Mexico

Hey Y’all!

In case you weren’t privy to all of the things going on in the Baker home lately… we went to Mexico on a missions trip. Surprise!

We went with a team of 10 from our church. The team was made up of mostly members of our small group, which includes our pastor and his wife, but also their daughter and her friend.

I took so many photos (around 1,200 to be in-exact) that I had to split my favorites up into 2 blog posts.  I’ll narrate a little throughout the post…but most of my experiences, thoughts, and opinions of the trip will be poured out onto the next post. So, if you don’t like reading….this first post is a freebie!

Our group at the airport on Saturday morning at 4:30am.

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The group.

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We flew to San Diego and from there, rented a van and drove into Mexico.

This was our van.

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Just kiddin’.  Ours was a typical white church van.

But if we had had this van we wouldn’t have been spotted as tourists/missionaries quite as quickly.

We ate at some really yummy places while in San Diego that we don’t have on the East coast.

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On Sunday morning, we attended the Rock Church of San Diego, which was a cool experience. I had never been to a church that big. The Katinas just happened to be leading worship there that morning. AWESOME!

After lunch we drove across the border. Not as scary as I thought it was going to be, though we did get pulled off into ‘secondary’ inspection…and I did try to snap some shots, but got yelled at by the rest of the team. Actually, for most of the trip I got yelled at to ‘stop taking pictures’ and ‘put that camera away’, blah blah blah. But let’s ask those people now if they are happy there are 1,200 pictures to look at and reminisce about, hmmm? Thought so.

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Big Jesus also welcomed us to Mexico.

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While in Mexico we stayed at a camp where several missionary families live  permanently.  It was so awesome to live in community with each other.

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We ate all of our meals together. I even managed a week of kitchen duty (including washing the dishes…with the little scraps of food floating all in and around the drain. yeah, you know what I’m talkin’ about). IMG_7290IMG_7895

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There were many late-night runs to the taco stands in town. I only attended one, and that was enough for me. The tacos were delicious…the sights, a bit scary.

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They also have very interesting ice cream and popsicle flavors.

Here is Chris eating “Pineapple with chiles”popsicle.

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and Kallie’s face after she tasted it.

 

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My friend Kari and I .

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Following the week of working with the family and building them a home we drove around a bit and saw some sights.

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La Bufadora is a natural blow hole.

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Playa means beach. I think.

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I can’t wait to share with you about this cutie, Javier, and his sweet family in my next post.

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Stay tuned.

But in the meantime, please pray for Javier and his parents Bernardino and Lizzeth.

I pray that they continue to seek to understand who God is and what he means in their lives. That while we built them a home, there are other needs in their life that need to be met. God can take care of them, regardless of what they have and don’t have, but they have to trust in him to do it and lean not on their own understanding.

Virginia is for Lovers

I saw a cute print on etsy of various states, similar to the one found here.

I thought it was super cute, but knew I could do it on my own for way cheaper.

I started with a blank canvas I got in a pack of 3 at Tuesday Morning for $5.

It took me a while to decide on my color scheme,

but I’m totally in love with the end result.

First, I painted the canvas using my background color of choice, yellow.

Once that had dried I traced the outline of Virginia from a simple printout I got from the interwebs. Sorry Eastern Shore, you didn’t make the ‘cut’.

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I then proceeded to paint the inside of my tracing using my contrasting color, gray. I started on the edge and worked my way in. It took some delicate strokes to get in all those little nooks and crannies in the Chesapeake Bay area.

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Once that had completely dried I used my pencil again to freehand a little heart in the bottom right hand corner of Virginia, which is where I was born and raised and continue to live.

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I painted the heart red. After all, Virginia is for LOVERS!

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I love it, and it cost me less than $2 since I already had the paint and I found the canvas’ for super cheap. I haven’t decided where to hang it yet, but I’m thinking among the photo frame wall in our stairwell. We shall see.

Our Wedding

I recently realized that I still had not publicly shared about our wedding day. Our one year anniversary is coming up fast, so that put some pressure on me to finally put some things in writing.

October 2, 2010

It may have just been an ordinary day for you.

Maybe you mowed the lawn.

Maybe you went shopping.

Maybe you slept in.

For me, it was the most perfect day of my life.

 

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Now I’m not gonna lie…it actually wasn’t perfect at all, as no wedding is. It was a week long adventure full of ups and downs (more downs than ups, it seemed).

There were a lot of things that went wrong, or didn’t ‘go’ at all, but in the end God blessed us with an amazing day.

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Chris and I got married at my parent’s home.

Actually, in the backyard of my parent’s home .

It was spacious, it was beautiful, it was free.

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When my mom and I began discussing my thoughts on wedding things it was difficult for me to describe exactly what I had in mind. The only thing I really knew I wanted was that I wanted our wedding to be ‘different’. Also, we were on a tight budget so I was willing to ‘cut the fat’, if you will, and get rid of things that were ‘wedding-ish’ but that didn’t quite fit in with my vision. In the early stages of brainstorming I tried to wrangle my ideas onto an image board, which you can see here (at the end of the post). wedding-photography014

I’ll share more on the set-up and decor in a later post.

You can read about my dress shopping experience (and dress buying opinions) in this post. And then about my obsession with said dress in this post here. Chesapeake-wedding-photography103

My mom helped me choose my wedding jewelry, which consisted of earrings that were my mom’s, a bracelet that was my great grandmother’s, and a necklace that was specially designed for me by my Nana. The necklace was designed around a green tourmaline stone that my Nana had as a ring. She and my Pop had it re-set as a necklace for me. Unfortunately, my Nana passed away just two days before my wedding day following a long, painful battle with a bone marrow cancer called multiple myeloma.

image That is why I referred to our wedding as the ‘week-long’ adventure earlier in this post. Nana’s health had been gradually declining, as it does with a terrible disease like cancer. That week was difficult. I felt torn in so many directions. Wanting to spend time with my Nana in the hospital, but knowing that the show still had to go on that Saturday.

There were so many DIY wedding details that, in the end, were never completed simply because priorities had shifted. It also rained about 14 inches due to a brutal nor-eastern that hovered over Virginia the entire week before the wedding, which added to the stress. Our phrase for that week was “It is what it is”.

I loved having everything at one location. It made things so easy.

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My dad.   

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My girls.     

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My mom.

wedding-246   After we finished taking portraits all my girls and I scurried upstairs out of sight to wait for the rest of the day to begin.

It was fun to watch the boys and guests arrive.

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Our ceremony was short and sweet.

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My dad made the backdrop from saplings from their ‘back woods’.

It was beautiful and more than I could have even asked for.

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Chris sang his vows to me, which was also beautiful and also more than I could have asked for.

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You may kiss your bride.

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and then we celebrated by grooving back down the aisle.

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This last one is my favorite. It completely captures that day.Chesapeake-wedding-photography100

 

I’ll share more on the little details and all of the DIY things in another post.

If you want more details now, take a look at my mother’s blog to get a recap of ALL wedding details:

1. What a week.

2. When it rains, it pours.

3. Timeline from the engagement to the wedding.

4. Marriage Requirements.

5. Outdoor decorations.

6. The invitations and programs.

(don’t judge the typo in the program…it was a crazy week!)

7. Attire.

8. More decor.

9. The Menu.

10. What it cost.