anniversary, part one

we are so grateful to the Lord for five years of marriage! we did not know how fast the years would go...but, trucking all our belongings up to moscow to start junior year of college together, and that first apartment with aqua blue carpet and three windows, does seem now like ages ago. those are sweet (and hilarious) memories now; but our reality, our here-and-now, is even sweeter. God has blessed us abundantly, like the generous and loving Father that He is, and we have only praises to sing for this half-decade of union in Christ. may it be decades more!

so, we celebrated. we went back to where we started: carmel by the sea. five years ago, we walked ocean street as a brand new mr. and mrs. joe carlson, blinking in the light of wedded bliss. this month, we walked it with a little less blinking and a lot more love. the wedded bliss has not left us; rather it has sunken deep into our bones, deep into our souls, and we are settled, comfortable, at home in one another. and love is more grand, more wise, more tall, more wide, more deep, more muscular, more ready, and more glorious than we knew it to be at the beginning. how curious love is! the pitcher never empties, no matter how much you drain it. however much you have need of it, it continually gives and gives, proving that its depths are endless. this is Christ. we love because He loves. and more than that, He IS love. He gives, we use, and then He gives more. we think we drain it to the bottom, but it hasn't lowered an inch. it is endless deep.

we stayed at this little Normandy Inn, right on ocean avenue


we had just driven in from camping in cambria, so we were feeling all nasty and gross - not quite presentable for carmel, but we didn't care. you can see joe already has some port in his hands.

we had a real, wood-burning fireplace in our room. that's, like, really rare nowadays. joe was stoked.

this is the entry to the little bathroom. for some reason the colors and the feel of it (the place is very old!) reminded me of the cottage that the dashwood girls had to live in when they got ejected from their home by their brother and horrible sister-in-law. remember, it was all whites and grays inside? "pokey halls and a fire that smokes."

cambria

we camped. on the coast. yes, we left our coast to tent on another coast. we birds just can't sing a different tune. ;) if given the choice, one never chooses to vacate inland. one always goes to the sea, if one can.

and, when we weren't basking in the bonfirelight, lounging in our tent, or chasing after our neighbor campers' windblown trash, we could be found in town, hopping from antique store to antique store, discovering great and precious gems of the literary kind.

we of course also feasted on fiction and the like - joe on the domestic curiosities of meg, jo, beth, and amy; i on the masculine, and almost always muddy, adventures of james herriot. interesting and rather uncharacteristic reading choices for us both, but very rewarding indeed.

i ate here ten years ago with my family. i liked it better in my memory...but, at least they still had the potted bread. that was a treat.

me and the potted bread of memories

our swedish tent. good ol' blue and yellow. thank you, hardings - we still use it! ;)

some old barn

moro rock...in moro bay. it's rather large.

in recital

we went to several concerts on vacation (what else would joe and jen do when they didn't have a kitchen to cook in?!), and the first one was a vocal recital starring members of the neff family (again...yes, they get around)! ;)

stan sang, and elizabeth...didn't sing (though she could have...i personally think her voice was better than many of the students there), but she accompanied, and then stole the show with three soul-stirring, bone-rattling piano solo numbers. it was heaven to our music-starved ears.

father and daughter (and mom's turning pages!) ;)

home-grown goodness

vacation for us this year meant just "hangin' out," doing whatever tickled our fancy. one day, while joe hunkered down with a good book in our new library (pics coming soon), i made zucchini bread with veggies from katy cummings' aunt's garden, and a pitcher of iced vanilla peppermint tea, the mint grown from my own little herb box on the front step. we shared (fully downed!) the goodies with matt and amber augspurger, friends from los angeles whom we hadn't seen for over a year. (i'm sad i didn't capture their faces here!). it was a jolly, sunny day, and it was such a treat to be able to enjoy our home with friends.

so here's my herb garden: basil, thyme, sage, small basil, oregano, summer savory, chive, and peppermint. they're doing so well!! i'm completely amazed. and my mom is even more amazed. ;)

i have strawberries too! the variety is "seascape" and they love our climate. i haven't reaped any fruit, however, because there's some sort of critter the likes the taste of the fruit. that green strawberry was gone the next morning, the stem cleanly chomped.

here's our vanilla peppermint tea. it could have been more pepperminty, but i would have wiped out my entire plant had i put more in. the vanilla simple syrup added a fun twist.

kinda famous

it's been a good while since we've had much to say on this here writing space, and i feel rather overwhelmed sitting here staring at the screen, wondering where to begin. it's all fun stuff, little bits and pieces of the last month that have given us great joy. joe and i were able to take two weeks off from work this past month and do a bit of vacationing. it was the most perfect rest - we didn't "go" anywhere in particular, but did a million little things, slept in a ton, read books, strolled down streets, and generally lollygagged around. in fact, we've been so disconnected to anything techie that i feel a little rusty. isn't that nice? that's when you know you've successfully gotten away. :) it was exactly what we needed, and we see God's kindness to us in it. there'll be plenty to see here in the next month as i aspire to get it all documented - probably more than one could care to read.

so the first random entry is about a man named Steve Kalar. he's been mom's "cousin steve" for, like, 50 years. they grew up together, their grandmothers living next door to one another, and providing many a summer afternoon for steve and my mom to finger paint, ride bikes, and generally terrorize the neighborhood like any jolly cousins would do. well, steve grew up and became an artist...a really good artist. like, the kind of artist whose paintings have caught the attention of italy and have managed to get him invited to this country's prestigious art society called "The House of Dante". he is the first american to ever be invited to this standing. italy loves him because he has spent his life capturing the "open market" of their old-world culture in oil and canvas, a culture that has fast dissapeared. thus, he has document their history, and they love him for it. and though america hasn't heard of him (like it's heard of thomas kinkade or somebody), he's certainly making waves in europe. his five-year european tour will begin in 2011.

his mom, fern, was my grandma's best friend growing up, and so our people go way back with his people. :) so steve and fern came to visit us, my mom and he reliving all the fun memories of their childhood. over the years, steve has given us several copies of his paintings, which we learned are worth about $2,000 each. but that's nothing! my great aunt and uncle bought one of his original paintings about 30 years ago or so that, at that time, cost them a whopping $350. steve told us now that it's worth $25,000! isn't that kind of crazy - i mean, for a guy who's still alive?? i can't even imagine how much his stuff will be worth when he's, well, not alive!

beside painting canvases, he also paints walls and ceilings for million dollar homes, billion dollar wine-tasting rooms, and little french pastry shops alike. he told us to go see the little bakery that was opened by his french friends, and so we did. we took pictures of some of his art that's a part of the building, and in the building too. it was such a treat to visit with him. he honestly lives in quite a different world than we do. and he speaks fluent italian. it was fun to be a part of it all for a few days. :)

he signs his name even on every painting of course, but for some reason i was tickled by his name even on the side of a building.

here's us with the man

he's also got a ton of his paintings hanging up inside the shop. oh, and their pastries, made by real-live french folk, were good too. but, i'm sorry to say, they weren't as good as zume! ah, zume - the catalyst of my 20 pound weight gain in our last days in moscow. ;) i am happy to know that my husband can never again bring home day-old morning buns, and opera cakes...and ham & greyere croissants...and challah sticky buns...and croque monsieurs...and...oh heavens. yes, those were dangerous days.