dutch empire.

hey sweet friends!

i am excited to travel with y'all today! if you're not sure what i'm referring to.. the influence network is hosting a link up. if you're unfamiliar with the influence network.. you can read more about that here and then you should join because i can't speak highly enough about it!

the link up is a chance where we are able to share about where we're from and where we're currently living. so that means i am going to show you all the reasons you should come visit me - and then i can go read all the reasons why i need to come visit you!

i was 'born and raised' in the wonderful city of holland, the dutch empire as we know it.
no.. not in the netherlands though - although i did try to convince someone of that once. they believed me for a while until my accent started to sound a little more australian.

i'm talking about holland, michigan.

but instead of describing my town.. i decided to take lots of wonderful photos of some of my favorite spots and sweet memories made.

entering into downtown, the arriving spot for those coming by train. welkom.

the famous 'peanut store' where there is more candy than y'all will know what to do with. you can't visit without leaving with some sweet treats! - if there is any left when you leave.. and a hint.. their caramel is to die for!

found.. one of my favorite vintage stores. ohhh i could spent hours in there! definitely one of the spots i would take you to. along with spring sweet and the cottage corner.

we are surrounded by water and lots of outdoor activities. one of my favorite things i picked up last summer is stand up paddle boarding. have you tried it?

these downtown streets are lined with colorful tulips during tulip time. if i mention holland to people.. the first thing they typically mention is our awesome tulip time festival. i have so many memories parading down these streets as a little girl - in my big wooden shoes and dutch dancing outfit! and outside of the festival.. these are some of my favorite places to dine.

the other thing holland is known for is our beaches. they are wonderful! most of my summers have been spent on the lake.

when y'all come to visit.. it is a must that we stop by jp's coffee while downtown. mmmmm coffee that is local and delicious - can't get much better than that!

big red. that's the lighthouse. you can't leave without a picture of big red and the sunset!

as i mentioned earlier.. the cottage corner. this place is PACKED full of furniture, antiques and other amazing home decor. you can go there to shop or envision ways to diy some of the wonderful pieces yourself.

and you have to stay for at least one sunset! they are so gorgeous going down over the lake! so many people drive there and sit and read from their cars while the sun goes down, others stand on the pier.. but my favorite spot it tucked away up in the dunes with my husband on a blanket. doesn't get much better than that!

 

 

and i would totally bring you to one of my latest favorite spots!!! the downtown farmer's market! i started going there last summer and i can't get enough of it! we are totally supportive of the live local, shop local, support local and this is just one way to go against all that crazy factory farming that's going on! but that post will come later..

 

 

i grew up in holland and lived there until i moved to college. once college was over and i got married and we moved to holland where my husband and i are currently living. it's a central city between where i work and where he attends school. we're not sure where we'll be next - so we are soaking up as much of this sweet community as possible while we're still here!

ohhh i could have shown you SO many more places i adore in this town. just showing y'all around makes me fall a little more in love with it myself.

isn't it charming?
come visit?

one year anniversary!

yay!!! we made it to our one year anniversary!! what a crazy, awesome, refining, blessed first year of marriage we have had! of course, as in every marriage - there are the wonderful times and then there are the times of struggle. but we made it! :) we are SO grateful and soo excited to see what the Lord has in store for us for year number two!

if you're just joining us - welcome! i'm so happy you're here!

if you're interested in reading all about our love story - you can read [part one], [part two], [part three], [part four], [part five], [part six] and [part seven] to catch up on it all and reminise over our relationship and how we got to where we are today! :)

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so you might think i'm crazy for planning my entire wedding under budget and doing everything myself with the wonderful wonderful help of my family and friends.

it was definitely a lot of work - i wish i would have documented more of it.. i have some stuff and maybe i'll do some more in depth posts on that another time :)

our engagement was just shy of 6 months. 5 months and 21 days to be exact.

there was one month in there that i didn't have anything going on.. i had just graduated college.. and hadn't started my job yet. my momma encouraged me to get started and i thought.. nahh i've got plenty of time.

well, let me tell you.. 

she was right.

so right.

i wish i wouldn't have taken almost a month off from everything. [i seriously was probably the laziest person you've ever met and filled my time with naps, relaxing with friends, flipping through magazine pages and not a whole lot more.]

the rest of those months got so busy.

i was training and traveling for my job.

taking licensing exams. [that i ended up having to re-take both of them again because i failed them both the first time. talk about pride squasher].

planning and crafting our [my] dream wedding. you will be able to see a lot more hand crafted stuff in these photos :)

and trying to get our new yet temporary home painted, moved into and situated so we had a home to live in once we got back from our honeymoon.

what a ride it was!

but, we're here and we made it!

i wanted to share with you some [a lot.. get ready] of our wedding photos as well as some highlights from our first year of marriage :)

this was my dress before [on the left] and we took of the rhinestones and gave me some pearls instead [on the left!] :)

highlights and favorites from our first year.

