2 Years

We celebrated our second wedding anniversary this past Sunday. What a wonderful and exciting year it has been. I feel so blessed looking back on how much we have accomplished together. This season of our lives is full of new beginnings and one of the reasons I started this blog is I do not want to look back and wish I could remember all the funny little details along the way. That ageless wedding day cliche, "This is the first day of the rest of your lives" always annoyed me. But looking back on the past two years, I realize that life was not complete until we became man and wife. We have had tons of struggles, but I would rather struggle every day with Stephen by my side than spend any easy or prosperous moment without him. The goodbye kisses and long phone conversations of our past feel like another lifetime ago. I like it that way.

While I recap this year I'm also going to throwback to September 6th, 2013...because when you feel like a huge whale, who doesn't like reminiscing to more attractive days?

Wedding Trailer Link

This anniversary, we spent a lovely Sunday worshipping with church family and then headed off for surprise dinner reservations from Mom & Dad Scarnato. It seems that in the craziness of getting ready for baby, our anniversary totally snuck up on us this year. Without that thoughtful gift I am not sure we would have had anything planned! Armed with only an address, the GPS brought us to the restaurant we had our rehearsal dinner, Mac's Steakhouse in Huntington. If you have never been there for a date, definitely put it on the list. Great service, great food, and we love walking around Huntington after dinner. 

Everyone tells me labor day weekend is the last opportunity to wear white for the year, so I wore a white lacey maternity shirt. Of course, at 9 months pregnant there is only so close you can get to the table at a fancy restaurant. I must have dropped food on my belly 3 times and had to run in the bathroom (I was going there anyway) to get the stains out of my shirt. I tried wearing my napkin as a bib but it kept falling down and then I would drop something underneath it. Stephen is very patient to be seen in public with me at this point. We're looking forward to celebrating our other anniversary (the Mexico one - 8 years this year!) post pregnancy. 

After dinner, we took a waddling stroll across the street to the Book Revue and perused the clearance section. I love that store, but I don't know how they stay in business with Amazon taking over the world. All the regular priced books are a fortune in comparison to buying used on Amazon. Internet commerce is taking the magic out of everything. =(

Stephen championed the gift giving this year. I was lame and believed our gift to each other would be getting our rings engraved finally. I was wrong. He surprised me with three little cedar trees. Anyone who knows me knows I am obsessed with trees and he figured it was time that each member of the family had one. We can raise them in pots and then plant them when we move into a house. He also showed me a bunch of stout beers that he picked out in a fancy beer yard he went to with Michael Plunkett over the weekend. (Plunkett and Sophia got married on Saturday, and Stephen officiated!) Someone told him that post labor, stout beer is great for milk production, and it stuck. So thoughtful!

All in all, we had a beautiful day that ended with watching Star Wars and discussing how exciting it would be to introduce a new human to characters like Darth Vadar, Aragorn, and Aslan. Aria is sure to be a huge nerd with us as parents, but at least she won't be boring. <3 Time to pack the hospital bag! She's a-comin'!

A Fruit-Filled Season

Yesterday we played around with some family photography. Baby on the way inspired us to invest in a good camera for our family. 

Though I feel enormous, I wanted these pictures for posterity. Nine months pregnant with our first child, it seemed only fitting to do a mini-shoot in a setting that represents another huge beginning this year. These photos were taken by my dad (grandpa-to-be) at Scarola Vineyard, Stephen's first client under his own business.

It was around 7:00 p.m., and we didn't have much sun left to warm up the lighting but the greenery in the vineyard is always beautiful. =) Someday I'll learn some fancy photo-editing tricks and make every picture look like a golden sunset.

"I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:5

A Note of Explanation

As Stephen and I come upon the celebration of two years of marriage I have been pondering how little time I have spent documenting this wonderful journey God has given us together. Our life story is so brief upon the earth and it is horribly easy to let it slip away without capturing the essence of our minute role in the metanarrative. I have attempted numerous blogs before. Part of my inhibition lies in the fear that something technological can become lost and irreparably forgotten. However, this fear does not motivate me to create a paper trail that can be burned or thrown out equally as easily. I have kept a blog since I was 16 and all of those entries are thankfully still here. Therefore I am taking a risk and leaving our mark on the world via blogger. If I can successfully maintain it as I would like, I will also print my entries out as I go.

Not only does September mark the anniversary of our marriage, but this year (2015) it also holds the momentous occasion of the birth of our daughter, Aria. With hopefully less than a month until her arrival, nesting hormones have kicked in full-swing. An unpredictable future can put many things in perspective when a new life is added to the equation. Time is fickle; however what you do with the time given can impact every life left behind when your story is over. I do not know how many years God has numbered for me; however, I know that each moment he has given me with Stephen is a priceless gift. I want our daughter, and any other child that comes along to have those memories preserved in some way. They are weaved into the network of her existence. Some day when she questions her place in this world, she must have a ground to stand on, a history to embrace, a reminder of God's promises always being fulfilled both to her and to the many generations before her. How can I give this to her?


When we started dating at 17, I spent an entire summer reading Stephen the Harry Potter series. Growing up with Harry Potter has an element of magic in it that transcends words on a page. Only those who have read the series as children can fully understand what I mean. Possibly one of three make or break moments in our relationship, was the discovery that he had never read them and could therefore never fully comprehend me. There was only one thing to do. A season full of beach days, hammock snuggles, and passenger seat commitment to engrossing Stephen in Rowling's magical world made us both fall deeper in love with the story and each other. Reading together is something we have since nurtured throughout our relationship, deepening our roots to the rest of humanity, travelling to other worlds together and exploring each other's minds in the process. Not only do I consider our love a story that is constantly taking shape as we journey through life together, but I recognize that our story is only a sentence in the masterpiece of God's creation. Reading, writing, and living out stories reflects our being made in His image.

But, the mind, though beautiful and intricate, is also limited by time and space. In musing over these things I was brought to wishing I owned a pensieve, Dumbledore's magical instrument used to store his thoughts and memories, as well as a collection of other people's thoughts and memories. I daydreamed of a silver basin in our home with swirling memories from our family's past that our children could dip their heads in and visit or revisit. What if our children could watch us fall in love in Mexico? What if they could stand in a pew as we said our vows on our wedding day? What if Aria could sit beside Stephen and I as we giddily oggled a positive pregnancy test in our living room? What other tiny moments have gotten lost in the fog of our minds as age and more momentous occasions have crowded out the little things they will never see or hear about? Unfortunately pensieves don't exist...but we muggles can get close enough with photos and taking the time that we have to remember and document. Dumbledore himself said, "Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it."

Therefore without further ado, I introduce the Scarnato pensieve, my attempt at recreating magic for my husband and children and preserving our memories as they happen. It is also our way of sharing with only those who want to be kept updated. This blog is mainly for our family, however we are delighted by friends who would like to join us on the adventure. I prefer this venue to facebook and other similar media, and will therefore be limiting my posts on those. Thanks for stopping by!