sunshine and grass stains

last weekend we did a little bit of “touristy-ness” with some dear friends from Gloucester. we went to Woodmans for fried fish because we just found out they had a gluten free version. {Husbuddy was super excited!}

it was a beautiful day {finally!} to be out enjoying the sunshine. 

 

we are thankful for friends to share life with, even if just for a year. these two have two more years of seminary at Gordon Conwell… so we’ll be praying for strength to endure as they prepare to receive a call to be a pastor.  

while we finished eating, Finley, the adorable 10 month old, was having a blast sitting in and crawling through the grass.  this was a new experience for her.  so of course i had to pull out my camera to capture her cuteness.

i love her single bottom tooth… so adorable.

and this face looks like, ‘hey ma, watch me…’

 

as she takes off to get her first grass stains on her knees. 

 

so sweet.

gotta admit, i love sunshine and grass stains. :) warm weather is finally here and i’m enjoying every minute!

what about you? had a chance to enjoy the sunshine recently?

 

 

 

 

putting on armor {a sunday blessing}

“but since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation”
1 Thessalonians 5:8

the imagery in this verse is beautiful. It struck me the other day during my quiet time to break the verse down and think about the parts. do you ever do that? it’s actually a very good exercise…when i actually take the time to do it.

first part:

“we belong to the day”

not the night. day time is bright and promising after a dark night. Christ is of the day…He is light. He is the light of the world. and we are children of the light!

“let us be sober”

being sober to me, means being level headed and realistic. i’ve never been drunk but i know what it’s like to be drunk on life and to be silly beyond control. to me this is saying, let us have a realistic understanding of what God has done for us. it is exciting and amazing but it should also bring us to our knees in humbleness.

“put on the breastplate of faith and love”

i find it interesting that this is another place that Paul talks about armor besides the famous Ephesians section. so Paul is stating something in multiple places… it must be important, right?! here he is talking about a breastplate. what does the breastplate do? it protects your body, your chest.

the heart.

a breastplate protects it. it can’t be made of something flimsy or be handmade out of fabric… it is strong. made of metals from the holy mountain.

it is not my own faith and love that I put on to protect my heart… the armor is a gift from God!! it is given to me to protect my heart from being pierced by something. it is made of faith and love to guard my heart with peace.

“and for a helmet the hope of salvation”

a helmet protects the head… the mind. it keeps the precious skull protected from the lying arrows of the evil one.

again it is not a hope that i can conjure on the inside of my brain… but a piece of armor that goes on the outside.

it is a gift

i have hope not because i make it up… but because salvation is presented to me!

so many days I fail or forget to put on my helmet in the morning before I leave the house. my mind is then so vulnerable and so easily attacked with lies.

when i forget my breastplate my heart is vulnerable. i forget that i am a beloved child of The Light and  i let the arrows of the evil one pierce my heart, cause me pain and i fail to love as i should and to have faith that God is in control.

it’s interesting to note the very next verse:

“for God has not destined us for wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ”

the breastplate and helmet are meant to lead me through the battlefield to my salvation and to my Lord. God has a beautiful destiny for me. He has also provided the tools (armor) needed to help me on my way. it is my sober and solemn duty to put on that armor every day.

even especially on days when i think i’m doing ok and i think i can do it on my own. there is no doubt about it… those are the days that i need His armor the most.

can i get an amen?

 

 

 

graduation day {hopefully the last!}

this weekend was graduation at Gordon Conwell Seminary.