- our wedding day

- our wedding night ;)

- flash mob [yes, it's true! we had a flash mob at our wedding. if you're lucky i'll hunt down the youtube video and share with you :)]

- our first holidays together and new traditions we're making

- movie nights

- figuring out how to live together :)

- growing in selflessness

- falling asleep and waking up next to each other [bad breath and all!]

- honeymoon in the bahamas

- sex [blunt, but oh so true!]

- cooking for mr. b

- outdoor adventures

- making our house our home and doing fun projects together

- watch so many different friend couples of our get engaged!

- road trips

- dance parties in our living room. alone. sometimes with no music. :)

- watching some of our friends get married!!

- pillow talk

- hosting friends and guests in our own home

- laughing together and making each other laugh 

- christmas vacation in mexico

- doing ministry with each other hand in hand 

this list could go on and on.. but i'll spare you cause there are still lots more photos to be seen!

especially this next one... ;) 

yes.. this is part of the flash mob. and yes, our flower girls and ring bear were definitely part of it!!!

reflecting on our wedding day gives me the butterflies.

it was such an amazing day.

it's been an amazing first year!

i can't thank and praise God enough for what he's done and what he's doing in us, our marriage and our futures!

thanks for reading along! you all are so sweet! :)

day six. part six.

ahh! we're almost there! this is the exact day [saturday] i walked down the aisle and married my handsome hunk! it's gone by so fast! :) here is [part one], [part two], [part three], and [part four] and [part five] of our love story

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during this season of dating, mr. b and i were living in different cities. not too far from each other, but far enough that we didn't see each other often. one weekend i was in town visiting him and was staying at his parents house. mr. b told me he had a 'day date' planned for us and i needed to be awake and ready at 9:30am.

on the morning of march 19, 2011 i woke up and got ready. while i was getting mr. b opened up the front door to his parents house and surprised me with a rose, a kiss and a cup of coffee from one of my favorite coffee shops.

the thought did cross my mind if he would propose but i didn't want to get my hopes up so i pushed it aside.

before i knew it we were off and on our way.

throughout our drive there were small surprises that he gave me.

at first i had no idea where we were driving to.

then the thought of chicago crossed my mind.. until we took an exit wayyy before chicago.

we ended up at a train station. this was on purpose to throw me off.. and it did!

we boarded the train and were off... to chicago!

we spent the day there and enjoyed each others company and he still continued to give me little gifts.

we hopped on the train back home that evening.

i was crushed. we went all the way to chicago and there was NO proposal! i couldn't believe it!

i thought to myself, and yes... even verbalized to him how perfect that would have been to propose because it was like our analogy for our relationship!

we got back to his parents house and shared about our day and started to sit down to watch a movie.

mr. b then called me over by him and asked me to come back outside to get something.

once we were out by his truck, he turned around and started to tell me how much he loves me. he shared with me how he knew the Lord was calling us to be together, to serve together, and to glorify God together. he told me i was the only woman in the world for him and that he would be so blessed and honored if i would make him the happiest man in the world and marry him.

i was shocked. totally shocked. so shocked that i didn't even cry. mr. b was shocked that i wasn't crying.. haha

i, of course, said yes! and couldn't wipe the smile off my face!

this was around 9:30pm - 12 hours after our day had started!

we walked back inside and shared with our friends and family.

 the moon was one of those moons that only comes around once every so many years.. i don't think it will happen again until 2030 or something? so my dad said we needed to get a photo with it! haha it's so small up there!

these photos were taken the night mr. b proposed. he was already changed out of his clothes and was relaxing when i realized we had no photos!

there are so many details to our proposal

- funny moments of how mr. b's dad walked out while right in the middle of mr. b's proposal

- or how my camera didn't work for the entire trip!

