Two Year Highridge Ranch-iversary
I want to remember the feeling of two whole years in our sweet Highridge Ranch – our very own space. I want to remember still wondering when we’ll wake up from this dream or when Ashton will knock on the door telling us we’ve been Punk’d (because sometimes that seems more real than being adult enough for this). I want to remember hosting family and friends and all the guests who’ve shared meals under our roof. I want to remember Chloe barking “good morning” to anyone who has ever spent the night in our guest room from the top of the stairs. I want to remember having big dreams and small budgets. I want to remember deep conversations with best friends and meeting folks for the first time. I want to remember game nights, particularly the ones where the girls beat the boys. I want to remember being intentional about the things we bring into our home and having a space where we can relax and unwind. I want to remember seeing all the seasons here and the joy that each one brings – snowfalls, blooming peonies, veggie gardens, and falling leaves. I want to remember the feeling of feeding people and serving them. I want to remember playing with Chloe in the back yard and being able to walk to the dog park from our house. I want to remember the greatest compliment of being told that my house felt cozy and welcoming. I want to remember living next to our best friends and wearing out a path between our front doors. I want to remember pros and cons of huge trees, but mostly just the way the sunset makes the branches stand out so vividly in the sky. I want to remember Kevin and Chloe seeing me off as I drive away in my car. I want to remember all the memories we’ve made and all the ones we’re still making.
Omaha, NE – May 2017
Around Christmas (of 2016), my parents told us that they wanted to take us on a trip. We love to do a good road trip to a place no one has been, but with all of us having to take off work, we decided to go somewhere with a relatively short drive – Omaha, Nebraska. I got a lot of turned heads when people asked but we were pretty pumped to check another state and family trip off our list!
My parents are generally our go-to dog sitters, so we got to board Chloe for the first time. Unfortunately, they don’t take dogs on Saturday mornings, so we had to drop her off on Friday evening. As we were leaving, Sarah snapped this photo of us. I love it so much.
This was Chloe in her “room” at the boarder. There were quite a few other dogs so I’m sure she kept busy the entire time we were gone. She even got a little cot. 
Saturday morning we were up bright and early to hit the road. Mom, Dad and Eric picked us up and then we hit the road in Mom’s Sonata and a rental Rogue. I got the backseat with these two.
Other than almost running out of gas, the trip was uneventful and only took us about 5 hours. Our first stop was to Patriarch Distillers. This was something Mom picked out for us to do, so we gave her lots of trouble when we show up to a random industrial park and there are zero cars in the parking lot. We thought it was going to be a total bust (sorry, Mom), but it ended up being one of our favorite parts of the entire trip. We got to learn all about the Vodka, Whiskey, and Bourbon distilling process as well as try each. They are committed to giving back to those who have served in the military, so it was especially awesome to hear about all of the organizations that they partner with.
Our AirBnb wasn’t ready on time, so we spent some time walking around Omaha in bookstores, coffeeshops and doing beer tastings.
The Bob Kerry Pedestrian bridge was on our must-see list, so we made sure to hit it on a sunny day. The bridge crosses over the Missouri river connecting Council Bluffs, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska. It is about 6/10 of a mile in length, but by the time we walked to and from the parking lot it was close to 2 miles total. We walked from the Omaha side, so when we got to the Council Bluffs side we had a great view of the city.
Even though the quality of this picture isn’t great, I just have to include the only photo we all go in. I love this bunch.
On my Dad’s birthday, the boys golfed and the girls shopped. I’m so thankful that Kevin snapped this photo while they were out on the course.
Omaha is known for their steaks, so we would have been remiss if we didn’t test them out. We went to a recommended restaurant called the Dover. We all got the salad bar and our various types of steaks, all were fantastic.
Kevin and I went out for a coffee date on Tuesday. As usual, I enjoyed a chai latte and Kevin had a latte. The color of the mugs, table, and the background made for some great photos. Kevin is reading The Way of Kings (the biggest book ever) and I am reading the Magnolia Journal magazine.
Another highlight of the trip was the “beercade” or arcade with beer in Bensen, NE. We spent quite a while here and our favorites were Tetris, skee ball, pin ball, and Galactica. Of course there were a lot of friendly competitions going on. Kevin was the skee ball champ.
This is when family vacation starts to look like Family Vacation. I’m kidding, but the whole series of “live” photos is just something else.
Another family trip in the books and another state added to my list (I think I’m at 38/50). I’m so thankful that we still do fun things like this.
Coffee Date
If we were on a coffee date, we’d be sitting inside the coffee shop in a cozy little booth. We’d talk about how we shouldn’t have to sit inside during April and how we would much prefer chilly spring weather. We’d shake our heads and I’d definitely complain about two snowfalls already in April.