Husbuddy graduated!

hopefully for the last time! i’m so proud of him! {and i’m so ready to not be in school anymore!} this year was an amazing blessing. he loved his professors and he learned so much. i can’t imagine if he hadn’t taken this extra little year to get further prepared for ministry! it seemed so necessary for the next step!

after the morning festivities, we created our own festivities by having a little graduation party with a few friends who made this year even more of a blessing.

it’s hard, i know, to want to invest in friendship with people who are only around for a short amount of time…but we really appreciated that these people took the time to get to know us and love us deeply. relationships are the most important thing in life! and we know that if it seems like it’s only for a year, even a year of quality time can turn into a life long friend. 

we appreciate each of you and are blessed to know you! and we pray that our lives will cross paths again :) 

yay! Husbuddy is finally done with school! for the first time since we got married 7 summers ago… we won’t have one of us in school. oh.my.goodness. i don’t know what we’re going to do with ourselves! haha! yay!

japan, finally the last one… {part 7}

let’s start this post with just a little bit of wandering around a food market.

of course we must start with the department stores. they are just gorgeous. think of the makeup counters in our department stores- how sparkly and shiny everything is- now multiply that times 20 and make it food. amazing:

right before we step into the oldest food market in kyoto we stopped by a little stand that had a lot of cherry-blossom-flavored food… because of course you need to celebrate the season with food that’s pink! 

and we may have found the donut stand…

good thing we did that before we walked through the market though… the food in the market was…mostly…unappetizing…

things had eyeballs still…

sashimi:a beer stand:

plastic sushi anyone?

fish flakes: {let me tell you, i actually tried some…these are GROSS} octopus on a stick? yes. they walk around chewing on these like they are chewing on a corndog at a ballgame.

oh. my. goodness.gracious. these grossed me out!

piles and piles of octopus on  a stick: 

some sort of sea creature:

look at those crabs:

it was so overwhelming taking everything in:

but on the way back to the hotel that evening we followed some geisha…

yes. i was that creepy person taking pictures of some stranger. HA. but at least i didn’t run up ahead of them and turn around and try to take a fast picture of them in front… i’m not even going to mention who did that…*cough*dad*cough*

hee hee.

alright, the next day we found the Fushi Inari Shrine and gates.  the artist in me really loved this place. my family got a little overwhelmed with all the orange… i’ll let you decide if you like it or hate it. 

i have no idea what the difference was between all the temples. 

but there were a lot of guard dogs hanging around:

on one side was a happy dog and one side was an angry dog usually. i actually love this map. we only made it about 30 minutes up the hill. apparently it takes 1.5 hours to get to the top! 

there were different areas with large gates and small gates:

my engineer Father really didn’t like that there was no uniformity in the columns. that cracked me up! but it was a little crazy that they built them right next to each other and they would be just a slight variation of its neighbor. and we were trying to decide if the writing was advertising or not.

{can you tell some people in our group were rather cynical that day? lol}

yay! orange gates!

and another dog:

my mother being adorable:

they had a LOT of beautiful lanterns around the grounds. they were all different too. i loved it:

everyone was kind of sick of orange by the time we made it back down the hill.

this is back at the beginning: 

and, my stalker-ish-tendancies come out again… how CUTE is she?! adorbs as my little sis would say:

the cherry blossoms were really pretty that day.

as this was our last full day in Kyoto we decided to finally try japanese style tea. “matcha tea” is a green powder that they whisk in to the hot water:

as a tea lover, i decided it wasn’t really my favorite. i loved the colors and texture of that cup though!

after our lunch we went for a walk along the famous “philosopher’s path” to see the cherry blossoms.   

us… and the rest of Japan.

it was a little disappointing that this is one of the “most beautiful” places in Japan and it was just a little path along a ditch-that must have been a river in it’s day. it was gorgeous to walk amoung all the trees, but it just wasn’t as impressive as we were expecting. it probably would have been a little better environment had it not been a sunny sunday afternoon with everyone else in all of Kyoto!  but we saw some pretty houses along the way.

and a random wood temple. i actually think this was the gate and the temple was up the hill, but we didn’t see it.

then… SHUT UP. we found Colorado.

some people were pretty excited about it: 

we actually found another family from Colorado standing in front of the sign! it was hilarious! the wife of that family actually walked in and tried to explain that she was from Colorado but they just looked at her confused. hahah. so, it’s our little joke, i guess. Becca felt like she was home.

