home in progress.

We've been in Wichita for a week and two days now and it's going well. Our home feels homey. We are really enjoying our housemates, Lauren and Daniel, as well as our across the street neighbors, Kenzie and Cora, and many of the other family and friends here in Wichita. We are on the job search and feeling somewhat positive. I had a job interview on Friday for a paraeducator position at a dual language elementary school, which went quite well. We've also both applied for jobs at the YMCA. We're trusting that God will provide some good work for us before too long. Josh is starting to make a thesis-work-time schedule. We're both training for a half-marathon in October, so we've been enjoying running along the Arkansas River. In the past week we've been fixing up our room and bathroom a bit. Lauren and Daniel's house had a lot of work to be done when they bought it, but they did a lot of the work before we even arrived. Willis put in new windows in our room and various other awesome people painted, put in a toilet and got carpet installed. We are pretty thankful for all the hard work that went into our part of the house. Besides the attic, our room is the only room upstairs. We really love it! Here are some pictures of the progress we've made this week.

Bed Area:

Desk Area:

Both of our desks came from Meme and Willis' house. They graciously gave Josh his desk and my craft table was given to them, but they were hoping to give away to anyone in need. My table has a leaf that flips up when I want more space for projects and flips down to keep our room neat and tidy. Josh really likes studying at home, so it's great that he has his own desk to work at.

Closet (located in the bathroom):

Details:

After getting the basics down, we started decorating our area a little bit. I made curtains out of tablecloths that we bought at a thrift store and we've put up a lot of art on the walls that we've been collecting. The portraits are from Kelly Baker's senior art show (I'm in the middle!). We got a fun elephant ear plant at the farmer's market and it's sitting in a basket that Grandma Ann gave us for our wedding. Our bathroom has required the most work so far. We put up two mirrors, towel racks and did some painting, but we still need put in new carpet, tile and a new window at some point. We really enjoy spending time in our little spot. The rest of the house is great too! Our kitchen is wonderfully functional besides the non-working oven, which isn't a huge deal right now because we have an awesome toaster oven. The four of us living here are pretty much on the same food page. We are all vegetarians and interested in sharing meals together, so we've developed a cooking rotation for Monday-Thursday. Last week we ate dinner together every week night and occasionally others from the neighborhood have joined us. Another cool feature of the main floor is the chapel, which is a room set aside for prayer, worship, meditation and yoga. The four of us plan to have prayer together at least once a week to start.

It's been a good week here and we're excited to see what else is in store for us in Wichita!

project life in 2013: weeks 35+36

week 35

march 25-31

What happened this week? We went to Budapest, Hungary to meet the Iványis, close friends of the Kline Family (Josh's maternal grandparents). Read more about our trip here. 

(click on the photo to see it larger)

Anything special in the spread? Josh and I each wrote our highlights of the trip on a 3x4 card. I love that he was willing to participate in this project; his thoughts aren't always the same as mine, so it's great to get both of our memories in this book.

Favorite photo: I love the bridge pictures. Budapest is divided by the Danube river and several cool bridges connect the Buda side to the Pest side.

Overall thoughts: It was gray and snowy in Budapest, so most of our pictures are gray. I used colorful paper to brighten up this spread and that seemed to work. I also wrote on a lot of the pictures with slick writers.

week 36

april 1-7

What happened this week? This was a typical week at home. We went on some hikes, studied, worked and had a chilly picnic. I really enjoyed going with some friends to Ekeberg Restaurant where we drank coffee and had a beautiful view of Oslofjord and the downtown area.

(click on the photo to see it larger)

Anything special in the spread? Nothing out of the ordinary here. Just lots of the seafoam kit and a pretty piece of paper from Dick Blick. 

Favorite photo: I really love the photo of Josh playing guitar at the table with the sunlight streaming in. If I remember correctly, that was on Sunday. I was reading and he was playing and it was just a peaceful, happy time.

Overall thoughts: This week was a little less exciting in comparison to a week in Budapest, but it was still a good one. And I'm thankful to have the ordinary stuff to look back on.

Supplies and Tools: American Crafts thickers, washi tape, paper source labels, pretty paper from Dick Blick, random paper from my stash, Design A and B photo pocket pages (this variety pack), Seafoam core kit, Cobalt cardstock, black sharpie, black steadtler fineliner pen, slicker writer pens.

Project Life is a simple scrapbooking system by Becky Higgins.  I am using this system to document our first year of marriage with photos, words and other fun paper stuff.  You can see my other project life pages here.  

summer snippets.

currently: august

photos from our recent date at Forest Park in St. Louis

enjoying the surprisingly (sometimes) cool weather in Illinois.

grateful to be living with my parents for the past few weeks.

signing up to run a half marathon on October 13.

watching Orange is the New Black on Netflix.

practicing tennis.

taking care of my grandparent's plants and my sister's pets.

sorting through old papers and old stuff; getting rid of the unnecessary.

packing lots of our necessary stuff to move to Wichita.

praying for a job offer.

feeling ready to try new things.

eating most meals outside.

trying to get caught up on project life.

excited for a free concert at the Botanical Gardens today.

even more excited to meet up with friends at said concert.

thinking of sewing a duvet cover.

wondering if that's really the best use of my time right now.

remembering how the sun stays up until 11pm in Olso during the summer.

missing friends who are far away.

loving new hobbies: slacklining, tennis, kite-flying.

a mini birthday book.

