"Trip of a Lifetime"

Kris has been telling all his friends that we're embarking on a "Trip of a Lifetime". He's so cute. And really, it is! Get this...

1 night - Hanging at Allie and Brad's in San Francisco

2 days - Hotel in San Francisco

5 days - Oregon Family Reunion - water skiing, wind surfing, horse-back riding, golfing...

2 days - Mountain Biking in Whistler, Canada (they say it doesn't get better than this)

1 night - B&B in Victoria, Canada and then renting mopeds all over town. Look at how cute this bed and breakfast is! http://www.beaconsfieldinn.com/ Our room has a fireplace, whirlpool bath, etc. etc. :)

1 night - Camping at a waterfall on Vancouver Island

2 nights - Kayaking out of Telegraph Cove to see the Orca Whales migrating! We're seriously just getting our kayaks, packing up our camping stuff with a compass and nautical map and exploring!! We're going to be camping on the tiny BEAUTIFUL islands along the way. I'm so excited!!!

This all just means I might take a slight hiatus from posting for a week or so. Watch, I say that and I'll be posting every day. Haha. Let's see. Wish us luck. If you don't hear from us within two weeks it probably just means we got eaten by the killer whales or the grizzly bears...j/k.

Reality

I've received some really cute posts and emails over the months about how my life seems so fun and my marriage so romantic. Aaaw, thanks guys!! Those emails triggered an interesting talk with my friend Nicki about blogging in general.

I've found that, except for the occasional sarcastic remark or funny story, USUALLY bloggers don't throw their dirty laundry all over the place or post hideous pics of themselves (delete, delete). We all have those pics that look like Chunk on Goonies and those "special" moments that seem a far cry from Heaven. (e.g., chemically triggered progesterone regulators can be BRUTAL, ahem, and were completely disbanded from the Sundberg home after a few months).

Perhaps the real key of happiness doesn't come from our actual reality, but how we PERCEIVE our reality. So even if some moments don't seem so magical, they can be magical to you and at the end of the day, we can all live our fairytales.


P.S. And as my dear "friend" Anne of Green Gables said..."I went looking for my ideals outside myself and discovered it's not what the world holds for you, but what you bring to it. The dreams dearest to my heart are right here."

Funny little Sunbeams

Kris and I teach the Sunbeams (three year olds) at church and every week we are nearly falling out of our seats laughing.

Today's Conversation

Kris: Can anyone tell me how we start off a prayer?
Sunbeam #1: Have you seen the Barbie movie?
Kris: No, I haven't. So, when you are going to pray with your family - we usually start off by saying what? Can anyone tell me? If you can tell me we'll give you a treat (all hands go up to answer).
Sunbeam #2: We saw a black widow spider in the house. Now we can't find it. My Dad said they eat big animals...my mom said they don't. They just eat little things like fliiiieeesss (enunciated).
Kris: (Starts laughing) Yes, they just eat little things. Don't worry.

Sunbeam #3: I don't want anyone to smell me this week. But maybe next week.

Kris: (Laughing) Ok, no one will smell you. So when we pray...

In Sharing Time when they don't know the words, they sing anyway, and they sing really, really loud and we're on the front row. Today we had all the teachers and the music director laughing. Cute kids. Zero inhibitions and painfully honest. I love it.

I didn't leave my heart, but I sure love San Francisco

As Rudyard Kipling put so well...

"San Francisco has only one drawback. Tis hard to leave."

Amazing restaurants, Fisherman's Warf, Golden Gate Bridge, the "crookedest" street in the world, Alcatraz, Muir Woods...the list goes on. Fun times, good friends and good memories.

I love this picture. It's like our autobiography. Ha!

Blue contacts. Cool or alien-esque?

In the Arena

Snapshot of the May 2008 Shasta Expedition

• The mountaineers: Kris Sundberg, Rhett Boyakin, Brad Reeves, and Jared Smith
• The photographers: Kris Sundberg and Jared Smith
• The narrator and videographer: Rhett Boyakin
• The paranoid wife and blogger: Cathy Sundberg

The trek started in pinewood forest- green and beautiful.

But it wasn't long before the snow hit.

And got progressively more difficult and cold.Thankfully they were well-equipped with crampons and ice axes to conquer the snow.
The night before the summit attempt...watch the video below to see how they were feeling.


But despite the declining weather they did their best and tried to summit.
Until it got worse and worse and they got lost. Here is what Rhett had to say about that...

After hours of trying to find base camp the clouds parted for a brief moment and they found their way back down.

And although they didn't make the summit, they gave it their best shot - and more importantly, came out alive. Congrats team.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt

Outside the box...but were we ever inside?

The other day we took "family bike ride" pics. Sounds easy, right? Well, imagine trying to capture it.

One way would be standing in the middle of the road with the camera and having them ride past you again and again until you get a good shot. This would take forever and moving images are tricky to catch - not to mention the potential of getting hit by traffic. So naturally Kris came up with another idea.

Oh yes, what you see IS in fact a rope around my waist. I'm pulling him on his longboard and we're going around and around the block, the same speed as the bikes. Hilarious.


And totally worth it.

Oooowwwww....

Ha! Ha! Ok, ok...so maybe I've been whining more than he has, but for some reason our BACKS have been hurting lately when we wake up!! We have this awesome memory foam thing that's like 4 inches thick that we LOVED until just recently when it started caving in the middle - haha.

Sooooo, we took it off and are now sleeping on the cheap cardboard-like mattress underneath. Not sure if that's helping or adding to the back issues. "Oh happy dagger" - as Juliet put so well (minus the sarcasm).

So this back pain that wasn't taken care of initially is now turning into shooting pains down my leg. Ok, oooowwwwww. Time for a chiropractor, I think.

WWW.BURNTEXPOSURE.COM

We stayed up way too late getting this website ready last night...

The Grand Unveiling...Drum Roll Please

This week Kris and I are going to launch our photography website to use in conjunction with our photography blog. We're really excited. Once we launch the site, I'll put the link on here. Keep a lookout. And we LOVE feedback.



P.S. I figured this pic we took on our honeymoon in Kauai (in a mirror - ha ha) would be appropriate for the pre-announcement :)

SIX MONTHS!

On June 1st we officially achieved SIXTH MONTHS of weddedness!! :) As I've exceeded my allotted amount of sappiness in recent posts I'll simply give you 10 fun reasons why there is no one on this planet like Mr. Kristofer Sundberg.

1. When Kris is about to do something mischevious he gets a big smile on his face and licks the side of his mouth
2. Kris likes to touch feet when he sleeps and sometimes when we kiss it makes his mouth tickle
3. When Kris gets super stressed or anxious - he laughs REALLY hard, unnaturally and slightly psychotic at first...and then it turns into hysterical laughter - at which point I'm either really scared or laughing hysterically too
4. Kris was brought down to the local police station during college for writing an email to a friend that had the word BOMB in it
5. Kris is insanely good at Ultimate Frisbee - and had the entire LDS "Ultimate" population in LA combine against us to beat our team in the tournament last year
6. I've never seen anyone that can keep their cool like Kris - he never yells or even raises his voice (besides the psychotic laughter, naturally)
7. Kris and his friend Nick invented the sport "Smashpong" - http://www.smashpong.com/ which now has several dedicated enthusiasts
8. Kris doesn't believe in buying cards and will leave little notes for me on old wrappers, receipts, and paper towels
9. Kris is an amazing photographer - http://www.photographybytof.blogspot.com/ and drummer
10. Kris is a hopeless romantic. He loves to love which makes it really fun to be his wife and he literally finds beauty in everything