a very disney road trip!

I know that this vacation happened over a month ago, but sometimes life happens, and you realize that blogging about your Disneyland adventures is secondary to getting coffee with a student, attending a church softball game, or doing the laundry that you've been neglecting for a month (and is threatening to strangle you in your sleep...). So anyway, here we are!

Day 1: A little back story to this trip...our Subaru was making a suspicious noise, so we took it to the shop two days before we planned to leave, and in true mechanic fashion, the guy at the shop proceeded to attempt to ruin our life in less than thirty seconds. But really. He basically told us that there was something wrong with our car engine, caused by poor maintenance from the previous owner, and that it would take no less than all our savings, plus our first born child to fix it. This is our life, folks. But luckily, God is good, and we ended up finding someone who could fix it for only half of our savings, so we are now the proud owner of a Subaru with a brand new engine. And my hatred of cars runs stronger than ever. The only catch was that there was going to be no way that it was going to be fixed by when we were planning on leaving, so our wonderful friends, the Cutlers, graciously offered to let us borrow their car. And if they weren't already headed straight for sainthood, they also stocked the car with road trip snacks. Seriously, how did we luck into this life we have here in California?! So, with the Ford Expedition armed with copious amounts of junk food and a 25 gallon tank full of gas we drove the eight hours to Los Angeles, and spent the night with Adam's sweet grandparents. After his grandma asked us no less than six times if we were sure we didn't need anything, we crashed, knowing that Disneyland was only six hours away!

Day 2: Unbeknownst to us, we happened to plan our one day at Disneyland on the one day of the year where it is open for 24 straight hours. When we discovered this, a few days before we were planning on leaving, obviously we freaked out, and started planning the best way to stay awake for an entire day, in order to get the most out of our incredibly overpriced Disney experience. Now, you have to understand, I had never been to anything Disney before. And as unreal as this seemed to our middle schoolers, who have been to Disneyland more times than anyone should, this was going to be my first time at a Disney park and I could not have been more excited. We left Adam's grandparents at 6:30 am, partly to beat traffic, and partly because the park opened at 6 am and we were not about to waste time sleeping when riding Space Mountain without any lines was a possibility.
By the time we got there, parked, rode a shuttle and bought our tickets (at $96 each, you had better be serious about your commitment to the Disney experience), we got into the park about 8:30 am and immediately went into "we don't have any kids to drag around like all of these other poor souls, so let's ride as many things as possible" mode. For the next twelve hours, we made the most of the FastPass system (one of the greatest creations the theme park world has ever gifted us with) and rode everything from the Matterhorn to the new Star Wars ride without waiting more than 15 minutes in line. I am 100% serious when I tell you, that while taking kids to Disneyland seems like a great idea in theory, judging from the fact that I never saw one dad looking like he wasn't about to bolt for the nearest exit, the best way to do Disneyland is with your husband and no one else.
I can't even put into words, how fun this day was. We rode everything we wanted, and then rode our favorites twice. We ate delicious, but overpriced park food, saw the greatest live shows I've ever seen, watched the coolest parade ever, and experienced fireworks, that would put any other explosions to shame. It was truly a magical day, and my only sadness was that I never found a princess to get my picture taken with. While we tried really hard to stay super late, by the time 11 pm rolled around, the park was only getting more and more crowded, and I had had enough Disney to last me at least a year, so we rode the Storybook boats (cutest ride ever) and called it night.

matterhorn!

Mickey and the Magical Map

coolest parade I've ever seen!

adam loves space mountain!

my cool buttons that they gave me and my very touristy new hoodie

he's so strong!

not a joke, when we told Mickey that this was my first time at Disney, he pretended to faint and started freaking out. it was the cutest/funniest thing ever.

Day 3: Obviously, after that incredibly exciting day, we slept in, and then decided we needed some beach time. Unfortunately, no one warned us about "June Gloom" in LA, which causes the sun to refuse to come out until about 3 pm, which means I spent this whole beach day in my newly purchased Disneyland hoodie. The Venice Beach boardwalk was really cool, but between trying to avoid the people attempting to sell us weed, and watching a parade for World Peace, we decided that sitting on the beach and watching the surfers was a great way to spend the afternoon. We swam in the Pacific Ocean, and people aren't kidding when they tell you it is cold. Those surfers aren't wearing their wetsuits because they're trendy ocean apparel. We ate dinner that night at an awesome Mediterranean restaurant and then got Starbucks and explored Manhattan Beach. LA may be incredibly overpopulated and sort of dirty, but it sure has some awesome beaches.

adam's hair though......