I love making things, especially for Josh. Last year for his 22nd birthday I made him a booklet of 22 things I love about him. Since we're about to move we've been sorting through old papers and one day we found this.  I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite pages with you.

Fun, huh? The photos in this book are our engagement photos done by Allison Harp. 

project life in 2013: week 34

week 34

march 18-24

To say I'm behind on sharing project life spreads here is a major understatement. But I'm not giving up. I am almost caught up on putting together my summer spreads, but I haven't even finished sharing spring layouts here! For that reason I may just share some of my favorites from spring. We'll see.

(Click on the photo to see it larger)

What happened this week? We had to return our skis this week, which was sad. We accidentally shrunk the wool hat I made for Josh, which was super sad. This wasn't a really sad week other than those two things. We continued praying in the morning during lent, I worked on some etsy related projects and we planned another cabin trip, which turned into an "indoor cabin trip." We also made some minor adjustments to our living room that made a big difference for us.

Anything special in the spread? I made a couple 3x4 cards with my very own stamps and added some painted (and some unpainted) thickers to the picture of Josh's shrunken hat.

Favorite photo: I love the pictures of our the tent we made in our living room, but my favorite is the hat photo. It really was sad when we found that in the midst of our laundry. For some reason, though, the photo makes me smile now.

Overall thoughts: I love the colors in this spread. It can be hard to make winter pictures look bright, colorful and cheery, but this layout managed to have a cheerful vibe. Prepping these project life spreads for the blog is like a window into our old life. I'm already reminiscing about our life in Norway even just a month removed from it; I have a real fondness for this past year.

Supplies and Tools: American Crafts thickers, washi tape, paper source labels, pretty paper from Dick Blick, random paper from my stash, Design A and B photo pocket pages (this variety pack), Seafoam core kit, Cobalt cardstock, black sharpie, black steadtler fineliner pen, slicker writer pens.

Project Life is a simple scrapbooking system by Becky Higgins.  I am using this system to document our first year of marriage with photos, words and other fun paper stuff.  You can see my other project life pages here.  

our trip to santorini, greece.

After my family’s stay in Oslo we all went to Santorini, Greece. Ever since I saw the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movie, which is set in Greece, I have wanted to see the beauty of the Greek isles with my own eyes.  It's a pretty amazing place and it was incredible to swim in the warm sea after a winter in Norway. The only swimming I did in Norway (besides at a Spa that Fulbright paid for) was in Sognsvann and the Oslo Fjord- both were very chilly. Santorini is one of the Greek isles and was formed by a volcanic explosion. The crescent shaped island surrounds beautiful blue water called the caldera. We stayed in the small (very touristy) city of Oia, which looked exactly as I pictured Greece to look. We stayed at Oia's Sunset Hotel with a view of the ocean and a refreshing pool. It's centrally located and the guys who work there are very friendly. 

In Santorini we met up with some family friends, the Keillors. In total we had a group of nine which could make decision making tricky, but we seemed to all have very similar desires for this trip. We pretty much rotated between swimming in the ocean, swimming in our hotel's pool, eating delicious greek food, playing "up the river/ down the river,"relaxing/reading and eating gelato. We ventured out to several of the island's popular beaches and even dove off one of the docks. One day we took a catamaran trip which included a ride to the volcanic remains, swimming in the hot springs, snorkeling and a delicious lunch. I love boat rides, don't you? 

In addition to swimming, we love to eat. In Santorini we usually ate a low key breakfast and lunch either at our hotel or a restaurant close to the beach. Dinner was our big meal of the day; we made reservations for a different restaurant each night and ate around 8 or 9pm. My favorite meals were greek yogurt with fruit and honey, greek salads (tomatoes, cucumbers, feta, red onion, olive oil and capers) and ravioli. Maybe ravioli doesn't sound too exciting, but it was incredible. I wanted to lick the plate after I ate all the ravioli because the sauce was just so good. I also greatly enjoyed getting gelato everyday. There was a great gelato shop very close to our hotel that made their gelato by hand. My favorite flavors were melon, banana and dark chocolate. Mmmm.

There are 300 steps from the port to the top of Oia. Many tourists enjoy a donkey ride up the stairs, but Layla, Josh and I decided to run up these steps a couple times. That was no easy task. Although I had to stop to walk several times, I felt a great sense of accomplishment at the top of those stairs. Oia is such a cute place. There are lots of shops lining the cobblestone paths. I enjoyed wandering around, checking out Atlantis Books , and helping Josh pick out an icon to bring home. The layers of shops, houses and hotels are so amazing. We'd often look out over this little city (like the view below) and decide which nook or cranny would be the coolest place to live. There are so many beautiful rooftop pools and restaurants tucked into the hillside.

I never got tired of the view. I loved looking at the village of Oia with all the blue domed churches and I loved seeing the blue, blue caldera. But, I must say that it's good to be home.

Are you getting in any last vacations before summer ends?