Recent snapshot.

Chris' mom snapped this shot of us over the weekend from her phone. (Sidenote- I cannot wait to get an iphone and have a real camera phone finally!) We had stopped for lunch at Panera after church in Redlands. (Another sidenote- It's always fun for me to get to see the little church community Chris grew up in, even if, as he says, it has changed drastically since he moved away from Redlands and down to San Diego right after high school.)

Anyway, I love this shot. We simply do not get enough pictures of the two of us, and I'm a little over it. We photograph everyone else, and probably even ourselves individually (okay, maybe I photograph myself individually on Chris' iphone), more than we get photos of both of us together, and I'm hoping to change that. Okay, husband? More pictures of us!

For another kind of snapshot of our lives right now...

Chris has been concerting it up lately with Ryan. Tonight he's at Foo Fighters, but he's also been to Jimmy Eat World and some kind of Rebel Motorcycle Club (?). I think? Anyway, it means I'm home at night trying to figure out ways to pass the time until he gets back. I cannot sleep when he's not home, and the cats don't help by staring down the hall at every noise and freaking me out!

We've got a bunch of weddings and family shoots to edit right now. Most of our nights are given to photo editing and watching Netflix, or a Red Box movie, of which we've just recently discovered. We watched 4 Red Box movies in 5 days last week. It would have been 4 for 4, but the machine wasn't reading credit cards the fourth night, so we had to go back the next for our saved movie.

It's weird not having homework. I almost feel like I miss it. Not quite, but there's some kind of goal that's missing from life now. I'll pick up my Master's classes in January, though, and I keep trying to remind myself that this short winter break won't last forever!

A sore point of the last two weeks was that my interview did not turn into a second interview. I won't go into all the details here, but it has not been an easy two weeks. I'm learning what it really means to have grace in situations that are beyond your control, and faith that everything really does have a reason. While it doesn't make sense to me (or anyone at my site), there must be a reason why I didn't get my chance this time around. I'm reminding myself that daily, but I'll be honest, it's been rough. Chris has been a simply amazing support system for me lately, and I also remind myself that our little life is pretty close to perfect, so I shouldn't get so worked up over minor setbacks.

I officially received my teaching credential last Thursday. It feels good to be finished and able to apply as a real life teacher! It's been a long journey but I reached my goal at last!

Jack and Sawyer are absolutely adorable and insanely mischievous. We've been slowly letting them come in to sleep with us at night, and they've finally begun to realize that they get kicked out when they pounce our feet under the blankets. They love sleeping in our bed, usually on our pillows so they can purr in our ears, though Jack also likes stretching out alongside us with his front paws over his head. They've still never made it a full night though; they either get rowdy or move around too much to let us sleep, and then out they go. The other night I woke up to find that Sawyer had dropped his mouse on me, and was waiting expectantly for praise. At 3a.m. And out they both went.

We visited our Ch(K)ris friends this Saturday. Kris and Becky hosted a barbecue at their house in Redlands, and my Chris and I, along with Chris Holz and Mel (and Bennett and Marshall) drove up from San Diego. Chris Moses and Shay (and Will) drove down from Vegas where Shay is teaching right now. It was a great little day of eating and playing and talking about teacher things. (Now that I'm official, that makes four teachers in our little group.) Wish we could do those kind of parties more often, but we're all just too spread out for now. I guess that just makes those days even more special when they can happen.