Welcome to December, everyone! I feel like the start of December is always an exciting time, don’t you think?

Well, for one, my birthday starts off the month, which definitely helps a little. :) But it’s also the start of much anticipation and hopefulness for the coming holiday and all that it entails. I hope you’re finding time amongst the busyness to step back and enjoy the little moments.

Saturday, being my birthday, I intentionally did just that. The entire day was a day of rest and relaxation, but the end of the day was what I treasured most. Philip and I ended the night by sitting in front of the Christmas tree, staring into the sparkling lights, and simply enjoying the quiet time shared together. I’m hoping we have several more scattered moments like that again in the coming weeks leading up to Christmas.

While we did plenty of thinking and dreaming in front of the Christmas lights (those lights are enchanting, I swear!), I’ve had my own share of ponderings, thoughts, and (too many) purchases recently. I thought it would be the perfect time for another round of my current thoughts and ponderings! Actually, my last “true” thoughts and ponderings was almost a year ago (how did that happen?!) and it was so fun to see what I was wanting and thinking about a year ago. It’s safe to say many of the things I loved then are still some of my favorite items today! So, without further ado, here we go… (continue reading…)

Well, here we are, already a good two weeks into 2018! I’m not one to make resolutions or get too philosophical about the start of a new year, but a brand-new year is always kind of exciting.

Philip and I had a great holiday, mostly staying around home. But even with some good time off, it’s surprising how quickly it felt like we needed another weekend to get away and catch up on some much needed R&R.

If this doesn’t scream R&R, I don’t know what does. :) This past weekend we headed up north for our annual visit to my aunt and uncle’s lake house, which they generously let us enjoy for a weekend in the winter. Since it’s only two hours away, it makes for an easy weekend trip.

While on the lake on one of our walks on Saturday, we had some neighbors ask us what our plans were while visiting…uhh, plans? What plans? Our plans consisted of: Reading, working on a puzzle, dreaming in front of the fire, and venturing briefly out into the below zero temps to get some fresh air. Safe to say, it was a wonderful, relaxing weekend. Bring on the new year!

Since so much has happened since the last time I posted, I thought I’d catch us all up by sharing my current thoughts and ponderings (you know you love these as much as I do. ;)).

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I don’t know about you, but I feel like summer is whizzing by. But I also feel like this summer has been living up to all of its potential. You know when you have those summers when you do almost zero of the fun, little things you had planned or wanted to do that makes summer, well, summer? (My hand is up and waving high on that one!)

We all have the “big ticket” items like going on a vacation or two, but why do the small things tend to get so easily pushed aside? Things like going to a farmer’s market, star gazing, or having friends over for a barbecue.

But this summer—the summer of 2017—has been full of the “small ticket” items for Philip and me! Or maybe I’ve just finally accepted that I’m not going to get to every little thing in one summer, but am instead appreciating all the things that we have been able to do. Whatever the reason, I’ve been loving the star gazing (or in the case from Saturday night, watching the distant lightning), the fire pits and s’mores, and the evening walks around the neighborhood.

Of course, there’s so much more than just those things going on in our summer, so I thought I’d bring back another post of my current thoughts and ponderings. :)

Right now I’m…

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I woke up on Saturday morning and mumbled to Philip, “I’m glad we could sleep in this morning.” It was 6:30 a.m.

Even though we were road tripping across Iowa this past weekend, dancing the night away at a friend’s wedding, reminiscing about childhood memories in my hometown (I hadn’t been back since we got married four years ago!), and touring around Okoboji—one of the biggest tourist towns in Iowa—if you can believe it, it was a much more relaxing weekend than we’ve had the previous three weeks.

That’s because for most of the weekends in June, we took on—what seems like—our annual landscaping project. Every summer since we’ve moved into our house, we’ve taken on some level of landscaping project to slowly transform our yard into something we enjoy spending time in. I think we’re almost there!

I’ll give you a recap: (continue reading…)

Philip and I haven’t even been back from our vacation to the Grand Canyon a week yet and I’m already wishing we could go back. Heck, I wanted to go back as soon as we stepped on the plane to come home. Guys, it was seriously that amazing and that much fun!

I didn’t even realize hiking down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon was on my bucket list until Philip mentioned 6-ish months ago that he kind of wanted to go to the Grand Canyon. After looking into it more, I realized if we were going to do the Grand Canyon, we were going to do the Grand Canyon. If there’s an adventure and challenge to be had, you better believe I’m signing up for it.

So, that’s what led us to signing up for a packaged trip through Arizona Outback Adventures and it was the best decision we could have made. If you decide to go on any trip in the Arizona area, I highly recommend using their services. I’m not getting paid to tell you this, we just truly had an awesome experience with them. Our two guides were fun and gave us just the right mix of freedom and guidance we needed. All the planning was pretty much taken care of and even though we were hiking, I swear they had everything and anything we could possibly need – from tape for preventing blisters to nail clippers to ear plugs. This definitely wasn’t their first rodeo!

I could go on and on about our trip, but I thought I’d do another episode of “My Current Thoughts and Ponderings,” all things related to our trip.

During our trip, I was… (continue reading…)