Annual Fall Church Camping Trip | 2015

Back in October we had our

annual fall church camping trip up at Indiana Dunes.

It is SUCH a beautiful place and I never get tired of the sound

of crashing waves, the feeling of sand beneath my feet

and the beautiful sunsets God displays before us.

I had such a wonderful trip and had

many good talks, walks, laughs, photographic moments

(many of which were not captured :( ).

I am so blessed to be able to spend these long weekends 

with most the people I love!

I'm normally one to have a large, over packed suitcase...

I decided to downsize for a 3 day camping trip. I mean how

hard could it really be?!! Lets just say I went home with a partially 

zipped suitcase! it was like an erupting volcano :D  

I don't normally go on a trip w/o a caramel drink 

of some sort from Starbucks! 

I came out to the car the morning we were leaving for the dunes and my younger brothers

Isaiah and Paul had decorated the back of the van with a little "Hawaii or bust" decor!

on our previous trip last fall we had gotten the hawaiian skirts at a family reunion

and we had an hour drive back to ur grandpas afterwords. So I took the velcro and stuck

it to the ceiling and i would peek out and say "Hawaii or Bust" (in a weird sort of voice!).

So it was kind of a little joke we had, that I'd sit in the back every vacation and think we were in

Hawaii when we arrived (Because our 15 passenger van can fly and all!) :'D Haha, Indiana 

dunes at least had sand and crashing waves! 

Paul and I in the little shack in the back!

The sunset the first evening we were there gave us a very warm welcome!

(we'll just pretend it wasn't really windy!)

Michaela an I matched in our flat bills and we didn't even plan it!

That pastel sky ♥u♥ *all the heart eyes*

Campfires and s'mores

It is so hard to stay quiet when you're up late with these ladies!

we may or may not have woken a few campers...

The first morning some of us girls went down to the beach to have

Bible time. We attempted sitting on the beach but the wind was real

strong and our bibles were filled with sand. After probably 15 minutes

we went up into this building and it solved the problem pretty well!

After breakfast and devotions with everyone, we took a hike.

Thank you Emily and Michaela for being our navigators! I don't 

really enjoy following maps... I get all mixed up and think we're in a totally different location :) 

Me and Cassidy... When we finally reached the top of a dune & the wind was even stronger!

we all plopped down and tried to keep warm and block out the wind with our blankets! It even

sprinkled a little.

You can see a teeny tiny view of the chicago skyline in this photo.

Another beautiful sunset... I was amazed at this sunset in particular. if you look at the clouds

they formed this 'window' around the sunset! the rest of the sky was this dark grey sheet of clouds.

But there was this little opening with a beautiful view of God's creation.

 

The next day we had beautiful sunshine! 

Anna was taking senior photos of Cassidy so I asked if I could come along and watch ;)

Credits to Anna for posing Emily... I just told Emily to freeze so I could get a photo too before she moved!

I SPIED A SAILBOAT!!! thanks to my cameras excessive zoom you can actually kind of see it!

And this sunset was just... mmmm.... pure beauty!

I did do a little photoshoot of Michaela while at the dunes but I'm still editing them and 

getting them ready to post! I'm so excited because she is such a model!

Thanks to the random white jeep for randomly being there for this photo...

Makes it 10x beachier :'D

The last morning was so pastel and whimsical which was great for taking

more photos of Michaela! 

We came across a sweet old man with a very energetic, adorable, fluffy dog and he asked 

if we wanted a photo together. Yes I'm still in my pajamas but who cares!

I noticed I never get in front of the lens on trips because I get so stuck in the 

'I need to capture everything for my blog' that i forget to say "Hey Franky, mind taking a

photo of us?"!! (Yes, I just used Franky for an example!). So thanks to the old man for the photo!

 

I love how teal the water looks. It looks more like the ocean that way!

Oh, look! another photo of me :)

One last hike with some friends before departure.

The board walk through the swamp... It was lovely and one of

my favorite parts of the hike.

That sums it up mostly! 

Hope you enjoyed it (Its taken me a while gathering

all my photos together!)

Have a whimsical day,

Alaina

FALL | 2015 | Favs, Photos, Etc.

This is quite a bit 

later then I had anticipated posting it!

But who says you can't enjoy fall photos in winter?!

Anyway, I got a handful so scroll on and 

enjoy this season throwback :D

One of my FAVORITEST things about

fall is all the beautiful 'fall' hues that we can finally wear

(since summer is all bright and pastel ;D). One Sunday me and Kelsey

happened to be (almost) twinning so we took a moment to 

snap a photo!

 So, back in October a couple sisters and a friend whet to a young people's

conference... They get to have these fancy theme dinners and dress up

so us 'younger' people who didn't go wanted to have a party of our own! So,

Me and Mary decided to age a bit ;D this was too fun! 

we laughed so hard that day when we were getting ready, I had to fix my hair

multiple times. It kept falling out!

