirit, it's the best autobiography i've read since "chasing the dragon")

a home for us

(family photo from cory & emily's sauvie island apple orchard wedding this weekend)

this blog has been pretty silent lately.  but not for lack of family activity.  we are buying a house!  our process, from what i've seen/heard, has been pretty painless & fast.  but still, it is an energy-draining ordeal, & even now it's probably a little too early to say, "we bought a house!" for there are so many more steps to this process than i ever new existed.  if all goes well with the appraisal, which we are assuming it will, we will close on august 26 and move in on september 15.  we'll be moving a whole THREE BLOCKS AWAY!  it is such an answer to prayer that we were able to find the perfect home for our family in this neighborhood we love.

buying a home has been nothing short of a miracle for us.  the Lord's hand has so clearly been on it, as He has been such an amazing provider for us this past year when we honestly expected to live in relative poverty.  giving away not only josh's album, but also all the proceeds from the album, was a scary commitment for us.  but God has been teaching us faith, obedience, generosity, & a new pattern for running our business (each new album will be free for a full year) through the experience, & that is a gift immeasurable within itself.  that He saw fit to bring us out of debt (except for a loan from josh's parents, which we will be able to re-pay by the end of josh's september tour) & end the year with the ability to put a downpayment on a house is really just a bonus.

anyway.  that's where we've been.  now we're spending the evenings watching the olympics (since it's too early for us procrastinators to start packing!) while i clip out inspiration & paint color ideas from country living magazines.  also, little by little, i'm revamping this blog, deleting my ellegarrels.com photography site, migrating some posts, upon the realization that this blog here is really where my heart is.  (also, it is exhausting trying to curate too many sites!)  my family, my homemaking, is my art--so inseparable right now, & i am not really looking for jobs elsewhere ;)  well, unless kinfolk gives me a call...