…kinda…

the next day we began our LONG journey home:

the train station actually had a sun deck which was so nice on a sunny day where we had to wait for a few hours:

momma misses her Becca so much.

and so do i.

{please note, this picture was take 12 of like 20…the first 11 were of Becca trying to lick my ear… let’s just say when we’re together we go a little overboard with the teasing. lol} 

this was the train station. i was really impressed with the space!

and a last 3-person family photo. 

and a last japanese lunch:

tempura bar! so fun!

and it was a delicious last meal:

then we began the trip home:

a 2 hour train ride + 2 hr wait at airport + 9 hr flight to San Fran + 3 hr flight to Denver +1 hour drive to the Springs (we spent the night in Colorado Springs)  then i got up for the rest of my 3 hr flights to Chicago + 2 hr layover + 3 hr flight to Boston…and home. oh my goodness longest travel day ever.

but oh such a great adventure! thanks for sticking with me these last few weeks as i’ve been so busy and it’s been so hard to get all the pictures organized!

if you’d like to see my other japan posts please click here: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6

thanks, friends!

xo-kimberly renee

in kyoto, japan {part 6}

oh hello again. ready for a few more pictures from japan?

note to self. when traveling in japan, always find this:

much better than the alternative. ha. i just wanted to let you know that.

anyway, now we are in kyoto. i wanted to show you our little hotel room with my silly sister:

ok, it wasn’t that little. i’ve heard that there are some really tiny hotel rooms in Japan! we, thankfully, didn’t stay in any of those.  but check out the toilet. i thought it was so genius to use the rear-toilet water as a sink before it went into the tank! seriously! how genius is that? 

and also note the fancy controller on the side… heated toilet seats, anyone? or fancy bidet buttons? {those got us into trouble… not going to lie…hee hee}

ok. this whole post is not about toilets. i promise.

it’s about pretty architecture and little details that i saw in Kyoto! it seems like every other photo that i took was of roof lines… so, there ya go… Japan has cool roofs. you’re inspired now, right?

anyway, our first day in Kyoto we went to The Golden Pavillion. Can you believe it’s right in the middle of the city? it has a large preserved area around it, which is really beautiful.

{our tour guide went a little crazy this day trying to get a lot of family photos…lol}

but isn’t it pretty… oooo sparkly…

and it’s ALL GOLD LEAF. 

wow, right?! how crazy is that? and this isn’t the original temple! apparently in the 50s a monk {that wasn’t all there, if you know what i mean} thought that it would look really magnificent on fire… so he set the 500 year old wood structure on fire. our tour guide said it burned down in like 7 minutes, so that monk was the only one who got to see “the beauty of it”. ha! so…not only did they cover a building with gold leaf, back in the day for some emperor… but they had to do it again after the crazy monk burnt it down! HA! well, i think they have to reclad it with gold leaf every twenty years or so… cause it doesn’t really hold up to the elements the best. {i’m actually impressed it lasts 20 years!}

that is a phoenix on top of the temple. the legend is that when Japan has a perfect government, a real phoenix will appear. HA! when do you think that’s going to happen for any country, i ask you?!

another rule of japanese architecture is that apparently it is bad luck to have a “perfect” building. so they added this fishing hut on the back to keep it from being perfectly square. how funny is that? very different from european architecture which worked for “perfection”. 

after a long morning walking around all the shiny-sparkly-gold building we headed to a favorite restaurant of the tour guides’ for Udon and Tempora. yum!

after lunch we went to another temple. this temple had a million cherry trees in bloom so it was a really gorgeous walk.

and aren’t my parents’ just the cutest?!  and i love this girl to death :)

so this shrine was for a rock garden. uhh… a rock garden. there were 15 rocks in about 30′x70′ space- you could only stand on one side because there was a tall wall around all the 3 other sides…and  if you stood in one place, maybe you could see all 15 at once… and you’d get good luck…

whoop-de-doo.