- all the small gifts and surprises

- details of how i yelled at mr. b the entire train ride home for not proposing in chicago

and so much more! to read our entire proposal go [here] where i posted it back when he proposed :)

and now we start wedding festivities!...

day five. part five.

we're almost there! oh it's been so fun sharing our love story here where all you friends can read as well as keeping it in a place where the memories stay for us to look back on one day! if you're interested in reading what happened before the break up... you can read [part one], [part two], [part three], and [part four] and then join in below for part five!

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yes... it's true...

we broke up.

we broke up on october 3

[crazy.. exactly one year after the crazy stuff happened with johnny and when mr. b woke up in the middle of the night praying for me]

a couple days leading up to our break up mr. b and myself were indecisive about being together. we knew neither of us wanted to date just to date. we decided to take time apart, pray and seek what the Lord wanted for us so we didn't keep going back and forth about questioning our relationship.

during this time it was hard. we were still leading a community group together in the dorms, separate, but we still saw each other. i so badly wanted to still talk to him.. but i resisted. he wanted to talk to me too, but refrained.

this lasted a couple weeks.. and then one day... i learned how to curl my hair.

 true story..

i curled my hair and got all 'dolled up' [this may or may not have been to make him jealous... whoops] before our community group.

he noticed me and commented that i looked beautiful. that was hard.. here i was doing it on purpose, but then to have him acknowledge but know there was nothing more between us was hard.

we started to communicate a little more and then a couple more weeks later we sat down to talk.

neither one of us could stop thinking about the other one. neither one of us liked being apart. we knew we wanted to be together. we knew we wanted things to end in marriage.

so on november 10, 2009 [11.10.09]

mr. b confessed two things.

one.. he confessed his love for me. this was the first time he had ever told me he loved me. i replied and told him i loved him too. [as the story of our relationship goes.. i knew i loved him long before, but hesitated on when to tell him as i was his first girlfriend and didn't want to scare him off]

two.. he confessed that he needed me back in his life and asked me to be his girlfriend again. i also said yes again :)

we continued to date from that moment on and put our break up in the past but do reflect on it as a necessary season for the Lord to speak to each of us individually and show us that he was calling us to be together. this was also a season of recognizing spiritual warfare in our relationship and how the enemy was trying to permanently break us apart.

[if you are interested in talking more about spiritual warfare.. email me and i would love to talk - it's something that we've experienced several times during our relationship, engagement and even marriage]

by this point we have held hands, kissed, and said i love you.. we were definitely picking up speed on our travels to chicago!

we set our cruise and continued to drive for almost another year and a half.

then mr. b planned a real surprise trip to chicago...

day two. part two.

if you're just tuning in.. welcome :) i'm sharing our love story this week as we lead up to our first wedding anniversary! to catch yourself up - you can start [here] -
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now for part two.

so we met.

from then on i always had a secret crush on him. it was on and off because so often i would think how wonderful it would be to date him, but how it would probably never happen. i tried to minimize my feelings for him but they always somehow found their way back to the surface.

[mr. b is on the far left and i'm on the far right for both of these photos. i was also obsessed with the peace sign and duck lips]

we saw each other every week for the group meeting and had lots of fun adventures together.

each week we had an 'after the meeting hangout' and it was always loads of fun. i always tried to sit by him and talk with him to get to know him better.

i sound like a creeper don't i?

after the school year was over i moved back to my home town.

we still kept in touch over facebook and couldn't wait for fall to start to get back on campus and see each other again.

some of the things mr. b said to me made me think at times maybe he liked me.. but i learned very quickly he was a very big flirt! [no worries, we talked about this before we had started dating and i told him he was super flirtatious. he no longer is - except with me :)].

the following fall, we got back on campus and continued to run into each other every so often and make small talk. i still continued to have on again-off again feelings for him.

at one point i seriously thought nothing would ever come about so i started 'dating' other guys. some of my choices back in the day were less than the standard. i realized very quickly that i needed to raise my expectations when it came to guys and not settle for non-believers. [this also has part to do with the lies i was fed in my high school relationships. i didn't think i was worthy of a good quality man.]

that school year went by quickly. summer came and i decided to go on a 10 week summer project with [cru.]. there was quite a group of us from our university going, one of them happened to be mr. b.

at this time i was still dating this non-believer we'll call... johnny. he was nice to me while we were dating and he was even sometimes romantic. i didn't know if i wanted to be dating someone while i was away for 10 weeks. part of me wanted to go down there open to whatever the Lord had in store and how he wanted to grow me. but the other part of me didn't want to stop dating johnny. so we decided to stay together while i was in va beach [where the summer project was].

