cute things I bought // and didn't need

My dad just got a job up in the Grand Coulee Dam area, driving a delivery  truck for Franz Bread, so we drove up to spend a couple days with him this past week. We found an adorable antique shop in a little town about 20 minutes from the Dam.  I found this little guy, ^ and instantly fell head-over-heels with this necklace. The owl trend is really adorable, I must admit!!

Isn’t it way too cute?!? I don’t wear watches, but I couldn’t resist this one!!!!

 

I  also found this leather-bound copy of Jane Eyre at Michaels in Yakima.  Books are something that I just can’t resist, especially ones I’ve come to love. My mom and I have very different opinions of this book; she thinks it’s creepy, and I love it to death!! :)

And I found this adorable note pad. Music is my thing, so it’s perfect for me.   

And, last but not least, this is a stamp, and I plan to use it on the back of all my envelopes. It is so cute!! Yes, I already tried it. In fact, I wrote a letter to a friend the day we got back, just so I could use it!!! (That and the fact that I owed her a letter. :)

 

How was your week, lovelies, and what's the best thing about fall? i am totally loving this weather. Rain is the best. :)

 

xo,

Becca

 

 

 

us two // in the future

 

One of my very best friends, Sierra,  sent me this photo in an email, and said “ I found this photo, and it reminded me of us…in the future!!”  I loved it!! It will totally be us, up until unearthly hours of the night (which are the best, by the way, for discussing story ideas.) drinking tea, eating chocolate, with Faith, her lovely cat (also the one of the two cats I actually like) hanging around in the shadows. I love friends. Especially when they put up with a lot of weirdness and randomness. And this one does!! 

xo,

Becca

canning // love never fails

          Ya know, I kind of get tired of apologizing between long breaks of posting, ‘cause I’m amazing at not posting, so I guess I won’t apologize, (meaning I won’t say, imsorryiwasbusyanduninspiredandboring. Yah.) but I will say that I’ve been  busy. (Imagine that!!) Mom and I have been canning like it was going out of style, and now have almost 400 quarts of assorted food waiting to be devoured by our hungry family this winter. (random side note. Does anybody out there ever notice a word, and suddenly thinks “that word looks SO weird!” Or is it just me. Hungry is a weird word!!) Anyway, we’ve done tomatoes, cherries, pears, pear sauce, plum jam, grape juice, veggie stew, salsa, PLUS drying a bunch of pears, and making a bunch of freezer pear jam. And we are in the process of making a TON of applesauce. So that’s what I’ve been up to. Plus the normal things like reading and a little school.

 

 

~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~

     Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

 

       I love these verses. God’s perfect plan for love looks exactly like that. Think of what life would be like if we all loved each other like that. Unfortunately, I’m so far away from that picture of love it’s not even funny. I physically can't love like that, but God can, and that is the way he loves imperfect me. It doesn't matter what I do, his love never fails. Isn't that beautiful, and completely mind-blowing?

       Brandon Heath captures the flow of these verses perfectly, in his song Love never fails, (below) and I've been singing it a lot since I heard it sung at a wedding in July. i love to think of this as a love song from God to us, and then us singng the chorus back. Listen to this, and be blown away, people!!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

     I’m excited. I’ve been saving this summer for a new camera, as mine is dying really quickly, and I picked out the one I want a few months ago. I started looking at prices, and finally mentioned it to my brother. He told me to wait to buy it until he could look in Seol, to see if he could get it any cheaper. He did last weekend and I was thrilled to learn that I can get it $100 bucks cheaper than if I bought it online here in the states. Needless  to say, I am excited!! So, sometime in the next month I’ll be getting my Canon Rebel T2i. I’m even thinking about naming it, but I’m not sure about that. It seems like fun, but kinda weird at the same time. :) I never did name the Rebel DSLR I have currently… We’ll have to think about this… lol

 

One of those ramdom posts...

...in which you post all the photos that are fun and random, but you can't post anywhere else. :p 

 

 

 

 I'm not sure why sunflare photos are so amazing. I think I'll have to think about that.

And a little preview of our trip to Lost Lake. (why on earth is it lost?!)

