True friends

Friendship--the truest kind--is life-giving. That is what we experienced last weekend on our visit to San Diego. Coming home to true friends...where our hearts were free to relax, laugh, stay still, and just be. A weekend experiencing everything that makes us happy...amazing food...the beach...our favorite city...and true friends. And what topped it all off was watching Soren's heart run free too. He was in absolute heaven all weekend playing with his best friends as well. Thank you--Aaron, Christine, Zeke, Drew, Janz, Damien, Kevin, Sonya, Emerson and Quinny--for giving us new life to continue on our difficult journey in Phoenix. It was so nice to be home for a weekend!*The really good photos on this post come from Kevin at go.do.photography*

10 years

10 years ago last Wednesday, Brandon and I started our relationship. February 9, 2011 came and went as a fun "dating anniversary", a perhaps more subdued one due to our lack of finances, time constraints, and logistics of getting a babysitter. Don't get me wrong, we did have fun. Ever since we moved here we've been hearing about how Phoenix is hiding the country's best pizza...so we decided to wait in line (a two-hour wait minimum) and find out. Pizzeria Bianco was truly a treat. We were pleasantly surprised to find that they own a wonderfully cozy wine bar next door in a quaint, old Craftsman-style home. Two hours goes fast when you are snuggled in the corner of this charming house with a glass of delicious wine and your honey by your side. When we finally did make it into the pizzeria we were met with a tiny, brick-covered room lit by a large fire-roasting oven. The pizza was fabulous. And what made it so great was the simplicity of it all. A thin, very fresh crust with a thin layer of fresh tomato sauce, a smattering of authentic mozzarella cheese, and a few large leaves of from-the-garden basil. Nothing about the flavors hit you right away and made you exclaim "Wow!". But it was good, so simply good, as if you had never really tasted pizza before and this was what pizza was supposed to taste like.
Okay, so I'm not normally a food blogger, and it may seem that I've gotten off track. But here's what I realized after an anticlimactic celebration of our 10 years together: The pizza is like our relationship. Most of the time there's no wow factor, no magical romance, no skipping heartbeats. The way we fell in love was slow, subtle, and with careful thought and trepidation. But our relationship is good, so good. We are best friends, partners in life, parents, and lovers. We admire each other, respect each other, help each other, understand each other. With Brandon my heart is at home. With Brandon I am most free to be me. In our purest moments I sense that we are experiencing God's heart for marriage.So here's to 10 more years of diving into the beautiful subtleties of life with Brandon.

A tribute to the present

Blogging is a really good test for me in my issue of perfectionism. It bugs me when I haven't posted for several weeks, and then when good stories, trips, and pictures pile up I feel like I have to blog about it all before my life can feel settled. Okay, maybe that's a little extreme. But I know many of you know what I'm talking about. A need--albeit somewhat neurotic--to have it all together, in real life...and online. So before I blog about the highlights of our winter break, I am going to stop and pay tribute to the present (i.e. mindfulness...a big topic for another blogging escapade...).This weekend I came face to face with Arizona's quiet beauty. Quiet, because we were literally out in the middle of nowhere. Brandon's mom and stepdad have a cabin up in northern Arizona that is off the grid and tucked away in a juniper field on a bumpy dirt road. You don't hear or see a soul while you're up there. It is an eerie silence--one that makes you feel isolated, alone, lost, and then at peace. And while you're wondering just why anyone would want to hang out in such a desolate place, you suddenly notice the way the sun hits the weeds around you and makes them glow a warm yellow. You feel the crunch of rocks and dirt underneath your feet and feel a sense of grounding. You feel the chilling wind blow across your face and thank God for the fire burning inside. And then the sky is suddenly ablaze with brushstrokes of pink, orange, purple, and red. A glorious masterpiece is created right before your eyes and you feel as though you've won something you didn't deserve.The desolate wilderness was a gift to me this weekend. I had just finished up my first week of this new semester and my heart was already racing with thoughts of future papers, readings, and clinical hours. Without any bit of my conscious effort, Arizona's quiet beauty reminded me of the present. Because, see, I can experience that same subtle desert beauty here in Phoenix, each and every day. I don't have to wait for the cabin escape...I just have to follow the sun's rays, feel the earth beneath me, listen for the wind, and keep my eyes open.

Mele Kalikimaka!

What a merry Christmas we had in Maui this year. We rotate Christmases between our three sets of parents, so every third year we get to spend a relaxing, warm Christmas in Hana, Maui with Daddio and Vicki! (Also known as Pop Pop and Grandma Wiki:-)Oh, the simple fun...like trying out starfruit and hunting for papayas in the front yard...

