Those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile know that every summer my husband Grant and our camp staff friends make a music video. And they turn out amazing! I'm always so proud to know these guys who aren't afraid to entertain us. Without further ado, here's the 9th annual Maintenance Men music video...

On Saturday, Grant and I celebrated 6 years as husband and wife! Praise the Lord! The day before, we received some old camp pictures from a sweet friend (who actually took this picture of us! Thank you, Kait!) and it led to us re-hashing sweet memories and re-connecting the dots of how we got together. We were amazed at how many people the Lord used to bring us together. So many tiny, intricate details that built our camp-launched connection and so many great camp friends to thank for their part in our story! (Which will continue. I know, I'm so late in writing more of it! I've been feeling really guilty about it lately, seriously. You have no idea!) Basically, I'm still marveling over it all. God is so good and His plan, so unexpected.


And here are a few tidbits about our marriage, because I want to remember these little things.

• The first thing we say when we walk in the door of our house is almost always, "I need some water!" We must be thirsty people. (and Grant might add, "Agua, por some-more.")
• John Mayer Continuum is currently back in our car. We like to resurrect music from our past.
• Grant often prays as we're backing out of the driveway.
• We Amazon shop a lot.
• And yet we both desire to live so simply. :)
• After the kids go to bed, we try to get stuff done quick and then crash on the couch to talk, watch Jimmy Fallon videos, and eat apples and almond butter.
• It's not uncommon for us to jokingly (but seriously) ask each other, "What are your hopes and desires and dreams for the day?" translation: What's on your to-do list?
• We both wish we could re-experience our American History classes.
• We both wish Chipotle and Target weren't 2 hours away.
• We don't currently have a "hobby" together -- we have babies. :)
• One way we serve each other lately is taking turns holding Casper or diaper-changing while the other person gets something done.
• He dreams big and I am easily intrigued.
• It's not uncommon for us to spend an evening looking at plane tickets and dreaming of going to sunny places.
• It's also not uncommon for us to wish for more snow and blizzards.
• John Piper has brought us closer together.
• Least favorites: wasted time, dumb movies, late nights, complaining.
• Most favorites: the sun, a good mix of work and play, growing closer, becoming better at something, finishing to-do lists, traveling, experiencing God's faithfulness.
• Things we don't: keep secrets (surprises) from each other very well, go on dates regularly, let our calendar get too packed.
• Things we do: want to ride Rockin' Roller Coaster at Disney World, enjoy simple, well-designed things, eat a lot of chips and salsa/guac.
• Going to bed at the same time is a routine that's important to us.
• Grant thrives on having someone to lead and take care of. I thrive on nurturing my people and having someone to defer to.
• Arrested Development and Parks & Rec jokes abound at our house.
• He's clever and innovative and full of thoughts. And I've got a good memory and am always ready with a question or perspective. Together we make great conversations.
• We talk about things that matter on a daily basis. (Jesus, relationships, feelings, struggles, sins.)
• We like to analyze and ponder God's Word and work together.
• I thank Him for this. For all of this!

Hey guys! Grant's surgery went well and he is feeling good. Praise the Lord! Thank you all so much for your prayers! The world is just really, really bright. His eye is still crazy dilated, so it's hard to appreciate how nice the new lens is yet. Now we are just praying for a quick and full recovery. I made him a couple of favorites -- these cookies and this curry -- to speed the recovery process :)

Hey, blog friends! Grant will have eye surgery this morning around 9:30. Some of you have asked to be updated, so just wanted to let you know. Thanks so much for praying! We are excited for him to be able to see out of his left eye again!

For those who don't know, while mowing at Camp Shetek last June, a rock ricocheted off a tree and struck Grant square in his left eye. It damaged his lens and pupil, and created a trauma-induced cataract. His vision has been very disabled since the injury. Today he will get a new lens! Praise the Lord!

