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?

reminder: summer sale!

Just a reminder that there's a summer sale going on in my etsy shop and it's ending July 31. For 10% off everything in the shop enter PEACHYSUMMER13 at checkout. All shipping prices have been changed to account for my recent return to the USA (woohoo!). That means cheaper shipping for all you Americans! I am also happy to do custom orders, so if you're interested click the "Request Custom Order" button and let me know what you're interested in.

norway in a nutshell.

Hello, hello! It's been rather quiet on this blog lately due to the fact that June was a crazy month! I was bustling around Norway with visitors, then took a quick trip to Germany, hosted more visitors, moved out of our flat in Oslo and am currently on vacation in Greece. I have never done so much traveling and vacationing in one month! When Josh's family + our friends the Kurtz-Shaws were visiting us in June we took the Norway in a nutshell trip from Oslo to Bergen. The trip included many forms of transportation (3 trains, 1 bus and 1 ferry), which gave us many different views of the Norwegian landscape and the fjords. The journey took all day (from early morning to late evening) and it was fun to read, do crosswords, chat and look out the window. Norway is just beautiful!

The halfway point between Oslo and Bergen is a unique place; it's snowy and sparse with some lakes and hills. Apparently part of a Starwars movie was filmed there. The range of scenery we saw in one day was pretty incredible. Several people in our group decided that their favorite part of the journey was the bus ride, which took us up a windy narrow mountain and then back down. We saw several waterfalls and views of the fjord. Oddly enough, I found it really fun to make our dinner on the train. Elise, Celeste and I made a little assembly line where we cut cucumbers and cheese, put dressing on the bread and put the sandwiches together. I like taking note of the little things that make me happy. We were on a trip to see the stunning Norwegian fjords, but I also found joy in making a sandwich. 

We spent about two days in Bergen before heading back to Oslo. We hiked to the top of Fløyen, the mountain right on the edge of Bergen's city center. Of course, on the way back down we got rained on. I guess it wouldn't be an authentic Bergen experience without rain. One of my favorite parts of our Bergen stay was relaxing in a coffee shop with Elise and Josh during a very rainy part of the day. Josh and I don't usually feel pressured to see all the sites or do lots of touristy things. It was fun to do crosswords, play nertz, read and drink good coffee. We got back to Oslo on a regular NSB train, which was also very scenic and a bit quicker than Norway in a nutshell.  Overall, a great trip! Josh and I didn't travel around Norway much, so it was really great to see other parts of the country. 

Middle three photos taken by Gary Cranston. The other two are by me.