If we were on a coffee date, I’d ask what you did for Easter. After staying in town for Easter last year, we decided to go to St. Louis this year. We kept it pretty low-key and didn’t make plans other than church on Saturday evening and brunch with my family on Sunday. Just as well because they ended up calling for snow, so we high-tailed it back home. Kevin and I ended up doing a little spring cleaning while it snowed which ended up being a great way to wrap up the weekend.
If we were on a coffee date, we’d talk about Instagram and I’d drudge some of my old photos. For some reason I scrolled all the way back to the beginning of my instagram feed and I felt two things: 1) completely embarrassed at what I posted and 2) a very strong urge to delete all my social media and crawl into a hole. I feel similarly about old blog posts that are floating around on the world wide web. This is my 3rd blog in 8 years (no, I’m not sharing links…HA!) and going back to those old ones makes me cringe. What’s worse is at the time I was really proud of it…am I going to feel that way about this blog in 10 years’ time?
If we were on a coffee date, I’d have to follow up the previous conversation with one about other ways we keep our memories. In addition to the internet, I pretty much keep every paper I’ve ever written on and every photo ever printed by me or for me. Each time I go home, I spend time looking at photo albums kept by my parents and grandparents. I absolutely love photos and stories and I want to be the owner of mine. I currently keep journals and scrapbooks but have started feeling the overwhelm of too much stuff and expectations on what I should be documenting.
If we were on a coffee date, we’d have to talk about all kinds of sports. My beloved Blues didn’t make it to the playoffs, Cardinals aren’t really off to a great start, and MPJ is going to the draft. I was hoping for a Rickie Fowler win at the Masters and he came in second place. I guess you could say that it’s not really the sports year I’m always hoping for. Kevin has been getting more into eSports, so we’ve been cheering on the Overwatch League as well. We don’t necessarily have a home team yet, so we’re just rooting for eSports in general.
What would you tell me if we were on a coffee date?
Day in the Life
Every time I do A Day in the Life, I am reminded of how much life can change in such a short amount of time, without really feeling different. I’ve been following along with this project (originally created by Ali Edwards) for quite some time, however, when I had photo hosting issues last year, I pretty much lost all evidence and previous posts. Regardless, I love this season that we’re in and even though I try to savor each day, reflecting and posting this here makes a difference.
Today, Chloe woke me up with one of her ridiculously loud yawns at 9:12am. I, of course, had to document the way she sits by my side of the bed and yawns continually (or in today’s case, barks) until I get up. She naturally ran straight to the back door to go outside while I got her breakfast. Back in the bedroom, she proceeded to jump on the bed to make sure Kevin got up too. After getting up and ready, we met friends – Jeff and Taylor – for lunch at Seoul Taco before heading to the Midwest Campus Clash for the gaming expo. I don’t know too much about League of Legends, but Avery (who met us there) and Jeff helped to explain as we watched. We didn’t have any stake in the game because Mizzou lost in the first round. During a break, we went to a rolled ice cream place…if, like me, you’ve never heard of this, you need to get acquainted. LIKE ASAP. Because wow, it’s good. We went back to the expo for a while and as we walked up I noticed the daffodils and had to play around with portrait mode on my new phone. We didn’t stay through the end of the tournament but we found out later that Maryville won. At home, we had dinner and I took Chloe on a walk. The beautiful sunset made the 40 degree weather worth it. When we walked back up to the house, I grabbed a shot of the pink and purple flowers since they’ll probably die in the snow that we’re expecting tomorrow. I wrapped up the day watching the Blues game (womp womp…we’re not going to the play offs) and working on blog posts for the coming week.
Thanks for stopping by! Happy Sunday.
What I’m Pinning
sources: swatches | paint | plant | print | yarn | flowers in hand | baskets | donuts
Pinning for me lately, has been more out of necessity (ie. searching for something specific) than out of the enjoyment of scrolling. The simplicity of both make Pinterest such a perfect way to view all things DIY related. I tend to be visually inspired so color patterns and shapes are often what I’m looking at when I don’t have something specific in mind. Turns out, I’m currently into the contrast between yellow gold (Mizzou-rah) and a teal, especially with natural fibers and wood grain.
It’s interesting to see these boards come together organically, especially because I often enjoy taking the time to curate very intentional mood boards or vision boards for my year or projects that I’m working on. Those may not be pretty, but they often encompass things that are so important to me, where i feel like this experience is the exact opposite. Thankfully, they serve different purposes and after seeing this, I’m hoping to try incorporating some of these themes in my bible journaling and project life albums.
Themes I’m Noticing: Circles, muted colors, high contrast, plants, natural fibers, texture, random patterns and white space.
About
Hi, I'm Jacqueline - believer, learner, and all around hobby enthusiast. I'm married to my highschool sweetheart, Kevin, and we live in the midwest with our sweet pup.
On this blog I share all kinds of things about my life - from my faith journey to the garden in my neighbors backyard. I've been blogging for almost eight years and use this space as a way to document my daily life.
Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the internet.