Fajitas tonight!!! I love fajitas because they are easy and a little exciting. We don't have a Chipotle within 100 miles of us, so we have to try and keep our spirits up without it most of the time. We do our best. This meal isn't Chipotle, but the chicken sort of reminds us of the amazing stuff we usually put in our burritos there, and it has become one of Grant's favorites. Just rustle up some marinated chicken, cook it in a hot skillet with sliced onion and peppers, and throw everything in a corn tortilla with rice and beans. This is the marinade I've been using lately to make chicken for fajitas. It's crazy yummy, not to mention pretty.

Chicken Fajitas + Marinade

3 or 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (they don't need to be thawed)
1 large onion, sliced
1 large green pepper, sliced
optional: sliced chili peppers, such as anaheim, poblano, or jalapeño

1/3 cup olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
juice of 1/2 a lime
2 teaspoons apple cider or red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sea salt (heaping)
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon oregano

Place chicken in a shallow glass dish. Add all marinade ingredients to a small jar, shake, and pour over chicken. Let marinate in the fridge overnight, or however much time you have before dinner (a few hours is fine). When you're ready to start cooking, pound chicken breasts very thin with a meat tenderizer. Cook in a hot cast iron skillet with plenty of sliced onion and peppers. Allow the chicken to get nicely browned before flipping and feel free to drizzle in the leftover marinade while cooking. Once the chicken is done and veggies are soft, transfer everything to a cutting board and slice. Or, simply grill the chicken, basting with the extra marinade as you go.

Serve in warm corn tortillas with some cilantro lime rice, guacamole, and black beans.

Hi, guys! Sorry I've been gone so long! Way longer than I had planned. Why is it so hard to sit down and blog in the beginning of June?! Every year I can't imagine that I'll be too busy to sit at the computer and at least write a short post. But this year, I actually have a really good excuse.

The day after we got home from our vacation in Washington D.C. (which was awesome! we've got a little video to show you guys soon!) Grant got seriously injured while working here at camp. He was on the mower and a rock ricocheted off a tree and hit him square in his left eye. For awhile that day, we were afraid he wouldn't be able to see out of that eye again. We've been in and out of doctor appointments over the weekend and the past few days, and are so thankful to the Lord that the internal bleeding has stopped and everything appears to be healing. Grant is not in pain anymore and although his vision is still very hazy from the trauma, it's slowly improving each day. He's supposed to lay low this whole week to prevent pressure building in his eye, which could cause a re-bleed. Hadley and I have been keeping the shades pulled and the bright lights off, and we're trying to take good care of him. We'd love it if any of you guys would pray for us!

I won't post any pictures, just in case any of you have sensitive stomachs when it comes to eye stuff (that includes me), but if you want to get an idea of what's happening in Grant's eye you can google "hyphema." :) More soon! Just wanted to give you a little update.

Last Friday (May 10) marked 5 years of marriage for Grant and me! Isn't that unbelievable? I can easily remember blogging about our 6 month anniversary, and now we're entering our 6th year. Crazy! Of course, time flies when you're having fun. And clearly, I am.

I'm such a different person now than I was 5 years ago, and I often catch myself wondering what it was about me that made Grant sure I was the one for him. He really liked that immature teenager who slept with music on every night and didn't like cilantro and counted calories and complained a lot? That's amazing. I've grown by leaps and bounds since being Grant's wife and have become better suited to being a good companion for him. He has grown a lot too. But something back then convinced us both that we were perfect together. It's so mysterious, and can only be attributed to the grace of God.

I also think about all the little incidents that had to happen just right for us to ever even meet. If my friends from youth group didn't know about this certain summer camp out of the hundreds of camps in Minnesota, if they hadn't asked me to go with them the summer of 2006, if Grant hadn't been working there during the week that I came, if I never overheard his name from the girls in my cabin, if Facebook hadn't been invented yet, if I had never asked him to be my Facebook friend, if he had never initiated our penpal relationship while he was living in California and I was in Nebraska... and so on. Man! It's a miracle that we ended up together.

