Southern Oregon Summer

We renewed our website, so we’re going to write more here - not that our lives are so exciting that we have pages to write, but because it’s fun and the internet needs places to go that aren’t selling you anything. We need spaces online created for connection and creativity. This is such a place.

We’ve had a busy year, with lots of travel and a move within Southern Oregon - we moved out of the apartment that was meant to be a temporary place for us to land while we looked for a house to buy/rent back when we moved here in 2019, but then the pandemic hit, and the fires ripped through the valley, taking with it any semblance of housing that might be affordable to a single-ish income house. We were thankful to have such a wonderful place to live for the past five year, while we weathered the pandemic and navigated life as a one income family, but this year we knew it was time to move into a new space, whatever that looked like. We moved into a three bedroom and are still renting from our amazing friends who owned the previous apartment. We are now closer to Max’s work, closer to the bike path, and we have a garage instead of a storage unit for our outdoor gear and bikes and such. We are still a one car family, but Max now only has a 7-mile bike commute to work instead of an 18 mile one, and we get to have more time together in the mornings and evenings.

Our kiddo started kindergarten so I am beginning my new career as car-mom, and so far on the way to school we get gorgeous views of the foothills, the vineyards, the pear orchards, sweet baby fawns, and even a ZEBRA. I also started a paid part-time job for a local coworking space as a support specialist, and continue to run my photography company as time allows. I was able to accompany Max on his work trip to New Zealand earlier this year, which was an absolute dream come true, and will have to be a post in and of itself, as there are too many photos to share here - but it was the longest we’ve been away from our kiddo, and he did great getting spoiled by family in Colorado while we were away for three weeks. He traveled back to Oregon with Max’s mom, and she supported us through our crazy move from Medford to Talent, and during her visit we even got to stay at an AirBnB on a working dairy farm after we moved out of the apartment, and before we could move into the new place.

Now that we are in Talent we have a third bedroom, with a real bed, so we no longer have to host guests with a five year old’s twin bed or our living room couch. We recently had Max’s aunt, uncle, and cousins visit from the east coast, celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary and seeing Twelfth Night at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and my sister also came out from Colorado to visit for a week shortly after that. Unfortunately the week she came out our valley was filled with smoke from several fires burning nearby, and we didn’t get to see Gregory Alan Isakov at the Britt like we had planned - we did, however, still get to see a matinee of RENT at the OSF, and soak up lots of special seester/aunt time together.

The last days of summer were spent similarly to the last year - lots of trips to parks, disc golf, hiking, grocery shopping, making food for our family, watching Star Wars in the evenings - and we are finding a rhythm now that school has officially begun. We have weekly swim lessons and soccer practices, and when we moved into our new place we acquired a piano, so hopefully lessons are in the near future, too. I have a core group of lady friends who get together once a week (if possible) and jam out on our ukuleles, and I’m trying to take as many classes at Talent Maker City or any local art space as possible. I’m writing this from the coworking space I have access to as a perk of my job, and am enjoying being in the presence of adults for the majority of the day now.

Here are a few photos of life these days - I have about 130,000 to choose from on my phone, but I’m trying to be more intentional with my film photography these days, so I’ll try to share more of those here. As always, thanks for reading, and thanks for being here in this space of connection with us.

our traditional stop at the salt flats in Utah on our way back from Colorado

making pasta for friends, and Oregon summer flowers

new books, bike rides to the local skate park, shave ice - summer 2023

getting above the smoke and enjoying delicious donuts while my sister is in town

demi scoops and the first baby tooth lost - summer 2023

soccer practice and walks to Art Bop with Dad

cooling off in the Rogue River and from where naps are taken

Seester date to Bar Juillet after OSF

Clyde’s Corner and Lithia Park with Aunt Nat

It's 2016, Mo Fo's!

If you have no idea what that blog title is about, you should go listen to some Mike Birbiglia. Specifically this bit.  I think he's one of the funniest humans on the planet.  He came to Fort Collins and I got to meet him - I think he'll probably remember me as the girl who couldn't control her laughter and sobbed and snorted in the 2nd row like a freak.  Actually, I'm sure he won't remember me at all, which is 100% for the best. 

Anyway, 2016 is clearly getting away from us already.  Where did we leave off- ah yes- last October where our lives became outrageous, and we both decided to quit our day jobs and leap into running our photography business from home!  YAAAAAY!  So far so good!  

Max has been busy over the winter with our business plan, all things marketing, and cleaning out our garage (which is mostly all my stuff - love you honey!).  I have been lounging about, enjoying having free time before our busy wedding season begins, but working hard behind the scenes getting set up for this coming year.  I've gone to tax seminars, photographer business meet-ups, and also enjoyed working from home during the day, rather than all through the night.  Bijoux is enjoying having both of us home most of the time, too.  At least I think she is- this is her usual position during the day- if she's not begging for food, then she's snoring away while I edit photos.

 

We had a lovely holiday season with our families, and we've endured some of the nastiest winter storms Fort Collins has thrown at us in a while.  I got to go to Omaha and Kansas City in January to photograph new Qdoba stores- it was my first official business trip as a #bosslady and it was super fun!  We posted a Sonja K Photography blog about it- make sure you keep up with the biz website, too!  

I was going to write a bunch more, but I'm going to save it for the next post.  Max and I just got back from a crazy last-minute-on-a-whim trip to the Canyonlands, followed by my first wedding of the season (I was the second photographer, so it was a nice way to ease back into it) and then a FABULOUS trip to New Orleans!  It's blizzarding out right now, so I'm going to go write those posts so you can read about our adventures next time.  But it feels good to be writing again, and I promise to post more pictures next time.  I'm just cozy on the couch and I don't want to go into the bedroom and turn on the main computer- mostly because I fear the power is about to go out due to the heavy snow on the trees. 

Oh, okay - I'll post a picture of the snow right now so you know what we're dealing with here.  

Happy Spring everyone!! 

One Year Ago not Today

One year + 8 days ago we got married.  

It was one of the best days of my life.  

Family, friends, food, wine, dancing, laughing, a little bit of (happy) crying, sparkles, dresses, fancy shirts, puppies and cake.  It doesn't get much better than that.  

Thank you again to everyone who made our beautiful wedding possible, and to everyone who came and celebrated with us.  Our lives are rich and wonderful because of you!  

photos by the talented Jarrod Renaud

sunny days, goats + veggies

foothills bathed in sunshine, cottonwood tree cotton-y things floating through the air, long-eared goats, fresh veggies grown by friends, smelly dirt, green fields, happy smiles

stopping by the CSA after an emotionally rough day is better medicine than could be prescribed.  

beautiful friends and beautiful veggies