I think it took so long to post this because I knew I would be pining to go back! But I’m strong enough now. I’m ready to just revel in the fun we had.

Not only was Japan amazing and beautiful and exotic (but not exotic enough to feel scary to me), having a week and a half with no responsibilities and no agenda was so refreshing! Every day was wide open with possible adventures and things to see and things to eat, all the while spending time with my very best friend and favorite person in the world. It definitely made the stressful weeks leading up to the trip worth it, in fact it probably helped make the experience so great! That contrast between stress and responsibility and the sudden disappearance of it was so much fun.

More pics to come, from the “good” camera, but I love my iphone pics too. Especially with the shakeit app.

There’s a certain freedom in NOT being able to control the outcome and settings as much. I’ve added captions to the images I felt needed some explanation or had something about it I wanted to be sure I remembered.

(you can click on each image you’d like to see, or start with one and click through them on the right hand side.)

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Matthew. My no-nonsense kid. He means well, but sometimes his honesty is too much.

So, a couple weeks ago, he’s grabbing my upper arm. I thought he was just being nice, kind of a snuggly thing we do… but then he says,

“Mom? Is this your muscle? Isn’t it supposed to be hard? Yours is really soft.”

Dave overheard, and of course, busted up… It’s become another one of our inside jokes, a great way to dig each other about being wimpy. Thanks, bud. I feel pretty awesome now. Time to get back to the gym, I guess!

This one is a very special one for me.

One day while eating lunch with Sophia and Franklin, I was overcome with happiness and gratitude for a really wonderful thing in my life, and I had to pause and snap a picture of it with my phone.

The best burrito in the world. A carne asada super burrito. A really lovely thing. I felt especially happy that day because the Burrito Factory had some new competition open up, right in the same shopping center.

The much-celebrated and widely popular Chipotle.

I’d tried Chipotle. It was good. But their chips come in a bag, not a basket, for one. And for two, it just doesn’t feel as authentic. And for three, the guy that runs the Burrito Factory seems really nice and smiles a lot and feels like the uncle you’d love to have in your family because you could have really great fiestas.

And on the day that I took this photo, despite the fact that there was a Chipotle just a hundred yards or so away… the line at the Burrito Factory went out the door. I love to cheer for the little guy, the small business, the underdog… and I love to eat the burritos. Que Bueno. Muy, muy bueno.

(btw… if you haven’t noticed, something funky is going on with my blog. I’m not sure why the word “description” is popping up above all my titles. It bugs. Sorry. I’m trying to figure that out, but I’m not the most tech-savvy person in the world! And also, I got my first root canal yesterday. That was not the best day of my life. Not the worst, either, but not my favorite. Not sure why I felt the need to add that part… but feel free to donate burritos to the “poor widdle Shannon” fund.)

I don’t know about BAD, per se, but definitely not portfolio-worthy. But I love them… Today’s edition of iPhone Wednesday features Matthew being Matthew. These demonstrate the essence of my boy. Total goofball, trying not to crack a smile.

What’s that on his face, you ask? I’m not quite sure. Some kind of goo… I think he got it in an easter egg or something… I’m not sure what happened to it, either. Scary thought. It’s probably stuck under the cushion of my couch. The couch that, remember back in the day, got eaten by the dog? Good times. We only have the one couch, it gets a lot of “love”.

Whoa… got off-topic there for a bit! Back to the matter at hand… the goo-faced Mr. Miyagi…

It got better as time went on. He kept improving his crazy facial decoration…

Good times.

But blog-worthy? Totally!

Thing is, I don’t carry my great camera everywhere I go. In order to muster the strength to carry that thing around, I have to be pretty sure I’m going to get some great shots. But my phone is always with me. So something funny happens, I grab that phone and capture it, regardless of how artistic it may or may not turn out. I’ve got a bunch of treasures just gathering dust in my pictures folder. What a waste.

So for the next several weeks, maybe months… I’m dusting off those treasures and putting them here. So… for the inaugural edition of iPhone Wednesdays, a moment that has already become a family classic line:

“Do you like my big face?”

Backstory… enjoying a delicious meatball lunch at Ikea one day a couple months ago… Franklin stuck an entire meatball in his cheek and asked us several times (because we couldn’t understand him very well!) “Do you like my big face?” He knew he was funny, but barely cracked a smile. I love it when funny kids deadpan!