Awake . With or Without the Sun

I am oficially awake and working at 5:19am, or so.  That is unusual for me.  I like my sleep until approximately 8am.  I am going to be doing a series on my blog with some of the pictures I got from Australia and New Zealand.  I have no good explanation as to why I chose this one first, except for that it is a sunrise shot.  I was up for 3 of them while we were visiting.  Wish I was up for more.  There is just somethign magical about a sunrise.  Perhaps it is the joy and the challenge of seeing one.  For me, it is the fact that I don't make it up for many.  Maybe that will change.  For now, here is a bit of my soul.  This morning in New Zealand was beautiful beyond words.  All I can hope is that this pictures does it some sort of justice.

Honestly . Times to Cherish

I feel like this post should be called ""THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY".  The reason I say that is because my friend Julie has seen me through all of these categories and more.  She was the first person I met at college...the kind where you really 'go away' and 'find yourself'.  The first of that rang true for me, but the latter, not so much.  I couldn't have lost myself more in college.  Without intimate details and moving on to better times, truth be told, I am so thankful for her friendship that literally words cannot explain.

Cut to last week.  There are times you want to wrap up, keep, and play over again and again in life.  The time I spent with Julie and her beautiful, amazing, funny, and energetic girl, Giada is without a doubt one of those times.  We did simple things that left an impression for eternity.  In getting chocked up again, I just say thank you.  Thank you Julie for your your friendship.  You are as loyal and gracious as they come.  Thank you for visiting us.  It means more to me than you could ever imagine.  Thank you for bringing your beautiful daughter to our home.  Her beauty is beyond the description of my words.  Thank you to Mike for lending them to us.

I cannot wait to see what our days ahead hold.  I got you on "round two".  I love you, I appreciate you, and I admire you in so many ways.

Giada

The past couple days have been one good memory right after another.  More on this later, but for now, just sharing a couple quick images.  Heart melt.

EC + 365 Days = 1 Year Today!

This very day last year was a deifining moment for our family.  My sister gave birth to her first child, Ethan Charles Litwin, and he was and still is perfect.  My mom was down visiting and we got "the call" at around 4am the it was time.  I rushed into my Mom's room yelling 511 (inside joke) and next thing we knew we were in the car on the way to meet him.  My sister was a champ, her husband Adam was right by her side and we got to meet and hold him in his first moments of his life.  Since then he has brought such joy to our family.  Witnessing firsts has been fun and seeing his huge smile and infectiously cute personality never gets old!  You can see more about his birth here and can see more of a "year in photos" here.  I took these shots about a month ago and as you can see this kid loves the camera.  Happy birthday Ethan, and congrats Laurie and Adam on making it through one year of parenthood!

Open Road + Mini . Peace of Mind

Every once in a while I love to get in the car and just drive.  I don't always set out for a particular destination, but I always head out of the city.  There is something very freeing about temporarily having no plans, and to just head out to see where the road might lead.  Today I turned up my favorite worship music courtesy of Hillsong, hit road and ended about 5500 above sea level at Palomar Mountain.  It was a beautiful combination of a cloudy sky, a cool temperature, some fog and even a little bit of the white stuff.  I stopped a couple times along the way and was finding myself seeing beauty in the bare trees.  I took just a couple photos along the way.  Wishing everybody a wonderful week to come!