On this beach trip we learned that it’s best to change into swimsuits and do sunscreen at home. The two of them ran straight for the water as soon as we stepped on the sand.

Tri-X 400. Voigtlander Bessamatic.

I still haven’t heard back from Hackbright, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to focus on anything other than refreshing my email every few seconds. At this point I’ll be happy to get any news at all because it feels like I’m stuck in a sort of limbo, unable to make any plans for the next few months because I might be commuting up to San Francisco 6+ days/week. I thought the interview went really well, but with an 8% acceptance rate the odds aren’t in my favor. Stay positive! That’s what I’m trying to focus on, even when the feeling looms over me that no news doesn’t seem like good news in this instance.

Opening up my inbox and finding scans from the Vegas trip I had at the beginning of February was a welcome diversion. We managed to coordinate the schedules of seven different people well enough to spend three days in Vegas together. We lost our light to a bank of clouds right as we were leaving the hotel for pictures/dinner, but I adore these underexposed photos just the same. Below are Megan of Muncher Cruncher (if you’re into health/fitness you’ll love her Instagram account!) and our friend B. We shopped, ate, walked, one of us won $100 at the slots, and sat by the pool talking about Serial. Good, in a different sort of way than the good times we had at BYU. Three more years and we do it again? Definitely not seven, that was far too long.

Yashica Mat 124g. Acros 100.

Fuji Superia X-tra 400, Voitlander Bessamatic, 50mm f/2.8

At the beach on the right side of the Santa Cruz boardwalk, January 2015.

I’ve decided that 2015 is going to be the year of the beach for us. Get an umbrella, develop a packing system, have a default picnic packing list to make grocery shopping easy, load up on cornstarch to get the sand off their little bodies when we get back to the car. I can’t get enough of the waves and the splashing and the sunshine, and neither can they.

When writing I’ve often found myself butting up against two different states. The first is writer’s block, where fishing anything out of the mental pool. The second is writer’s procrastination. The mind overflows with ideas, yet somehow none are pertinent to the project looming large in the near future.

I’m writing this post in the second state, as I make a final push to finish my application for Read more →

Eating sushi in the park after we finished our grocery shopping. Taken awhile ago, before he cut his own hair while watching TV in my bed. He tried to hide the evidence in the garbage, but didn’t think about the evidence seen just above his face. We’re starting to deal with more mischievous and naughty behavior, along with falsehoods, and it’s more difficult to deal with than I anticipated. I try to reflect back often on the Nurtureshock chapter on lying, asking myself “What would Po do?“