I'm so thankful to the Lord for our marriage. I love Grant, and everyday I am still amazed that this is all real... I live with a man, a super handsome and smart man, we're best friends, we serve each other, we share everything, and we're going to be together forever?! It's evidence it is that His plan and timing are immeasurably better than anything we can ask or imagine.

Back when I was first discovering that I had a colossal crush on Grant, I became deeply interested in whatever he was interested in. I tried the foods that he said he liked (Chipotle). I watched the movies that he mentioned (X-Men). I bought the songs that he was listening to. And of course, in every boy-girl song that I heard, I had to imagine that he was the boy and I was the girl. Of course! To this day, I still have a playlist in iTunes where I've stored all the songs from that stage of our relationship- everything that I bought because I wanted to be able to tell him, "Oh, I love that song too!" :) This one is my absolute favorite from that playlist. I've been listening to it a lot lately because I love it all over again.

Grant finished his final summer vacation project the other night. It was a beast. The school was getting rid of some old slate chalkboards over the summer and he was able to grab one for our house. Have you ever tried to maneuver a real old-fashioned slate chalkboard? They weigh a ton. After much planning on how to hang the 170-pound giant on a wall, and much heavy lifting, he got it up in Hadley's room. (it really is a miracle!) And then he drew her a picture and strung twinkle lights for her. What a sweet daddy.

With that, the summer came to a close.
Yesterday he started the 2012-2013 school year.
And I re-activated my gym membership.
Back to real life!

Today is our 4th anniversary! or anniver-shur-y. How do you say it? I say it without a"sh."

I used to say the word "nursery" like "nurshurey" until Grant taught me the right way. He has probably taught me thousands of things since I've known him. I'm thankful to be married to such a brilliant guy! From him I have learned:

1. to keep a car clean
2. how to say less and be okay with it, you don't always need to explain everything
3. to love salt and vinegar chips and cilantro
4. not to pick the dandelions when they're at the Beauty and the Beast point (the fuzzy stage)
5. about X-men, Mike Tyson, and the Kentucky Derby
6. how to use Photoshop, knit, and pay off a loan
7. how to drive and just enjoy the quiet
8. not to drink tap water
9. how to invest in the stock market
10. to do a not fun job and make it fun
11. how to be more patient and less defensive
12. not to gossip
13. not to worry that people are gossiping about me
14. that a good lawn and an early bedtime are things to strive for
15. how to care about cool, meaningful things
16. how to not care about petty things
17. how to fall asleep without music
18. to buy something nice the first time, so you don't have to replace it next year
19. to pray specifically
20. the difference between real peanut butter and fake peanut butter
21. the difference between the NFL and college football
22. the importance of not tucking in bed sheets at the bottom of the bed
23. the importance of a solid white t-shirt
24. how to hunt gophers and drive a jet ski
25. how to live without ceiling fans, a garbage disposal, stoplights, Target, pop, or a 2nd car (some of those I don't even miss)

and so much more! Tons of things I can't even write down. I have changed so much being Grant's wife. I'm grateful to him for helping me grow, protecting me, loving me, leading me. Thank you to my amazing husband for an excellent 4 years of life together.

so, candy is about 100x better from your own kitchen. this peanut butter filling is scandalous. i can't remember the last time i really felt i needed to lick the spatula clean, but there was a sense of need here. that spatula was done licked clean. the taste isn't authentic factory-made reese's, but it's powerful. superior, even. somehow reminiscent of a peanut butter pie, minus the overload of vanilla pudding. i've been toying with the idea of giving these to grant for so long, and now it's done. and will be repeated again soon. because these are just insane.