Took Valerie out for a photoshoot with a friend on her

birthday (coming soon!). They're the cutest best friends ♥

and their laughter is adorable! 

 I got my first dear magazine... Best magazines ever!

 Some artwork I did (on a leaf!)

I kind of redid my little corner of the bedroom and

redecorated it. I found this frame and decided to use it as a 

dry erase quote board (since I get tired of staring at the same

quotes all the time!)

Got some fairy lights in the target dollar section (Score!!!)

This year has been rain, rain, and more rain... But that's fine cause it

makes for some great photos

ah... the foggy mornings are definitely one of my top

favoritest things from this fall! so beautiful.

Also loved all the frosty mornings too ;)

 So... I like to bike whenever there's no snow on the ground

(If there is snow, i'll be running!) I did freeze my fingers that ride though!

I was used to all my Hilton Head island rides the previous week! 

Was able to 'shadow' my friend photographing another one of my friends 

senior photos which was really fun because I got to go on a random little

adventure with some of my best friends AND the location was beautiful (bonus!) 

Been really fascinated with shadow/ light reflection photos lately and

thought this one was cool! (take a moment to appreciate that mountain of hair on my head :D it takes some time to get it to stay up top like that with it being so long!)

And thanks to Kelsey for letting me borrow these sandals

  almost every day since she bought them! (She did end up giving them to me later on ;D)

Had a few backyard fires (in the fire pit of course!)

I was walking in the house after taking some pictures and

I saw this bright orange thing on my shirt but had to resist shaking it off so

I could take a picture of it first!

Had a billion movie late nights with Emily, Natalie and 

occasionally Esther (it seems like). I've been working on stuff for etsy!

(Emily and I will be opening one soon!). We discovered these sweet potato chips 

that are SO addicting! but their healthier than potato chips so

that's a plus!

I found the I am they band this fall and 

I love every song I've heard from them! Amen is one of my favorites. 

their harmony is amazing.

One morning I made myself go outside in the wet, rainy weather to take pictures

and i'm glad I did! it was so purty outside!

I am so thankful for a friend who let me borrow her Canon powershot for a few weeks

to get used to the Canon system (since I'll be purchasing a Canon in the near future!).

I had so much fun with that camera and I'm SOOO excited to get my own dslr!

So, every day I wasn't borrowing Kelsey's sandals I was wearing my minnetonka moccasins!

Mom found them for me at  goodwill for $8.00 (SCORE!!!!) I was so happy about this find!

Had so much fun with family and friends at our annual church fall camping

trip at Indiana dunes state park.. (post about that coming in several parts!)

This is the first year I've ever been able to capture the moon

and people ACTUALLY be able to tell what it is! got some cool shots!

More rainy days!

You wanna know what a slow/ lazy reader I am?

Ok, I set a goal at the beginning of 2015 to read 15 books. Easy right? (for some of you!)

NO... you wanna know the grand total of the books I read cover to cover?

a whoppin 3 books. Yep! 3!

This year I eased up on myself and set it for 10 books.

I'm currently reading Women of the Word and as a family we're reading Love Does.

I highly recommend both of those books! i've loved them both very much and i'm not even all the way through. 

 Ok. Last favorite of mentioning... my pinterest feed during fall.

It always has such cool, inspiring photos!

That's it! theres still plenty of fall adventures to be posted
but I promise, they're not random photos! it's camping, road trips, photoshoots etc.

Have a whimsical day,

Alaina

Sisters Mini photoshoot // Summer 2015

Yes, I did take a little pause on blogging
because I've been so busy with Christmas stuff
so I didn't have the time to blog!

So, late last summer

I asked Mary if I could have her camera

considering she hardly ever uses it! And of course being

the sweet sister she is, gave it to me :)

It's a Nikon coolpix p100. 

It's not a big fancy camera but I am 

getting as much practice out of it that I can

before I buy a pro dslr. 

So one evening I was all excited and asked Esther, Natalie

and Valerie if they'd want to go out for a shoot.

They were all excited too, which was great!

Her smile is beautiful ♥ such a cutie!

Natalie was great at helping me get the girls to laugh 

or smile for me.

This girl has gorgeous hair!

Where we were taking pictures there was a ton of
those snowflake looking wildflowers (whatever they're called!) so
we picked big bouquets of them and ended up dropping them all
since i had them climbing trees and running around :D

Today is Natalie's 13th birthday! I can't believe she's 
13 already =O boy does time fly. Happy birthday Nat!
Love you to peices ♥ May God bless you and may you draw 
closer to Him every day. I'm blessed to have such a sweet
young lady as my little sister :)

Also, Happy new year everyone!
I hope you all had a fabulous 2015 and I hope your
2016 is even better! 
I've been so blessed by so many people and
have had great opportunities 
over the past year and I can't wait to see what God 
has in store for 2016.

Thanks for stoppin by :)
Have A Whimsical Day,

Alaina