The MKT Trail – August 20th, 2017
Photos from a shoot Kevin and I went on last year at the MKT Trail.
Failure (A Follow Up on Feeling Raw)
My type-A, perfectionist personality isn’t a huge fan of failure (who is?); I might even admit that I’m afraid of it. I fail a lot and, admittedly, I have a hard time seeing the positive outcome sometimes because I don’t like to reminisce on things that hurt.
A couple years ago, I wrote a post called Raw about changing majors in college, getting a lousy first job, and then failing a huge test that I thought would mean losing the second. I was newly married and we had a stack of student loans with our names on them, so I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to contribute financially. At the end of that post, I talked about getting a call the next day for an interview and eventually accepting the job. I wrote that three days after I started.
It’s now been over three years and it’s taken me this long to put the words together of what God’s really done in the big picture of my life. I was reading Love Does by Bob Goff when it hit me, and I couldn’t help but stop, highlight, and scribble a ton of notes in my journal when I came across the following passage:
The thing I love about God is He intentionally guides people into failure. He made us be born as little kids who can’t walk or talk or even use a bathroom correctly. We have to be taught everything. All that learning takes time, and He made us so we are dependent on Him, our parents, and each other. The whole thing is designed so we try again and again until we finally get it right. And the whole time He is endlessly patient.
I love those passages in Scripture where Jesus teaches the disciples something, saying, “I want to teach you to think differently about life.” They walked with Him for years, and some of them didn’t learn everything they needed to know until after He’d gone back to heaven. Yet, even though they were slow to learn, they still referred to themselves as His beloved. Failure is just part of the process, and it’s not just ok; it’s better than okay. God doesn’t want failure to shut us down. God didn’t make it a three-strikes-you’re-out sort of thing. It’s more about how God helps us dust ourselves off so that we can swing for the fences again. And all of this without keeping a meticulous record of our screw-ups.
I couldn’t stop thinking, “why does this seem so counter-cultural and why am I so afraid of failure when I know that the Lord will see me through?”
By God allowing me to fail my test by just two points these things that happened: 1) He prevented me from pursuing a career that wouldn’t have been the best fit for me, 2) He allowed me to start a job that I absolutely loved, and then to become a leader within that role, and 3) He helped me to see why I got that ‘ole college degree in Nutrition and Exercise Physiology.
So this whole time, what I considered failure – not pursuing a more high paying field, failing my exam, etc. – was really just God closing some major doors so that He could make way for so many blessings. And I’m glad he did after looking at that (non-comprehensive) list. I’d be lying if I said my insecurity surrounding failure is gone, but God is walking me through grace in my failure by reminding me that I’m not my own savior and that I couldn’t even take a guess at the amazing things God has in store for me. I’m just grabbing at crumbs and he is offering me the whole feast.
The best part, though, is that my story isn’t over. Looking back on these blessings that came from what felt like serious frustration and heartache lead to some of things that have so thoroughly shaped my life over the last couple of years. Over the past three years, I have been confirmed by God over and over again that this is where I’m supposed to be. That this is where he has me today. I know that I will continue to fail and the only thing I can guarantee is that if my trust is in Him, my future is in good hands.
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?