Our life in pictures  

We’ve been absolutely immersed in photos and memories lately as we develop our profile book. It felt daunting at first, but having devoted so much time and energy to the effort lately, I can say that this is really an experience I would recommend to anyone. Certainly, there have been late nights spent struggling with how to tell a story that is so personal and that has so many unmissable moments. And of course there have been periods of writer’s block and plenty of those “okay-I-just-hit-a-wall” moments and the occasional “what-was-this-page-supposed-to-be-about-again”. But despite the obvious challenge of it, we’ve shared so many smiles and laughter over the last few weeks that it has been completely worth it. Besides, lack of sleep and mental exhaustion are things we should be getting prepared for, right? But this is all very easy for me to say. Credit must be given where it’s actually due, to the scrapbook artist herself. While I’ve certainly made my contributions, Tiffany deserves all the mint chocolate chip ice cream and foot rubs in the world for bringing our love story to life on the pages she created for our book. And considering how this family takes pictures, it has been a truly colossal undertaking to compile all those snapshots and piece together all the right words to fit into one neat little package. She’s my hero for doing it so well and for doing it in a way that is so unique to us.

I can imagine few experiences as intimate as devoting time to the act of really looking back together and witnessing those moments again. I’m not sure that we would have ever felt compelled to do it without some sort of deadline, however self-imposed, and so I’m grateful for it. Looking at these pictures of our life together has reminded me how far we’ve come and how our hearts have been stitched together over the years. Not to exhaust the wildness metaphor, but at a certain point it really is worth pausing along the way to look back from a high vantage point and gaze out at all the ground you’ve covered. It’s easy to get lost in the rhythm of simply putting one foot in front of the other without looking up or looking back. But pausing to take this breath together has been a really unexpected gift. We have come an amazingly long way together, and it’s astounding to see.

As we collect ourselves from our exhaustion and lean forward together to what lies ahead, we gather the strength to continue on our way. And I have a sense that someday we’ll look back at the steps we’re taking now in this time and place and remember every exhilarating wave of emotion, every rush of anticipation and every hope we have for what our family will be.

Mather Pass on the JMT, a view I'll never forget, in 2002.