We just got back from an amazing trip to Iceland. Which is spelled Island in Icelandic. Go figure. We have wanted to go to Iceland since we have been together, and it has always been too expensive, so we decided to do a stopover there on our way to visit Erika and Morten in Denmark.
The houses were amazing in Reykjavik — lots of corrugated metal and simple shapes and bright colors. There are regular homes right in the middle of downtown Reykjavik, which is a really small city. There are only about 120,000 people living there. That’s literally smaller than Beaverton, Oregon.
We decided we would totally go back to Iceland — next time, though, we’d rent a car and drive around the perimeter of the island (the interior is uninhabitable) and camp and enjoy the outdoors.
Fun fact: The highest recorded temperature in Reykjavik (of ALL time) is 79 degrees farenheit. It was in the 40s when we were there. Luckily, it barely rained at all.
We swam at The Blue Lagoon, which was cool but turned out to be a major tourist trap. We got off our motorcoach from Reykvavik and then soon realized we were being herded down a path like sheep with the entire population of a Royal Caribbean cruise ship — yikes. On the ads for the Blue Lagoon, they show this beautiful blonde Icelandic woman bathing by herself in the thermal pool. Yeah, right. 
I’m not technically a lousy blogger, because I blog five days a week on my photography blog, but I still feel like a lousy blogger since we update this one so infrequently. I’ll give you the life update, for those of you who care or even still come here, and then we’ve decided we’ll be posting a little bit more over here about our lives and the food we fill it with (which has been pretty amazing as of late).
First of all, we moved into our apartment in Hillsdale (SW Portland) in June and we totally love it. We love it so much, in fact, that we’re actually moving across the hall to a bigger unit at the beginning of September, which will be great since we’ll have a spare bedroom and room for guests and a separate office.
We are continuing to work hard, Eric is doing lots of IT consulting and my business is growing. It’s the craziness of wedding season right now, which it turns out I totally love, and everything is going really well. Other than that, we’ve been cooking a lot and dreaming of traveling a lot. We think we’ve decided to go to Copenhagen for a week in September to see our friends Erika & Morten and visit the city we haven’t seen since just before we got married. That will most definitely be blogged - funny, we started this blog right before we left for our last trip to Copenhagen - back then it was a Tumblr blog, which was fun.
So get ready for food posts, coming at ya soon. Start reading again, because at least a couple times a week, we’re back.
I won the life lottery. Why? Because my husband is wonderful, and because he loves to cook. He’s been busting out his culinary moves lately and he’s made me some scrumptious meals.
The other night when the culinary bug struck, Eric whipped up a salad made with fresh kale and grapefruit sections which was mouth-watering, and just as good the next day. But the real event was the main course: pasta shells with grilled mushrooms, bacon, green onions and crème fraîche. Oh my goodness. It was pure heaven.
Then he made chocolate mousse from scratch for dessert, which I sadly don’t have any pictures of. I love having a cook husband!
When I graduated from college, I was afraid of the great wide open ahead of me. The world was my oyster, as some would say, and picking a path was the overwhelming thing to do. Now, a few years later, the opposite is true. At some point, I had to pick a path, and the great wide open isn’t so open anymore. Funny how you always want what you can’t have.
We’ve been missing Buenos Aires. Today Eric was flipping through our blog archives, and looking at all the photos from our months there was bittersweet. I totally love what I’m doing now, but seeing my calendar fill up with photo jobs also means no long three-month expanses to go take up temporary residence in New Zealand, Peru or Taiwan.
Today, I was admitted to New York University’s M.S. in Publishing program. But so much in my life has changed since I sent off my applications in December that I decided awhile ago that graduate school isn’t for me right now. However, the conceptual idea of that was one thing, and having an acceptance letter to a prestigious school in my hand and knowing I’m going to turn it down is quite another.
I’ve picked a good path for now, which I’m happy about. I’m living in Portland, I’m photographing great people, I love my job and running my own business. And certainly we’ll still be able to travel, although not as much as we did last year. Maybe it’s natural to grieve the things that change in our lives, even if we’re thrilled with the new opportunities?
P.S. On a happier note, congratulations to our friends Chris and Amanda, who found out recently they’re going to have a baby! We love you guys!
Hi all:
Boy, we’re getting bad at blogging on here, aren’t we? Well, I wanted to assure you that we’re not giving up on the ol’ blog. Here’s a bit of an update on our developing lives in Portland.
Eric is keeping busy with consulting work, which is great because it’s flexible and he doesn’t have to do all the parts of full-time work that he disliked, like doing performance reviews and all that paperwork sort of stuff. I’m also growing my photography business and the response so far has been great. I’m looking forward to a busy wedding season this year, a busy senior portrait season and lots of busy months ahead. If you know anyone getting married in Oregon or Washington who needs a photographer, send them my way - I haven’t quite filled out my schedule yet for this year.
We’re looking for our own little place to live, and we’ll probably be moving in the next month or two. Then we’ll have all sorts of things to blog about, as we pick out some new furniture, get settled in and get to know a good neighborhood. It’s all happening, as Kate Hudson says in “Almost Famous,” and we’re working on keeping that forward momentum.
This summer, we’ll be traveling a lot (or at least I will) to and from the Seattle area (for weddings) and possibly also to Denmark to visit our dear friends Erika and Morten, who just bought a house in the outskirts of Copenhagen. We feel the need to help them break the house in.
So stick with us, and if you’re feeling the need to read more of my words, please check out my brand-new photography blog, which has a new post on it every weekday. Thanks patient readers!
And because no post should have to exist without a picture, here’s one I took over the weekend at Cannon Beach. Dan & Annie are good friends and they’re getting married in October.