Day 4: Adam and I decided we wanted the mega church experience, so we found the closest satellite campus of Saddleback Church, which happened to be Hollywood. While I didn't see any famous people, the church was great, and the best part was that I got to see Vaneetha, one of my friends from college! She is just the best person, and it made my heart so happy to be able to hang out with her! After coffee, we headed to Malibu, to meet the Mallons (Adam's family friends, who just happened to be in Southern California as well) and had an awesome seafood lunch on the beach. We explored, swam in the ocean, and then headed back to Adam's grandparents house. We ate a wonderful dinner with Adam's family, and I got to meet his aunts, uncle, and cousins that I had never met before. We drove back to our hotel around 10 pm, and the only reason I bring this up is so I can do a little mini-rant about LA traffic. I am not kidding when I say that there was bumper to bumper traffic at 10 pm on a Sunday night. WHERE ARE YOU ALL GOING?!?! WHY WHY WHY DOES ANYONE LIVE HERE?!?! These two questions were on repeat in my brain throughout this entire trip, and I'm not sure I ever really got an answer to either one. So, if we learned one thing on this trip, it is that Adam and I are not cut out for big city living. Hence, us living in a mountain town of 15,000 people.

Day 5: We decided that we were feeling extra adventurous, so we took a longer way back to Truckee. I-395 goes through some desert, mountains, and forest, all while avoiding the Memorial Day traffic. Adam and I are a super huge fan of road trips, and it was a perfect ending to our awesome trip. We stopped in Reno, ate some Chipotle (this will make perfect sense to anyone who knows us...), and nine hours later, were back at our house in Truckee. In conclusion, vacations are the best, and it's always an adventure when you go somewhere you've never been before!

one year of love, adventures, and watching Jesus show up.

I should have written this post about two weeks ago, but life happens and so, here we are. I had meant for this to be a sappy sort of post; the kind where people would read it and immediately be jealous of how cute we are, but also semi-annoyed, because after being together for over four years, does social media really need yet another selfie of us?
Anyway, the 18th was our one year wedding anniversary, and it was just the best. We spent the day at church, and then adventuring around the Tahoe area, exploring beaches and trails that we had never been to before. We finished the night by having dinner with another couple that we love dearly, and since we're twenty-somethings, obviously we ended up reflecting on life and marriage and all of that good stuff that young marrieds love to go on about. Eventually the question "How would you describe your first year of marriage?" came up, and the best answer we could come up with was "eye-opening."
Basically, I think that you just spend your whole first year of marriage having your eyes truly opened to the person that you just married. And I think that a lot of people would assume that this only means the bad stuff, which is partially true. Nothing like a year of marriage to help you see all of someone else's negative qualities, but also (and perhaps more acutely) your own failures and shortcomings.
But a lot of what we remember from our first year of marriage is not all the bad stuff, but how often we have surprised each other with our positive qualities. Our eyes were truly opened to the awesome qualities that each of us possesses. While you obviously see glimpses of these while dating, marriage seems to magnify these good things. We both had many chances to choose selfishness over compassion, and ourselves over the other person, and many times, we made the wrong choice. But there were also times when we chose each other over ourselves, and those were some of the best times of this whole year. I got to see Adam in situations where his selflessness spoke Jesus to me louder than any words anyone has ever said. I got to see him grow and love and become better every single day, and if that isn't the best thing ever, I don't know what is. And since I'm not going to write a bunch of awesome stuff about myself and pretend he said it, I guess you'll just have to ask him about me.
All in all, our anniversary was a pretty awesome day, and a great cap to one crazy, but incredible year, especially because one of my favorite parts of marriage is just being able to do life together, which was what that whole day felt like. here's to many more, my love. xoxo

things i'm learning.

