our summer love.

This is our last summer as just Dave and Ruth.

I want to soak it all in, just the two of us preparing to be parents. It seems so fitting that this season of our lives would come to a close in summer when, 5 years ago, we started our season of forever togetherness on a warm and breezy July day in North San Diego. And just like at our wedding, we’ve been showered in love by our family and friends, so supported as we take the next step together.

Summer is the dreamiest with its glowing, cotton candy sunsets, sparkling blue pool water, warm sand beaches. I want to live it up. Hang my legs in the jacuzzi, sipping on sparkling water until the pool closes. Go for spontaneous late nights runs to the grocery store for Jeni’s ice cream. Long walks at dusk. Beach bonfires with s’mores every weekend. Krispy Kreme drive-through donut runs. Sharing a bowl of the tiniest, sweetest, organic strawberries with a bowl of homemade vanilla bean whipped cream on our patio like it’s our favorite restaurant, with twinkling globe lights and the breeze just barely coming in from the ocean, a little furry at my feet begging for one more strawberry. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

This is our summer, the summer of our growing (literally) love and expanding family. The last summer of us two, and the first summer of us three.

I can’t wait for fall, for the cooler temperatures and the hot apple cider and the comfort foods that I’m sure I’ll so desperately need and want, and most of all, for the tiny, snuggly baby boy I’ll hold in my arms. This fall will, I’m sure, be a dream. But it’s just around the corner, and I want to hold onto every late summer night that I can.

john & lauren.

Two of my favorite people are celebrating SEVEN years (and a happy, little announcement) today! We took some photos a couple weeks ago, and these are a few of my favorites.

shifting gears (23 weeks).

This pregnancy is flying by. Actually, these months are flying by. It blows my mind that we're almost halfway through the year and that I'm more than halfway through my pregnancy. With each passing week, I've felt the need to be more and more intentional about this pre-newborn time. We're looking ahead to our birth plan right now – I use the term "plan" loosely – we're fully cognizant of the fact that anything can happen. I spent the first half of my pregnancy: 1. half-trying to disguise fact that I was pregnant (hello, job-hunting), 2. loafing around on the couch trying to convince myself that if I could just focus a little harder, I could actually be productive, and 3. eating all the Mexican food I could get ahold of. Now that the reality of this baby is starting to sink in, with more frequent kicks and movement, I'm starting to shift gears, slowly. 

We recently reserved a spot in a Bradley Method class, and I couldn't be more excited about this. The Bradley Method came highly recommended and so did this class in particular. Learning more about the different approaches to childbirth, this method resonated the strongest with me because of its emphasis on holistic wellness (nutrition, fitness, meditation) and husband-coaching. Knowing that there will probably be some crazy times ahead, I'm especially thankful for this opportunity to be intentional about practicing self-care and growing closer together as a couple. Even though we don't start our class until June, just learning a little bit about what the Bradley Method entails has pushed me to take inventory of our lifestyle habits.

For a few weeks recently, we were eating out almost every night, and it was exhausting and frustrating. I felt incredibly unhealthy and frustrated that we were hemorrhaging money on something that made me feel so ungrounded and out of balance. So we started a CSA subscription to a local, organic farm, which we are loving. It's a commitment, but I feel great about the cause we're supporting and its role in furthering our health. Our goal is less frozen, more fresh; less takeout, and more veggies. I still need my  Panda Express fix every once in awhile, but overall, I've felt great with this change in diet and consumption. Cooking is time-consuming, but I feel so accomplished having whipped up a meal from scratch. On the same note, I've started a pregnancy journal to keep track of what I'm consuming, especially protein & sugar-wise. 

I'll be the first to admit that I was a lazy bum for the first trimester of this pregnancy. I wasn't ever nauseous, but the fatigue killed me. Now that we're much more settled into our new place, Dave and I have made it a priority to take advantage of all the amenities our complex has to offer: complimentary yoga/pilates classes, saltwater pools, hiking/walking trails, and tennis courts. I especially love the yoga class I've been going to where the instructor went out of his way to make sure I had modified poses, and the long night walks that we take around the complex have been good for the soul, too.

