8 states, 9 days, almost 4000 miles.

i planned a lot of details on this trip. i had places i wanted to eat, people i wanted to see, beautiful spots mapped out that i had never been to, tickets to see pretty lights at red rocks (totally one of my bucket list shows). i made 25 mix cds, we made the rental car reservation, packed up all our camping gear and hit the road. and our trip was everything i had hoped and expected it to be.

but the things that made it truly something i would never forget were wonderful things i had not planned for, and had never expected to happen so soon...

unbeknownst to me, the bf (karim) had planned to propose to me while we were camping in joshua tree.

the morning we left LA to drive to joshua tree, i found out i was pregnant.

and later that afternoon, after i had very tearfully accepted his surprising proposal, after an already very surprising day, karim told me he had gotten us another puppy and we would be picking it up as soon as we got back to portland.

mind = blown. life is definitely full of twists and turns.

needless to say things have been rather surreal since we returned home a little over 2 months ago. we eloped on sunday. our puppy is finally beginning to understand that our rugs are not potties. and our baby will be here in april!

in the meantime, i have many more weddings, couples, families and model tests to share with you all. and i'm looking forward already to next wedding season and to getting to know my couples more over the next year!

first images are from the bay area, where we stayed with a very dear friend. we walked around, went shopping, drank coffee, ate zachary's pizza in berkeley, amazing dim sum & delicious burritos in the mission, listened to music, and giggled incessantly. we left san francisco and went to the monterey bay aquarium on our way to los angeles.

next we drove down the coast towards los angeles before cutting back over to I5 because the 1, although picturesque, was making us sleepy and nervous (a terrible combination) with all the windy roads and the slow drivers. in LA we ate oki dogs, and visited griffith park. we were staying in venice beach with our very hospitable friend and he and karim went to medieval times that evening, which was not my cup of tea. instead, i embarked on a 7.5 mile walk, from our friend's house to the crazy beautiful venice canals, along the ocean to santa monica, and back. i did a lot of thinking and met some very interesting people on my way. the boys were thoroughly pleased with their medieval times experience. :)

and on to joshua tree. a wild and peaceful place i will definitely come back to. we slept away the hottest part of the day, then went for a hike (which is when we got engaged!). so many weird little plants and beautiful scenery.

on our way to red rocks in colorado, we camped near arches in moab, utah. arches is a place you can hike around in for a week straight and never see everything. since we only had a small morning hike, we'll have to come back another time and explore further.

there aren't any photos from pretty lights at red rocks, as i didn't want to dance holding my camera. but the show was amaaaaazing... and the next day we started our drive home. we had planned to camp twice more but we were really excited to get home after all this driving so we just camped once more, at willard bay state park in utah. this place was so beautiful, with a gorgeous sunset, but turned out to be the worst camping experience we have ever had. we took a little walk and saw all these dragonflies swooping about, which was really cool. but then we realized that they were there in such prevalence because the place was swarming with mosquitos. i had put citronella on but karim had not and he was pretty miserable. we tried to hide from them in our tent and go to sleep early, but the crickets (or frogs or whatever they were) were so loud all night that we got very little sleep. so, especially after that night, we were overjoyed to be home the next day.

happy weekend everyone!