After being married, living in California and living the youth pastor's wife life for almost a year, there are a few things I've learned that I never thought I would need to know. Also, there are a few things that I'm really glad I learned, but that I also wish someone maybe would have clued me in on prior to this whole new life. But who knows, maybe tons of people actually did tell me these things and this is just more proof that I am actually an embarrassingly terrible listener.

1. You don't have to be with students 24/7. 
When we first moved here, I felt like if we weren't constantly surrounded by children ages 11-18, we must have been doing something wrong. But then we realized that they don't love us any less and we don't love them any less if we don't see them every day. In fact, we probably love them more because we aren't witness to every ridiculously teenage thing they insist on doing.

2. There is quite an awkward, sad, lonely and just generally unpleasant stage that falls in-between the adventure of moving somewhere far away, and the point where it really feels like home. 
These are the stages of moving somewhere new: 1. HURRAY EVERYTHING IS AWESOME AND ADVENTUROUS AND YAYYYYY. 2. This place is actually nothing like where I moved from and spent the first 20+ years of my life. Weird. 3. Wow, I really miss the place that I spent the first 20+ years of my life and all the people that I love. 4. This place is the worst, I want to go home. 5. Okay, I guess this place isn't soooo bad. 6. I could probably live here and not hate it. 7. I actually really like it here and now remember why we moved here in the first place. 8. This is home.

3. You don't always have to be the boss. In fact, you definitely shouldn't always be the boss.
I have learned a lot about submission and taking the backseat to someone else and their passions/talents this past year. It's really not always fun, but especially for me, a lot of growth has come from it, even if I didn't always love it.

4. Church family is the best.
Just come over to our house and look at every piece of furniture that someone in the church has given us...it would be every piece of furniture we own, minus a bookshelf and coffee table that I found at a yard sale. Also, I can't count the amount of times that someone has cooked us food, sent us a well timed encouragement card, or just generally made us feel like moving to the other side of the country was actually a good idea.

5. As you become a better fighter, so does your spouse. 
And here I thought that for the rest of my life, I was just going to win every single fight, purely on my arguing skill level...

6. Students can hurt your feelings, and you may not always like them, but you must try your hardest to love them like Jesus does.
Honestly, this has been a super hard one for me to learn. Most of my previous experience working with teenagers was summer camp, where they come for a week, think you're the coolest human being on earth just because you're their counselor, and then they leave and you're still forever immortalized in their mind. A pretty sweet deal, but nothing like what actual youth ministry is like. In long-term youth ministry, not only do you see their faults and weaknesses more intensely, but they see yours, and they also may not know anything about Jesus and so are much less forgiving than kids who grew up in the church. Sometimes, you didn't even do anything wrong, and they're just mad at you because they're fourteen and fourteen-year-olds are famous for their irrationality. So while I've had my feelings hurt plenty of times by rude teenage girls, or a student who refuses to come back to youth group for a few weeks because you wouldn't let them talk to their friends the whole time Adam was speaking, the minute I want to give up on one of them, Jesus reminds me that he hasn't given up on any of our kids and so we shouldn't either. No matter how far they seem to be from Him, we still pray and hope that they find their way back to Jesus, even if we never get to see it.

7. No one in California actually knows anything about the rest of the world.
Okay, that's not entirely true, because I have met a few well-informed west coasters, but on the whole, when I tell people I grew up in Pennsylvania, I have serious doubts they could even really find that on a map.

8. No matter where you move, most of your best friends will end up coming from the Midwest.
Seriously though, even 2000 miles away from the Midwest, many of our closest friends here grew up in Michigan, Indiana, and all those other incredibly flat states. Of course we have many great friends who have always lived here in California too, but it's nice to have people around who understand things that are wonderfully familiar to you.

9. Marriage is hard sometimes, but on the whole, one of God's best ideas.
I love being married, and I would recommend it to anyone.

10. You never realize how important it is to have people around you who truly understand your heart, until you're very far from all the people who do.
As much as it sucks to be away from most of the people who know how to understand me, love me, and call me out better than anyone else, it makes our time so much sweeter when we are together. It has also taught me how important it is for me to seek out those people around me here in California. Luckily, God has given me some of those people here, and I couldn't be more thankful for them.