{the things we make this little guy go through}

The last gear shift for me has been the most difficult: learning to embrace rest. Dave jokes that when I'm cranky, he should either feed me or make me take a nap, and there's more truth to that than I'd like to admit. I've struggling the most with wanting to do more, more, more and embracing the days that I have off to re-center, recalibrate, and just rest. As much as I want to work like crazy, the days that I have off in the middle of the week provide me with so much balance. I'm learning to embrace the downtime, anticipating that in just 4 months, I won't have many more of these wake-up-late, sip-coffee-on-the-patio-all-morning, do-whatever-I-want kind of days. We've been a lot better at keeping our weekends low-key and plan-free for the most part. I usually go into the weekend thinking about all the errands I need to run and all the fun things there are to do, but too much of a good thing is not a good thing. Sometimes, time to catch up on a book, pore over a recipe, or just hang out with my boys, no agenda, is just what I need on my calendar.

{Sunday family walk}

We're taking baby steps towards being more intentional with our time, money, and health, and I like where we're heading.

It's been awhile.

It's been awhile! We moved back from China in December, and it's been a whirlwind of holidays and celebrations, starting new jobs and finding new jobs, taking the GMAT, moving and moving again, finally setting in our new home that we're in love with, and the biggest event for us – finding out that we have a baby boy on the way! Dave said that this is the year of our dreams coming true, and I believe it. 

And now it's MAY and almost 5 months to the day since we landed at LAX. We're almost halfway through the year, and there is just SO MUCH. So much happiness, so much to be thankful for, so much to write about and live. I'm still soaking in all the goodness and blessings. There have been some lows over these past months and some struggles, so I could not be more thankful for where we are right now. I've quoted this before, but I think it's worth repeating. My theme verse for the year: "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." - James 1: 17.

So here we are again. Side note: blogger hasn't been the best to me, so I've kind of been avoiding it. Pictures are so cumbersome to resize and upload on here, formatting isn't the best, and in terms of looks, my blog isn't exactly up to par with what I want it to be. But better done than perfect, right? You'll be hearing more from me soon.

Happier.

Today was a great day. Today, I did things that I loved doing.

I skyped with my family, dressed myself in Target sweatpants and a Lululemon top, read articles on the NY Times website to my heart's desire, learned new things online, brewed a fresh cup of coffee, heard exciting news from friends, prepared chicken tortilla soup from scratch, made pressed juice for breakfast, dreamed about the furniture (a blue velvet sofa! a rosewood dresser!) for our future apartment and scouted deals on Craigslist, studied new Chinese words and brushed up on my quantitative skills, and snuggled up in our couch/bed to catch up on Homeland and The Good Wife – all things that make me happy.

I'll be honest – I'm not where I thought I'd be at 26 as I imagined it would be like back in high school. But also, I'm not where I thought I'd be. For all my planning, I never could have predicted that I'd be in China of all places, or married, or living more of a freelance adventure than a climb up the career ladder. Somehow, I thought I could only be happy while on a tropical vacation or stressing out over an ambiguous project needing results fast (because weirdly, I thrive on that, too). When I step away from my day's activities as things to be checked off of my Todoist and view them more like things that I enjoy doing, I'm so much happier.

I want to stop apologizing for not having enough time, for not doing it all. I need to stop apologizing for recognizing the resource constraints that we all face. I'm not sorry that sometimes my priorities change and that instead of juggling yet another to-do, I choose to drop one, sometimes temporarily, sometimes forever. More fun means less list. When Dave gets home and asks me how my day went, I want to stop responding with, "Ugh, I haven't finished all of my to-dos yet." More often, I want to respond: Today was a great day. I did things that I love doing. And I'll be happier for it.

Layered Chicken Tortilla Soup

If you've ever had the chicken tortilla soup at Cafe Rio, you'll understand the magic of the layering. This is my take on the Cafe Rio fave...

[Wednesdays at Eight] Rachel from Through Painted Deserts

[Honey-Bourbon Pulled Chicken from Healthy. Delicious.]

 I am thrilled about starting this new blog series, Wednesdays at Eight. I've been thinking a lot about what it means to build community around the table, about everyday meals and celebrating the ordinary. I've been thinking about all the planning and preparation that comes before making dinner and the unique routines that make those dinners possible. This is my take on Bon Appetit's My Morning Routine. Breakfast has its own rituals of morning coffee, reading, sometimes frantic preparation for the day. Dinner is different. Dinner is about winding down. It's about experiencing gratitude for the day. It's about relief after a day of work and about sharing experiences over a meal. A billion thanks to Rachel for kicking this series off! Here's a peek into her dinner routine...

planting seeds.

I'm discovering, as I become older and hopefully wiser, that there are themes that emerge for each figurative season in my life. Lately...