lol

i was a little more distracted by some of the other details around the temple grounds:

really really old wood work that is just gorgeous!

it’s just so perfect, without nails, or any of our fancy fasteners from today.

and this pretty window!

and the cypress trees were even beautiful

group shot in front of the cherry tree again:

then we stopped by the Kyoto Castle. this castle is a lot different than the other castles we’ve seen because it was built in a time of peace. the emperor just wanted a “summer” home or something in Kyoto.

we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside but inside were the original “nightengale floors” were to protect the inhabitents from ninjas! the floors were designed to squeek when you walked on it. there was no way to walk across it without making it squeek! cool! :) made me wish my silly-totally-into-that-kind-of-thing Husbuddy was there with me to see it. :) this is how a nightengale floor is designed:

*thanks for the nerd-moment there*

a couple more detail shots from around the castle:

pretty wood carvings were throughout the whole castle:

a pretty bridge post:

after all the site seeing at castles and shrines, we were pretty worn out. the tour guide took us to a really fascinating food market… but that will have to wait for another day!

to be continued…

xo-kimberly renee

if you missed any of the previous japan posts click here:

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 

 

a little press

hey! look at this Houzz article! Knight Architects is featured again!

this project was just starting construction when i first arrived back in 2009 so i can’t take any credit for any of the drawings. except that Cathy Knight let me design/draw the fireplace mantle. {mostly she suggested what i should i do and then i drew it… let’s be honest because it was my first fireplace mantle!} that and i also helped stage the pretty pictures!

i’m so proud of Knight Architects for getting a little bit of press again!  to see the full article click here.

Traditional Living Room by Princeton Architect Knight Architects LLC

a quote for sunday

“The interesting thing about a heart which concentrates on honoring and thanking God is that it becomes a naturally joyful heart. It becomes resistant to discouragement, negative thinking and cynicism. Nothing is dull or routine to such a heart, everything has value”

Gail MacDonald,

High Call, High Priveledge. pg.181

 

japan -another cute little town {part 5}

ok, y’all getting tired of these japan pictures?

oh well. sorry, it is going to take a few more posts to get through them. ;) but in an effort to get it done, this is a super long one. don’t say you haven’t been warned!! fun fun!

while in Becca’ neighborhood of Yabu, we had a few adventures, driving in her car,  and lots of time to catch up on relax in her tiny apartment.

please note: car is backwards and it is tiny. it’s hard to tell just how tiny. should have taken a picture from outside. doh.

we made the obligatory visit to Becca’s school where she works and where they love her to death. and of course we had to take a family photo: 

this is her school:

after a morning talking with her friends and fellow teaches, we ventured to this town: Izushi. it had a pretty old clock tower and castle ruins and cute little streets:

a map of the tiny town:

and it was really the only pretty day that we had while in her area of Yabu: 

look at how giant the produce was! those carrots. and then some strange root right next to it… wow:

i think the clock tower was pretty,  but the family would not pose for me:

a road side map to castle: 

i think this was my favorite little bridge in all of japan.

after you got through the gate: another little castle tower! so pretty!

and a pathway up the mountain with this gates:

another view of the “tower” from inside the wall area, looking past a shrine:

there really wasn’t any part ofthe castle left. just a wall and a couple of towers and a couple of shrines. i think it’s funny that the tower overhung the wall, they couldn’t build the wall exactly the right angle or something?

from underneath:

another lantern? i don’t know, i just thought it looked funny with a giant rock on top of a tiny wood lantern area:

had to beg for a picture of me: haha.

