3 Days & Counting

I spent the last 10 or so days up in Redding. There is just something about that town for me. I seem to center back into who I am and who I was created to be. Life doesn't all stop, nor do problems go away, but something very real and tangible happens for me in this town. It is such a surreal experience to be there with Sam. A year ago I was sharing a room with a 6 year old (who I LOVE and loved getting to cuddle with all week!) and wondering what the heck I was going to do now in life.

This Fall life is just different and so much more than I could have ever hoped. In 3 days we will be heading to New Zealand to start our new life together. I can't imagine our life any different than it is. We both love adventure and love the excitement of travel, who would have thought that in our first year of life together we would have got to see so much....New Zealand, Fiji, Los Angeles, the all important Redding :), Florida, and now back to New Zealand. Plus, who can forget our EPIC trip across the country! What a full and crazy life we have already led and we are only in month 4 of our marriage!

It was so good to be up in Redding before we embark on this new journey. I feel centered and "more like myself." I never cease being myself, and in this last month there has been so much thrown my way, it wasn't that I wasn't myself, it was just that I didn't always like the "myself" that seem to keep surfacing. I spent time with people that know me, I was refreshed by just being, I saw growth in myself from last year and I did the thing that I love to do...LAUGH. I feel like Sam and I got to laugh together, and laugh at anything and everything. My favorite thing that made me laugh was seeing my best friend's kids constantly attached to my husband. There are so many moments I can remember sitting on Sea's couch wondering if I would ever be married and dealing with the emotions that came with that. Ironically, the week before I ever even stepped foot in NZ I had a good cry that I was heading off to live this adventure filled life, but I will never be married because I don't stay put long enough for anyone to get to know me. Funny, how life turned out. I might not stay put but God created someone that was willing to come get me wherever I was. And now about 2 years from that good last "I'm going to be single forever cry" I was sitting on that same couch with Lakey and Raya climbing all over Sam, saying "Sam is my fwavorite", "I yove Sam and only Sam", and "he's my Sam not yours dana" What a sweet thing to come full circle in my life.

Redding is a place I rest, dream, laugh, cry and just be me without any effort. This trip was different than any other trip to Redding, and while I left sad, I left so full at the same time.

We are spending time with family & friends up at my parents then on Monday afternoon we head to San Francisco for our next journey. I don't think I know how to feel or what to expect, and some how in the chaos and hell that was this last few weeks I have watched myself chill out a bit and start to just roll with the punches and suck up every minute of life. I love my family. I love my friends and I adore my husband more than words can say....and now we will get on a plane holding hands, unsure of what the future holds but so sure of the hand we are holding.