It seems like every time we go somewhere – I come home, not wanting to actually be home. Traveling and adventuring has become something we are growing so passionate about, and just yesterday we were talking about where we want to go while we were out window shopping for a new couch (which was entirely pointless, by the way – we ended up deciding to just keep what we have).

I actually said to Randy, “when the kids move out, I want to just pack a bag and hop on a plane, and just travel from country to country, shooting weddings wherever we go.”

Could you even imagine how amazing that would be?

I’ve never been one with my feet firmly planted on the ground. That was one thing I loved about the military – we constantly moved. In the six years Randy was active duty Air Force, we got to go live in Washington, Japan and North Dakota plus visit California and Texas – not to mention the surrounding cities and states that we got to explore (we didn’t do any exploring outside of Okinawa since I was pregnant almost the entire time we were there and Randy deployed to Afghanistan for a chunk of time – definitely one of our biggest regrets!).

As a kid, my brother had a subscription to National Geographic (not sure how or why he got it, I don’t think he ever even read them to be honest) … and I loved pouring over them each month when they came in the mail. I loved seeing where National Geographic photographers got to go, reading about the different cultures and people and amazing places this world has to offer. Somewhere along the line, the dream of working for them faded away, and as an adult I briefly considered joining the Navy when Daniel was about a year old, but I found out I was pregnant again, and that dream disappeared.

Nowhere has ever felt like home for much longer than about 6 months, except for my parents’ house. Every time I cross the threshold, it’s a mix of nostalgia and longing (even if I go there every week – it’s the same feeling every single time).

I think that’s why I’m having such a hard time with our current home renovation project. We start something, I get bored with it, and we start something else. Currently we have 9 home improvement projects going on:

• wood flooring in the main areas of the house
• new carpet in the bedrooms
• remodeling the bathroom
• moving the kitchen from one area to an entirely different area, and completely remodeling it
• adding on two bedrooms
• building a 6 foot fence around our half acre property
• building a chicken coop + getting chickens since we go through $20 in eggs a week here
• starting a little garden
• building a deck/patio

It’s absolutely friggin’ crazy.

Since Randy + I are both on spring break from our schools (yay for our 15th year in college!), we are going to tackle and complete the bathroom project. And we’re going to meet with a contractor about the bedroom walls (if you know someone local to the Coachella Valley and great, let us know!) … and we’re going to complete the back wall of the fence, so we can plant bougainvillea so that eventually the entire back wall of our property will just be pink and green.

Each part of our house is becoming something different we love about the world – a farmhouse style kitchen, a mountainy style living room, a desert style front yard, a flourishing homestead in our backyard, a bohemian style patio, a relaxing beach inspired bedroom for us … I mean, it’s like we can’t decide what we love most and where we want to be.

Which brings us full circle back to why I originally started this post and got off on the tangent of our home renovation:

We want to travel, explore and adventure.

We have just over ten years until our kids are all grown up, graduated and out of the house, which means we have ten years to beef up our global portfolio. We want to shoot in Ireland, Greece, Germany, France, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand (and have elevensies at the Shire!) … Could you imagine how amazing a wedding on an African safari would be? Or on the beaches of the Caribbean? A beautiful bride twirling in front of the Eiffel Tower? Or a dashing groom overlooking the rolling hills of Ireland? A couple standing in the middle of the Harajuku District, with the chaos of the lights and people surrounding them? Or how about a couple in the window of an ancient castle tower, like something straight out of a fairy tale?

A girl can dream, right?

Anyyyway. Until we can accomplish all those things, we’re going to be working on our house … and hopefully crossing a couple things off our crazy list over the next 10 days!

Have a great weekend, friends!! And remember:

love passionately, and adventure often!!

Gorgeous word art by Lily & Val.