our halfiversary camping trip

i'm just minutes away from boarding a flight up to northern california, but i had a little time to spare and finally got around to editing these photos! to celebrate six months of marriage (halfiversary isn't really a word, i know, AND we're now hitting 8 months since our wedding day, so this post is a little overdue), we packed up our tent and sleeping bags, drove south, and spent a weekend in san clemente. as it usually happens, things didn't really go as planned: we forgot soap and fuel for the camp stove, the lantern burned out, and we had some awfully noisy neighbors the first night. but, we learned quite a few things, and it made the weekend that much more memorable. isn't that the best thing about marriage anyway? the whole point of it? to never stop growing in life together, to always love each other better? behind the beautiful pictures and "you guys are so cute" snapshots on instagram, things are a little messy sometimes. we butt heads, we unintentionally hurt each other, and sometimes we feel stretched pretty thin. but the secret ingredient to any strong marriage is strong communication. if you had asked us a year ago if we were good communicators or not, we would told you "yes, absolutely." it was something we were really proud of in our relationship, and we still are. but since our wedding day, we've also realized that there are a lot of areas where we still fall short in our communication. sometimes, it isn't even the words we do or don't say. it's our actions, our expressions - they say more than words ever could. so, surprise, we're not perfect. but we're getting better every day, and that's what counts the most! 

also, i didn't take too many pictures during this trip. we honestly spent almost ALL day saturday reading and napping, which was exactly what we needed. we had nothing on the agenda, just time to do nothing together and enjoy the outdoors. and that's exactly what we did.