11. California is a great place to live.
We love our community, church, friends and life out here. God has been so faithful to us, and we know that won't change.

xoxo

hannah

an adventure to san francisco.

last weekend, adam and i had tickets to go see a gungor concert in san francisco, and on a whim, invited our friends jon and sam to come with us since we all had monday off. twenty-four hours of shenanigans and ridiculousness later, here is some of the photo evidence of our adventure. so thankful for this couple and their friendship and so excited for more future roadtrips!

 view from our hotel room.

 what a gorgeous woman! love love love.

at the stinking rose. they claim to "season their garlic with food"

 does this even need an explaination?!

wine tasting downtown!

walking through some tunnel.

we drove down the curvy part of lombard st. so weirdly ridiculous.

 

we stumbled upon an arcade full of old games and it was SO COOL

these people........ 

loving our life in california. 

xoxo

hannah

"we are ocean, we are mist, brilliant fools who wound and kiss."

dear goodness, if i have ever loved a band like i love gungor, i have no memory of it. gungor is an incredible "musical collaboration" that laughs in the face of genre, and expresses the spiritual side of life like no other band could even dream of doing. adam and i hate to label them under the worship genre, because their lyrics are not always completely theologically sound. but that's okay with us. because even though the members of gungor are awesome, God-fearing, Christ followers, a lot of their music is about how their knowledge of and experiences with God manifests themselves in their own lives, instead of being purely about praise. kinda like they're working out their relationship with the creator right before our very ears. their music is so raw, so emotional and so human. which we feel is just so...refreshing. in a culture that sees lyrics like "let's have a night you won't remember, i'll be the one you won't forget" as pure lyrical genius, hearing michael gungor sing out the lyrics "temporary carbon stories, filled with ashes, filled with holy ghost" gives me chills.
but anyway, the whole point of this rant is to get you to listen to the new gungor album "i am mountain" at least three times. why three, you ask? because the first two times, you're gonna hear it and think it's super weird and hate it. it's so divergent from what we think of as "typical" gungor, that i feel like people are just going to be prone to write it off as an anomaly and hope for a better album next time. and those people couldn't be more wrong. it's on the third listen that you really pick up the lyrics and hear just how talented and insanely creative this band is, and how much they are using their gifts to glorify the Lord. while the lyrics may not mimic the latest chris tomlin song, these tracks are insanely moving and profound, even with the auto-tuning. what, what? auto-tuning you say?! see? now you've gotta give it a listen.

xoxo

hannah

afternoon adventure

i got in a little hike/adventure after work on thursday! loved exploring the east shore of lake tahoe with my girl, bethany. she is the best, much like almost every other bethany that i have ever met. since we just can't seem to get any snow, and instead have been enjoying sunny 50 degree days, it seems ridiculous to ever be inside. God is too good to us, and while i keep expecting to get used to the incredible views that we're so lucky to have, i almost feel like my love for this place grows every single day. i drive past the lake on my way to work every day, and if that isn't a way to start my day off right, i have no idea what is. so, enjoy this little glimpse into our afternoon, and if you're not drooling/buying a plane ticket to come see us after these pictures...WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!

a recap of our first eight months.

well, obviously this started it all. may 18, 2013.
forever and always.






















one of my favorites from the day.  

obviously, completely obsessed with all these people! #bestweddingpartyever

families, we love you and miss you oh so much!

             these are some of the best people i know. we can't brag on them enough.

we did it! officially california residents! 

 

tahoe forest church is so awesome...they made us another wedding cake!

fourth of july, 2013. obviously, we went to the parade!

dave came to see us! we love this man, can't wait to have him here again!

just casually jumping on a youth group outing to ez-air...

learning to wakesurf on the hamill's boat. so good.

we got a bird! his name is ollivander gordy...we're weird. we know...

hiking donner summit to pray over truckee with the church.

our trip to apple hill. 

 princess peach and mario...quite a hit with the jr. highers! also, his mustache is real...

duck, duck, goose at jr. high youth group. love love love these kids. never a dull moment.

city impact trip to san francisco with our high schoolers. such a great weekend of service and prayer.

                                                                                          first big snow of the winter...

 my first time EVER on skis! loved it. now i'm a pro! (sort of...)

 we went to adam's cousin's wedding in the valley in december. 

 first christmas! 

steelers/packers game. steelers win!

many more adventures to come!

xoxo

hannah