Becca and i got a kick out of these dragons. on one side of the path were happy ones:

and on the other side they seemed grumpy. Becca was trying to make it happy:

not sure it worked, sweetheart. still looks grumpy even with the hug!

i think this may be one of my favorite photos of the whole trip: it’s a dragon water fountain! how fun! it’s actually so you can wash your hands before you go up to the temple but i just thought he looked awesome.

one of the other days while we were there Becca and i went for a hike up in the mountains above her apartment to visit a 1000 year old cherry tree. let me say that again: a cherry tree that is 1000 freaking years old! how cool is that? my dad wasn’t feeling very well so mom stayed with him for a while and it was a nice little sister hike. check out how pretty the path was:

in case you didn’t know, cherry trees are kind of a big deal in japan. Becca has had it explained to her that every year when they are in bloom, it is a cultural thing to go sit under the tree and drink sake until you’re drunk. this brings good luck or something because according to the japanese you’re not your “real self” until you’re drunk and all of your inhibitions are gone. oh boy. but apparently sitting under the cherry that’s 1000 years old brings extra good luck? anyway, it was a bit of a hike straight up the mountain… can you image coming down that when you’re drunk on sake?!

anyway. this sign was pointing out the 1000 year old cherry tree to all the sake drinkers:

there wasn’t anyone else there because it wasn’t quite in bloom yet.  but check out how giant this tree was. it needed scaffolding to hold it up and keep it from falling down the mountain!! and i had to crop the photos together to get the whole picture! 

we think maybe that sign meant that  something like “trespass at your own risk”  but we really can’t be sure. and all we did was look at the tree a little bit closer…

but we don’t know for sure!

bawhaha. ok. she could get into trouble maybe for this one. but we don’t know what it says for sure, so really, could she? really, we’ll never know.

while in Yabu Becca also took us to her favorite sushi place. japanese sushi coming to you on a conveyor belt anyone?! how cool is this place?! you can just pick and choose which kind of sushi you want. you can also order it on a screen. then you pay  by the plate:

and it was really tasty:

don’t we look excited?!

ha. we had a great time exploring the area where Becca lives. she is going to be there for at least another year! i’m so impressed by her. :) the next leg of the trip was Kyoto.

to be continued…

{to see the other posts about my adventure in japan click here:

Osaka: part 1, Osaka: part 2, Tondabayashi part 3, Himeji castle: part 4}

japan {part 4}

you guys, i’ve been sick. SO sick. cold/fever/cough from japan! oh man!

{hey that rhymed!}

i come to you today trying not to cough the entire post, but i wanted to keep going with getting these pictures up! so it will be a quick one.

***

after a couple days we left Osaka and headed to the mountains.

“I want to see mountains again, mountains, Gandalf!”

-Bilbo, The Lord of the Rings.

{betcha didn’t think you were going to get some literature quotes with this post, did ya?}

Becca lives in a tiny little town up in the mountains between Osaka and Kyoto. it was a lovely train ride. but before we really got into the mountains we stopped at this amazing castle that i wanted to see.

can’t you tell from this map that it must be a beautiful place?!  a castle on top of a hill. beautiful moats. lots of winding streets:

see? we’re so excited to enter the gate:

{well, actually Dad is sick-aka THE SICKNESS I HAVE NOW}

that and the weather was being super helpful with  a freezing-bone-chilling-drizzle of rain.

but just think, as soon as we walk through this gate, it’s going to be a gorgeous castle on top of a hill! 

womp womp:

it was in a BOX. thank GOODNESS SAKES that they put up a big poster of what it was supposed to look like, cause, man. would i have been disappointed if i didn’t have that.*

{*slight sarcasm in case you didn’t notice}

SAD DAY for this little architect.

AND this amazing park that was supposed to be around it was just a little disappointing…

but i quickly got over it and focused on the details. they were still pretty!

and we actually got to go up inside the box and see the castle up close and personal. it also showed how they restore it. which is actually pretty cool! we kept telling ourselves that if the box wasn’t there we wouldn’t have been able to do that:

and look, because it was being restored there were architectural/structural plans for us to check out: 

and models! look, they even showed what the box looked like… in case you couldn’t see from, i don’t know, standing outside.*

luckily i have a hilarious sister who always makes things fun: 

bawhahahah. ok i’m officially dead meat since i put up that up there. good thing she is still in japan for another year or more.