Homemade Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
adapted from the nourishing gourmet

peanut butter core:
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter or coconut oil
1/2 cup finely ground nuts (i actually used sunflower kernels, which were great)
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 T. honey
pinch of salt

chocolate coating: 1/4 cup cocoa, 1/2 cup butter or coconut oil, 1/2 tsp. vanilla, 2 T. honey

In a small bowl combine all peanut buttery ingredients and mix well. Spoon into a muffin tray (lined or unlined is fine) and place in freezer. While that's chilling, combine chocolate sauce ingredients in a 2-cup measuring glass and place in a pot of simmering water. Heat, stirring, until everything is just melted and remove from heat. Spoon chocolate sauce over the chilled peanut butter mixture and place back in freezer. Freeze for 20 minutes, remove from pan immediately, using a butter knife to pop them out. Store in fridge or freezer. Makes 10 big peanut butter cups.



this chocolate coating is rather deep and dark, which i loved. if you like more of a milky mellow chocolate, feel free to cut back on cocoa or add more butter and honey.

by the way, i am making these next Halloween. they're so easy! don't let me forget.
enjoy!!

  grant's example to his students today of how to make a valentine. it's for me :)


Grant is making me dinner. (it's a surprise!)
I am making him dessert. (chocolate sauce involved.)
Later we will cozy up and read The Hunger Games. (out loud. on the couch.)

I call this splendid. (romantic.)
Happy Valentine's Day. (to you and yours.)



In my next post: grant's valentine dessert. (you will want it.)

grant sent me an email with a link to this game. 
the other night we teamed up and took turns holding hadley, to try to get to the higher levels. 


we are addicted. 

when i saw rachel's post yesterday, namely the "tangible love" part, i stopped. how sweet is a gift you leave in the fridge? i had to do it. i may not be able to buy him the vintage mini bike he's dreaming of, but i can hand squeeze 14 oranges.

it felt so good to do something spontaneous for my husband that i knew he would appreciate. there are few things he would appreciate more than this, actually. that's what was so cool about the idea. thanks, rachel. yesterday when grant got home from school and found his gift he said, "this is exactly what i wanted and i didn't know it." and that was exactly what i wanted.

other news from my house..
all my shirts are tight.
listening to classical music right now, because it's raining. and that feels right.
took the first long walk outside yesterday. it was dry and sunny and i didn't see any snow!
uh-oh... snow coming this weekend.
uh-oh.. we started arrested development again.
sitting in this chair used to be comfortable... i think.
project: baby's room is underway.
trying to decide if i'm going to commit to my gym membership in may.
i think i'm going to make shaved asparagus pizza this weekend.
asparagus! it's that time of year again. yay.
can we have another day in the week- that's just for reading books? thanks.

just send me strawberries, please.

so my husband brings home a 5 pound bouquet of berries for me, instead of a dozen roses. he gets me. he gets my love for practical gifts. (and strawberries.) sometimes he brings a block of good cheese, a box of my fave cereal, a carton of something organic and yummy, some amazing-looking romaine lettuce, a box of oranges, or something else as exciting. groceries make incredible gifts, right? not that you'd catch me being ungrateful for flowers.



ps. the doris day shout out in the title is for you. my old movie friends. you know who you are. 

ever since we bought this house, grant's been talking about flooding the backyard. i couldn't ever tell if he was serious or not. but now we know.

i bet you didn't know. he bought it when he lived in california. and he can ollie.
it's just one of the thousand cool things about my husband.

other cool things include..
1. he wrote a song called tyte gangsta buddies (it's on my ipod right now)
2. he's in a tie-wearing contest with another teacher at school, and he's winning
3. he owns his own bowling ball and shoes
4. he can keep his eyes open while he sneezes
5. in today's photos, he's wearing a jacket that says "FUNK'S G"


over the weekend grant taught our nephew a little bit about skateboarding.


eventually, the lesson turned into skateboard sledding.. which is sure to be a popular new sport.

in other news, it's election day!
happy voting, all.
isn't it awesome that we get to do this?
grant and i will be heading to the polls together after school. yay.
i love nights where we camp out in front of the news!

happy birthday, grant!