Mt. Adams // a dream come true

It happened. I finally got to meet my mountain, face to face. It was an amazing experience, and I am very proud of myself.  :)

     We hiked up the night before, starting about 4:00 p.m., and reached camp about 8:30-9:00. Trust me, it might not seem like very long, but carrying a huge pack uphill, that long is quite a feat! J We went to bed as fast as possible after eating dinner, but I wasn't able to sleep that night!! I’ve  was told by a friend yesterday that it was because I didn’t have a pad underneath my sleeping pad. I, uh, failed to mention tol him I was sleeping in shorts because I was waiting for my pants to dry out!! (I hadn't thought about taking extra pants, as I was wearing water-resistant pants... J So, next time, I’ll be taking a sleeping pad, and flannel pajama bottoms to sleep in. [Can’t you just see that, Becca camping on the side of a mountain with her brothers and their friends from church, the only girl in the party, and she pulls out her flannel pajamas. lol] Needless to say, when 2:00 rolled by, I was very happy to get out of my freezing cold sleeping bag, and eat something hot. Yes that’s 2:00 A.M. Those that know me well know that I don’t out of bed willingly until after 8:00. Ok, maybe 9:00 would be more like it. Anyway, we finally got on the trail about 3:45, because some of the people in our group weren't as awake as I was. :) And then about 20 minuets into the hike up, my brother Daniel (13) realized that he had forgotten his sunglasses back at camp. As sunglasses were essential to this part of the climb, my dad and him went back down to find then. And the rest of us got to sit in a little rock shelter, blissfully unaware that there was a tent right beside us. I really hope we didn't wake them up!! :) It really surprised us when one of the boys stood up and announced "there's a tent right there!"

^The view of Mt. St. Helens from the camp.

This ^ is at like 5:00 a.m. It felt like 10:00.

^ David managed to break his sunglasses the first day, so he duct taped them. Then during the last little bit of the climb, he lost a lens.

^The sky was amazing. Look at the difference in color the higher we got. this is at about 10,500 feet of elevation.

^Mt Hood. My other mountain. :) I found out that you can ride the chair lift up to 9,000 feet, and then you only have to climb 3,000 feet up. Sounds kinda nice to me! :)

I won’t go into much detail for the rest to the climb, but I will say this; It was way harder than I was expecting. I had done a 12 mile hike the weekend before, and had absolutely no problem with that. I could have gone further even, but climbing the mountain was HARD!! J I also have serious issues with heights. Like really serious issues with heights, so it was a challenge to make myself climb higher and higher, knowing I was 10,000+ feet above the “ground.”  

     I didn’t actually make it to the summit, but I did make it to the false summit, which is at about 11,000 feet elevation. The summit is a little over 12,000 feet. By the time I made it to the false summit, I was exhausted from lack of sleep, plus climbing all that way up, and had been experiencing, uh, “lower back pain” the entire time as well. But hey, I made it that far, and am thrilled that I managed to climb almost the entire climb up without falling!!! (I’ve managed to fall at least once during each hike I go on.) That’s more than I can say for the way down, however! We decided not to glissade down, as it just wasn’t safe, and we climbed down the rocks instead I almost think it was scarier climbing down the rocks than glissading would have been!!!! J  

     Even though I didn't get to summit, I had an amazing time, and the view was posotively breathtaking. I highly recommend climbing Mt. Adams some day soon. (Just make sure you climb stairs for hours everyday for like a year before you attempt it, otherwize you'll be really really really really sore the next day. :)

Wish #17 on my bucket list completed!!! :)

xo,

Becca Anne :)

Entry for a photo contest // animals

Kathrine, from A life worth Living is having a photo contest, and I decided to enter. (I think this is the first I've ever entered. :)

The theme is animals, and the only issue with the contest was no editing!!  I was like, gee, now I've got to go through my photos and find one that I never edited! :) But I found one, and this is one of my personal favorites.

my mountain // one excited girl

I am so, so, so, totally, absolutely, completely…

 

… excited 

See this mountain^ (obviously, if you’re reading this, you’re not blind. So you can see it, right? J)

     Follower, this is my mountain. Notice the word my. After reading this post, you might consider me to be a completely weird country girl, but I love my mountain. He’s always there in the distance, watching everything that goes on around him. I’ve always dreamed and wanted to meet Mt. Adam’s face to face. I get excited on a clear day, when I can see him really well, and, (this is top secret) I’ve even had a couple secret conversations with him in my head.