i guess the cherry trees were starting to bloom. that was pretty. and there were a couple pretty walkways. and my sister is pretty:

and there were these cool little archery-holes. i don’t know if that’s what they were. i just guessed. seems like a good plan to me though. tiny holes, different shapes, surprise surprise, is the arrow coming at you from the rectangle or triangle?!

haha. ok. i’m a dork.

but so are these two: and i love them anyway:

we found lunch at a tiny hole in the wall down the street.  there were about 6 tables in the whole restaurant. 3 were typical japanese style where you take off your shoes and sit on the floor at a low table with your legs crossed. the other 3 were “western” tables with civilized chairs. we kind of thought it was hilarious that all the japanese in the restuarant were sitting at the western tables and all the japanese tables were open, so we had to sit on the floor… kind of made us wonder, why don’t they just give up on the whole japanese style thing if they’re all just going to go for western style anyway?

{note, we had the same discussion about the toilets…always a line for the western style and always open squatty-potties…but seriously, this is lunch, we won’t talk about that here}

i had chow mein: {i have no idea what that meat was. not bacon. not really pork. well maybe. i don’t know} it was pretty good though::

and then we hit up starbucks before getting on the train.

you think i’m joking.

but we were wet and cold and grumpy (from sitting on the floor) and needed a little encouragement. ha.

and we knew were headed for the boonies, so might as well get it while we can!

but look at this amazing view from the train! ::

i love how the mountains stick straight up! and the land was totally flat going up to it- no foothills! not like colorado at all.

and we saw some pretty cool looking farm houses:

and i got to sit with my sissy, make jokes and laugh at our dad snoring from his cold…

little did we know we would get our revenge 2 weeks later… {cough cough cough}

{please note, if i’ve said anything rude or un-fun while trying to be funny, i blame the cough syrup and take no responsibility.}

xo- this girl who stayed up past her sick-bedtime{7 pm} to write this.

ps- if you’ve missed any of my other posts about japan, check it out: part 1, part 2, part 3

 

japan {part 3}

if you’ve missed any of my other japan posts feel free to click on the links: part 1 or part 2}

on another day we rode a subway and a couple of trains to a little town outside of Osaka. part of the adventure was getting there!  as you can tell from the subway map above… we didn’t have much to help us if we got lost.

everyone is read for an ad-ven-ture!

dad reading up on the subway of the town we are headed to:

Tondabayashi. it is an historic town that wasn’t bombed during WWII and has houses that are 400 years old! this architect-girl was excited.
i took my 50 lens which wasn’t really perfect for getting good shots of an entire building. so i focused on architectural details this map showed where the historic houses were:

this was in the public restroom. old gargoyles and pretty rain “gutters”:

gargoyle faces up close:

these little vents were pointed out in all the brochures for some reason… never explained in english, so we’ll just say this is a pretty roof:

and all the houses are still lived in!

and i loved this. an open site has a sign for house floor plans you could buy. what cracked me up was that the lot size was probably the size of a standard american -in-the-city lot that would fit 1 house rather tightly! it has 5 lots in that space. FIVE.

i was also entertained by the floor plans. i took lots of pictures of it but i won’t bore you with that. :)

a giant temple in the middle of a neighborhood: a pretty roof edge. i liked that this house had a person in place of the normal gargoyle: i think i read that it was supposed to be an old relative of the person who built the house watching over them. kinda cracked me up. lol.  a HUGE gate: and a little lantern. you notice the hole behind it? they had their drainage systems as about 8-12″ wide ditches on each side of the road. (they are all over japan). my little sister calls them “tourist traps” because actually it’s really hard not get your tire stuck in it when you’re driving! haha

up close and personal with a gargoyle:

 

and because i have to remind you that we ate while we were there: That night we had a Tempura party! it was delish! maybe my favorite meal. we tried all sorts of kinds of tempura and mom and i also tried the plum wine. yum. :)

{to be continued… it’s taking me forever to edit all these photos!}