...picking tomatoes with Grandma Wiki...
...and hiking down to the tidepools below the house for a quick dip.

We always love to get in our favorite non-tourist hike--what we like to call Mumu Land.Soren couldn't get enough of climbing on all the lava rocks!
One of the things we love about staying with grandparents is free babysitting! So we snuck out to the Hotel Hana-Maui for a little date night:-)
One morning we all happened to wake up around 6am and got to witness one of the most incredible sunrises I have ever seen!

You could even see the volcanoes of the big island!

If you look closely in this picture, you can see us standing on the gazebo. WOW.

And then there's our favorite beach in the whole wide world--Hamoa.

Bran and I had a blast playing like kids...Here I am boogie boarding right next to Bran body surfing.

Our naked, happy, free boy...

...and his little nudie friend he made on the beach!

Lucky for us, we only had two rainy days on our whole trip. Playing Pop Pop's drums was a fun indoor diversion for Soren.

I might have mentioned before that Soren is a bit of a flirt. Well, here he is with his much-older Hawaiian girlfriend Gracie who he was completely enchanted with!

Of course, the Sawyer boys had to have a project going in the woodshop--this time it was making Bran a bedside lamp out of Hawaiian milo wood.

On Christmas Eve, Bran, Soren and I took off by ourselves to do another favorite hike--Seven Sacred Pools. We were blessed with an incredibly beautiful day. I don't know if we've ever seen Seven Pools in full sunshine!

Then we finished off the gorgeous day with a sunset session at Hamoa.

Mele Kalikimaka!

Soren's most special gift was this handmade tractor by Pop Pop.

The boys spent Christmas afternoon golfing a private 9-hole course in the jungle.

Nothing beats breakfast on the deck with a beautiful view and fresh papaya and starfruit.
Every trip to Maui we always have to do something touristy. So we rounded up our last day on the island with a sunset whale watching excursion. It was amazing!! One whale dramatically surfaced 20 yards from our boat!

Thank you Daddio and Vicki for an awesome Christmas vacation!

God's sense of humor

Did I mention that we found a church? One that we love and are ready to commit to? It really is a miracle. And the irony of it all is that its a mega-church. I cringe just writing that word. The last two churches we've been a part of have been house churches. Meaning a casual group of somewhere between 6 and 20 people. Not even close to the 4,000 that meet each weekend at our new church MISSION. Mega-churches just seem to go against everything we believe in about life and God. We desire depth, intimacy with others, authentic community, and a stripping away of programs, showy-ness, and rules. But here is this huge church that embodies what we think God designed the church to be about. In an enormous auditorium filled with thousands of people we don't know, we feel at home. Worship is truly an incredible experience. Somehow the talented band and fancy graphics don't make me feel like I'm at a concert--instead I feel moved to tears as I humbly sing to my Creator. The message each Sunday comes from a pastor who exudes depth, intelligence, and a passion for loving God by serving others. And the people we interact with each week don't always look or act perfect. We don't get any sense that this church is a place to put on your best face or make everyone feel entertained.
Like I said, it's a miracle. I feel like God is almost laughing at me, in a gentle "I told you so" kind of way. Because my spiritual journey has been a windy one, full of anger, rebellion, and judgment. I walked away from the church (organized religion) years ago and found freedom in accepting all the secular people of the world who used to be "the others" I was supposed to save. But in accepting the secular world I had inadvertently switched my judgment to the Christian world. And now God has opened my heart to accept the Christian world via a mega-church. Ironic, isn't it? God truly does work in mysterious ways. And I am so, so thankful for it.

Thanksgiving on the farm

After living in Arizona for 3 months and enduring some pretty brutal heat--that didn't end until late October--it was quite the reprieve to go home for Thanksgiving. We finally got to feel cold and experience beautiful fall colors! Soren also had a blast living the farm life for a whole weekend. He got to go on daily tractor rides with Papai and Bran, play basketball, guitar, and piano with Uncle Scotty, and pick fruit to put in the old wagon Mamae dug up! And it was so cute watching Soren play with his second-cousin Addie. I think his vocab grew a ton hanging out with her!
It was so wonderful for Bran and I to relax in the comforts of laying by the fireplace, surrounded by the people who know and love us so well. After spending the last few months adjusting to a new state, a new lifestyle, and new people, it was just so nice to come home, in every sense of the word.