     And ftr, I have a friend who feels the same way, I mean about it being her mountain. So I’m not the only crazy girl on the planet who thinks she can claim a mountain as her own.

     For the very first time, on Thursday, I get to meet my mountain! [Translation: My dad is taking my three younger brothers up to climb Mt. Adams, with some friends from church, and he finally told me this morning that I can crash the guy’s party, and tag along!!!!]

     I’m so happy!!!! It’s been on my bucket list for a really long time, and I can cross it off in just a few days!!!!! J

cute cowboy photoshoot

Last week, I convinced my little brother Luke to go out on a cowboy photo-shoot. He is absolutely adorable, and loved posing in all the different ways we tried. I believe it was my first real photo-shoot!! :)

Isn’t he a cutie?!?

How’s your summer been so far? Have you been hiking/camping yet (or plan to!!!)?

xo,

Becca

Mt. St. Helens camping trip

Thursday, my family and I drove up near Mount St. Helens, for and outdoor school. We got there pretty uneventfully, (besides leaving 4 hours late due to brake trouble!!), and set up “camp” in the dark. (Which is pretty easy, plug in the trailer, put bedding on the beds… J) We were meeting a family there, and it was awesome to hang out with them. We love those people!!!

     The first day of outdoor school, we hiked around in The Twin Forests, which get it’s name from this: There was an old growth forest originally, then, Mt. St. Helens exploded, and destroyed the old forest. There are areas where the lava formed around trees, leaving strange tubes, and then the new forest grew eventually. It is now Twin Forests, one on top of another. J Isn’t that clear!!! Lol

Does anyone have any idea what was up with this tree?!? We found it in the woods,and couldn't figure it out!! :) ^

Later that day, we hiked the Upper Ape Caves, a one-and-a-half mile lava tube. There were 14 kids, and 3 adults in our group, and the rangers told us that it takes 2 ½ hours to hike it, (You have to come down 1 ½ miles, outside the tube as well). We decided to try to go faster than that.

     The tube was amazing!! It was by far my favorite part of the trip. I managed to bruise up my knee, but still had tons of fun. J We made it back down in about 1 ½ hours!!! J We were awfully proud of ourselves. J (And the youngest was a five-year-old girl, she kept up with us the entire time, no problem!)

     The next day was a guided tour of several different museums and different stops along the way to the mountain. We also took a guided 4 mile hike, around the Hummocks and devastated areas. (The areas that was legal. J And if you don’t know what a Hummock is, Google it!!! gotta love Google.). It’s amazing how bare the area is around the mountain still is. In case you didn’t know, Mt. St. Helens erupted May 18^th 1980, 32 years ago. I didn’t know that until this weekend either!!

     I realized, yet again, that I totally L.O.V.E. hiking. It is awesomeness. I get to go on a 6 mile hike on Friday, and I am pretty excited. I already know that I am gonna be like really sore, but that’s ok, I was hiking!!!!! J

Boys will be boys, and if there's a tree around, they automatically think, "Let's climb it!!"

John is camera shy. I think he gets it from me. ^

 A huge bridge. idk, I guess I thought it was cool?!?

 I fell in love. with this bush!!! :)

Something to laugh about:

Last week my wife and I purchased a new computer. We ran into some difficulties while setting it up so we decided to call the customer support phone number we found in the manual.

I picked up the phone and called the number. A man answered the phone and I explained the problem to him.

He began rattling off computer jargon. This confused us even more.

"Sir," I said politely, "Can you explain what I should do as if I were a small child?"

"Okay," the computer support guy said, "Son, could you please put your mommy on the phone?"

Ok, here’s your challenge for today… Vote on the two photos below, and tell me which one’s your favorite!!! In the poll thingy, which is on the sidebar!!

 Number one

Number two

And then do the same thing for two below.

And… comment with your favorite thing from this week so far. ’kay!! J

xo,

♥Becca♥