on our ride to va beach, i confessed to mr. b how i used [i think this was a time when my feelings were buried and i didn't think i still liked him] to like him throughout our first year and a half of college. and after all - it was safe to tell him because i was in a relationship with johnny and didn't care what mr. b thought [or so i thought...]

as most guys are.. mr. b was shocked.

he claimed to have no idea.

then he continued to go on and apologize because he didn't see me that way and we were just really good friends.

talk about heart crusher! good thing i didn't still have feelings for him, right? ;)

our summer was amazing. after being there for one week i realized how foolish it was of me to date a non-believer while being a Christian and trying to grow in my faith. i called up johnny and told him that it wasn't going to work between us and i humbly asked him to not wait or expect things to change when i got back.

i remember feeling so free and blessed by this as i was obedient to God's calling of saving myself for a Christian man to pursue me like Christ pursues his bride.

by the end of the summer mr. b even spilled his heart to me about another girl he thought he was developing feelings for - i encouraged it too! wow.. what was i thinking?

i was starting to spend time with another guy - this time a Christian. he was and still is super nice and Godly, he just was not the one for me. he's happily married now too - which is wonderful!

summer was over and we packed our cars up and made the 15 hour drive back to campus for the summer.

[these are all photos from va beach. it's so fun to see how we've changed and grown both physically and spiritually]

the following fall is where the fire started to kindle...

month of september.

oh me oh my! i am SO excited for september.

not only is it one of my favorite months because fall is starting to kick in. the leaves are starting to change [and we have some beautiful trees here with gorgeous colors in the fall!!], warm apple cider starts coming out, i get to bring out the fall clothes, cooler temps [i love comfy sweatshirt weather].

here are the wonderful things i'm looking forward to this month.

- labor day vacation [i took yesterday off too, so i'm loving my 4 day weekend!]

- amazing awesome changes coming to the blog that i am SO excited about!

- a mini surprise vacation to celebrate our one year anniversary!

- our one year anniversary [that is photo of our entire party. what a wonderful day it was!]

- a week recap of our love story leading up to our one year on the blog!!

- celebrate mr. b's cousin's marriage to one of mr. b's college friend/roommate at their reception

- going on a road trip with these two friends and baby t to visit another wonderful friend and go to the country living fair

- some guest posts for some wonderful blog friends

- taking engagement photos for one of my besties [but not the official ones.. i'm not that good :)]

- going to a bridal show with miss riss and help with more wedding plans for her!

- taking one year photos of mr. b and me!!!

- another bestie is coming to stay the night with me and we're going to have a girls night!! woohoo! [sorry..gotta kick mr. b out ;)]

busy month huh? but it's going to be so fun!!! a lot of this falls on weekends.. so we will be so busy on the weekends, some of it falls during the week. we have a huge fair in the town i work in that is thrown into all this as well, which will make things even more crazy busy. but i'm so excited! can't wait to share all our fun adventures with you all too.

stay tuned for a fun-filled month!

road trip.

happy sunday evening to you!

i hope you all had another wonderful weekend! i have got to tell you - ours was loads of fun and packed full of laughter and memories.

mr. b's best friend got married this past weekend out in south dakota so we had a road trip! we drove 1450 miles and 25 hours in 2 days and let me tell you this trip didn't seem long at all. there was two options for driving.. and we chose the more scenic route. it was so beautiful and lush! the greenery was jaw dropping and i got to see the mississippi river!!! we drove down there with some wonderful friends of ours to help with the costs; which was a bonus and always a fun way to road trip! we had a blast during the entire trip and it was a blessing to witness such wonderful a brother and sister in Christ joined as one in marriage.

mr. b and L were in the wedding so e and myself enjoyed walking downtown and to the falls. the city was little, but it was gorgeous! here are some photos from the weekend..

isn't it a beaut!? that was the greenery driving through wisconsin and there were thousands of those wind turbines too! this last photo is the mississippi river!

here are some photos of the falls pre and post wedding with my lovely mr. b :)

wonderful right? yes i know my husband is ;) but the falls are too! i wasn't expecting them at all! i'll share more from the wedding this week. we had a wonderful weekend.. did you?

get ready for tomorrow's MENU monday.!! :)

- jennifer