Our Life in the Yellow Brick House

On March 5, I turned 29. 29! How did that happen so fast?! I’m not sure, but apparently it’s no surprise to some of my coworkers. Sarah, you know who you are! Kyle sent me an extravagant bouquet of flowers on my birthday that wafted a lovely scent down the hallway at work. So naturally, many people saw the flowers and asked what I was celebrating. It was a mixed reaction when I shared that I was celebrating the last birthday in my 20s. A few people were genuinely shocked and responded (wide-eyed, I might add) with, “You’re still in your 20s?” Now I could have taken this one of two ways. I chose to take it as a compliment meaning I’m a mature, old soul who has wisdom beyond her years. This is partly because I’m an optimistic person and partly because I won’t give Kyle the satisfaction of admitting he wasn’t totally off base when he purchased that wrinkle cream for me. Nevertheless, here we are. I’m on the victory lap of my second decade in life, and I’m determined to make it the b...

We are in a period of life when it seems like everyone we know is having a baby. Although that is always good news to hear, somehow it becomes routine after six, seven, eight birth announcements.   Nowadays when someone has big news to share, Kyle and I find ourselves thinking, “Here we go again.” It’s very similar to when everyone we knew was getting married. Why is it that we take such a sweet time in life for granted? That's something I've been thinking a lot about recently. At Bunko, we’ve had several announcements as of late but they’ve been totally different – marriages ending, sickness, loved ones dying. It's been a good reminder for me to celebrate good news at every opportunity. I have a feeling the older we get; happy announcements may come fewer and farther between. So with that in mind, I'd like to capture some of the fun moments I’ve had hosting showers over the last few months. Snow or shine, it was such an honor to have a hand in helping the Mortons...

Several people asked us why we chose to go to the DR on our trip. The truth is that it was one of the only ones I found where we could stay steps away from the beach. Kyle wasn't too excited about going on a service trip, but he does love the beach. So in a way, the ocean was kind of like my assurance that even if he hated every other part of the trip, he'd still have something to enjoy. (Luckily, once we got there, he enjoyed many other parts of the trip, too!) We kept pretty busy volunteering and learning about the DR, but we were also able to squeeze in a little relaxation and some typical tourist adventures, too. Kyle's favorite was by far the beach. Contrary to the information printed in our brochure, it WAS, in fact, rainy season during our trip. That meant it rained pretty much every day we were there. Most days were cloudy with occasional showers, which was really nice while we were working. There was really only one day that was a complete washout, but I'll g...