Well friends, where have I been, right? I’m so sorry.

I think this will be a a common occurrence so this may be the very last time that I actually apologize because life is crazy, life is busy, life is interrupted.

So I wanted to show you some pictures from this past summer. It was our first in Chicago as actual residents. We had the pleasure of living up in the north side of the city, close to the water, for a couple months.

Hub’s band was produced and has been on a label called Grrr Records. They are a little branch of this big community called JPUSA, or Jesus People USA. They are a bunch of Christians who live in community together in the north end of Chicago, just a few blocks away from the lake. They are amazing people, from all walks of life, living out their faith together while serving and giving completely of themselves. They have a shelter, a homeless ministry, a seniors ministry, a school, a roofing business, a design group, lots of in house bands, a church and a skate shop just to name a few.

We were blessed in being allowed to bum off them for a couple months while we got our feet off the ground. We moved up to Chicago on our 2 year wedding anniversary. It was a very symbolic time for us because we were starting over, starting fresh, starting in a place we finally felt like we could start actually living. I’ll get more into this as I continue with the Love Story but it was a refreshing and scary time for us both. A week after we moved into JPUSA, Hubs left on tour for a few months. He was able to come back for a few days at a time but for the most part it was very quite for me. So I would take walks to the beach. I’d tan, think, exercise…or not, walk, and just be.

The Lakefront Trail starts a couple miles up from JPUSA and runs all the way down to the south side of Chicago along the beach side. So I would head over to the beach and take a bit of a walk. Along the trail there are a lot of reservoirs and little habitats for birds and flowers and trees; it’s really quite peaceful and other worldly. Some places you wouldn’t believe you were in a city because the trees were so dense.

Despite the trials that we faced after just moving here, I was reminded of why we moved here by walking this trail and taking pictures of the beauty and diversity of this place we now call home. Here are some of them, and I’m so excited for this time of year to come around again so we can really take it all in together.

And this is my favorite. It reminds me of a mix with Chicago and Maine, two great parts of my life.