The Weekend

 Our week of eating dinners outdoors and celebrating our hybrid version of Sukkot ended with a full day of eating, relaxing, and playing outside with lots of friends and family.

 Dinner was a gourmet hotdog feast! Everyone cooked their own hotdogs over the fire then loaded them up with various combinations of our 20 or so topping choices.

We decorated our back deck as our 2-level Sukkah. Not exactly a "temporary hut" but it worked for us : ) As our boys get older, I'm thinking we'll attempt some pretty epic sukkahs, like the ones they make for the Sukkah City competition in NYC. Or perhaps more like these temporary huts. Either way, it will be fun.

For decorations, we put flameless candles under lots of the vintage insulators I got from my grandpa's house. We covered the tables with paper and crayons and fall flowers.  We made autumn fabric buntings, crochet square buntings, yellow duct tape buntings, and paint chip buntings (yay, buntings!) and we hung lots of these little flameless candle lanterns we made from baby food jars.

It was pretty sweet. When God designs a party, it's a good idea to celebrate it : )

Well, today is my birthday (woohoo!) I think I will eat a cupcake for breakfast and then take it from there : )

Arian

Headed to the Country

 We fulfilled part of one of my fall goals this week---heading to the country. Lots of our friends celebrate the Old Testament holiday, Sukkot. Though mostly celebrated by only Jewish people, it's one of those festivals God put in place for great reasons. So we celebrate it because we can and want to! (some pics from Sukkot last year here)

(crocheting and chili cooked over a fire....yesssss.)

 For us, it's a week of spending most of our time outdoors, eating (and sometimes sleeping) in tents. It's a reminder that, like the Israelites wandering in the desert with hope of the Promised Land, we haven't yet reached our true home. This is just a temporary dwelling place.

 This week is the first of three weeks of Sukkot festivities various friends are hosting so we'll be hopping around from celebration to celebration and eventually hosting our own in early October. LOTS of good food, fresh fall air, and real conversations with good friends around campfires.

 Preeeeetty sweet.

I think Hudson and Jude are gonna grow up loving this whole Sukkot thing. : )

Arian

New York!

 Daniel and I just came back from a short trip to New York City! He had several meetings there so I tagged along!

 I never get tired of the view from an airplane. Amazing.

 Times Square!

 Being in NY felt a lot like our years living in Japan.  We got to shop at some of our favorite Japanese stores and eat some of our favorite Japanese food.

 Japan makes the cooooolest pens. That's one of the things I miss most-- Japanese stationery.

 And Japanese food! Mmmmm, curry : )

 And while Daniel spent the day in meetings (doesn't he look cute!)

 I spent the day venturing out into the city on my own. It's been a loooong time since I spent a whole day by myself. Must say, it was pretty sweet : )

 Central Park and a good cup of coffee. Yessss.

 And I got to meet up with long time friend (circa 5th grade) for lunch at an amazing vegetarian restaurant.  Oh man, New York has some of the best food! It's making me hungry just thinking about it.

The trip was short and sweet but much needed. I love New York!

Arian : )

Hug print

I just added a new print to the shop. It's the piece I did for the art show at our home last week. The show was such a hit! Our little house was busting at the seams with friends,family, and people we've never met who came to listen to the music and check out the artwork that the 8 of us created. We'll definitely do this again soon as there are lots more musicians we'd love to feature and lots more local artists we'd love to host!

Good music, good food, good art, good people, and good weather made for such a great night!

Arian : )

Beautiful.

 What an amaaaazing weekend. A.MA.ZING.

 (Hudson and Heron listening to the sound check)

(My sound genius brother-in-law getting things set up)

As we were cooking dinner in the GIANT, GORGEOUS home of my childhood friends who graciously agreed to host the house concert, Josh Garrels, one of our very favorite musicians, was warming up in the background. Daniel and I just kept exchanging joyful "I can't believe this is actually happening!" glances.

 We set up for the show, got to know the Garrels a bit over dinner, then the guests started pouring in.

 It was a full house! And it's a giant, giant house! At least 1/2 of the people I had never met before which is awesome. The word spread! Everybody was totally captivated by Josh's music. It was beautiful.

 Then the Garrels family stayed the night at our house (sweet!) We were up til 2am talking and learning more about each other's lives. Josh and Michelle are such good people.

 The next morning we woke up and enjoyed a long, leisurely brunch with my sister and the friends who first introduced us to Josh's music. Lots of conversations about music and collaboration, art, family, hopes for the future, etc.

 (the youngest Garrels....how cute is he?!)

It was perfect. I'm sooo grateful for this weekend and hope that our friendship and creative partnership with the Garrels family has only just begun : )

If you haven't downloaded Josh's new, free album please do yourself a favor and do so. Then tell a friend : )

Arian

Best Job Ever

I am LOVING the current music video project we are working on.  The musician is one of my FAVS so collaborating with him like this is so fun and such an honor!! Plus I love, love, love working with Daniel. And now we've got a new team member, our illustrating/animating friend, Luke!

(Sidenote: Check out this music video Luke created. He wrote the song, performed it, illustrated and and animated the video. Talk about multi-talented!)

We had our first team meeting via skype (Daniel and Luke at their office and me at home) to work out the details of the main two characters. Here's a shot of my screen during the meeting. It's truly a collaborative process with all three of us contributing sketches and ideas. Fuuuuun stuff!!

And Daniel and I spent our weekend evenings nestled in our cozy bedroom, listening to the song on repeat and painting/drawing away!

 And here are the stars of the video! I won't show you too much along the way so as not to ruin any fun surprises when the video comes out in June, but I thought it'd be fun to introduce you to our father/son duo.

I think we're gonna really enjoy working in this style....it's a fun combination of real painted textures and digital color. So I'll get to wear my paint smock and get messy with paint and big sheets of paper and all kinds of brushes.

Hope your week is off to a good start!

Arian

The sun!

Man, I'm so grateful for yesterday's blue skies and warm weather!! We jumped right out there and got to work preparing for our summer garden! Hudson loves mowing with our new reel mower and we love that our 6-year-old can mow the whole lawn by himself without inhaling gas fumes or chopping off a valuable appendage.

We're so excited to be in this rental HOUSE with a YARD!! The yard, however, was left uncared for for awhile and there are a lot of dead trees and crazy overgrown bushes to be cleared to make way for the garden and all the lawn parties we hope to have!

So we rolled our sleeves up, called our good friends and garden partners, and got dirty! Loved it. It's going to be a good summer in the backyard.

(Taking a break to talk to Pop Pop on the phone)

We took a break to enjoy our first picnic of the season and our latest batch of home-brewed kombucha. Have any of you guys tried or brewed kombucha? Good stuff!!

Looks like those little feet had a pretty great day--flip flop tan lines and lots of dirt : )

Arian