I have made it to the THREE year mark…that “magical” time when dreads come into their own. The rumored “three year bliss” does exist. My dreads are finally long enough, tight enough, wonderful enough to love fully every day.

This year has been a crazy one. Full of wonder and magical moments. Deep joy…and deep sorrow. Endings and beginnings.

It started out with us being back in Bozeman and living in a house.
We found an amazing midwife and friend.
We lived temporarily in Boulder, CO for 6 weeks.
Then, my brother almost died.
Then, my grandma died.
Lucy was born!
Family visited.
And more family visited.
We bought the Minnie Winnie.
We did some traveling and some more traveling.
We sold the Minnie Winnie.
We bought the Big Alpine.
Then, we sold everything AGAIN and went back on the road.
With TWO kids this time.
We explored Washington, Oregon, and California.
We flew back to Iowa.
We flew back to Montana.
We drove 15 hours back to Minnesota.
We flew back to the RV in California.
Whew!

And that was the year of 2009. All without the stress of doing my hair.
LOVE IT.

Yes, LOVE. I have not once regretted my decision to dread my hair. I really can’t imagine myself without them now. They’re just a part of my being.
Some observations in the third year:

• My washing/drying process hasn’t changed much. I still wash about once a week (every 2-3 days in the summer) with diluted Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap and rinse with diluted apple cider vinegar. I usually dry them a little bit to fluff them up. I will occasionally wash just my bangs mid-way through the week.
• Many of you have commented about the loose hair that I have in the front. It’s always been that way…they just never dreaded up, and I like them that way!
• I dye them blonde about every 3-4 months. I go to the Aveda training school in West Des Moines whenever we’re back in Iowa. The first time was pretty funny…they didn’t really know what to do with me and my crazy hair, but after they figured it out, it was fast and cheap! I love them blonde and I don’t really ever plan on dying them back to my natural color. I have been throwing around the idea of putting in some color on a few dreads…like purple. I love purple.
• My hair continues to be a spiritual journey for me. They have taught me about acceptance, change, contentment…and I continue to learn from them daily! I choose to be “set apart” from the norm of our culture…which parallels my walk with Jesus.
• I’ve been wearing them down a lot more now that they are longer and I like the versatility. I wore them back/up/under a bandana for 3 years and I paid those dues…it’s time to let them fly! I wear a rubber band around my wrist all the time though…I probably put them up and down 3-4 times a day depending on what I’m doing at the time.
• They still do their own thing. Some ends are looser than others. Some are super short, some are very long. Some are stick straight and others are like a winding country road. Some of the roots are loose and some are tight. And I like it that way. You cannot “tame” dreads, and that’s the beauty of it. I really don’t mess with them much except to wash them.
• Lucy loves my dreads. They are her built in toys and teether.
• I looove beads in my dreads. They make me happy.
• I have an incredibly supportive husband who loves my dreads.
• How long will I keep them? Forever I hope. When I am old, I shall wear purple…and DREADS!

In this third year of dreadiness, I have had the chance to meet up with more fun dready mamas. In Portland, I met up with Shauna and Monica. I love those beautiful, talented women! And of course Bethany and Jordan and Gillian in Eugene with their crazy amazing dreads.

In October, I was able to experience the “dready love fest”. I had the chance to visit Stephanie, “The Dread Goddess” at Akemi Salon in Portland (on far right in photo below). She did some much needed maintenance on my dreads…I recommend her HIGHLY! You can read about it on Denise’s blog here. For those of you just starting out and want to skip a lot of the craziness, she “crochets” dreads instead of just backcombing and they look great right from the beginning. It’s worth traveling to Portland to see her! Love love love.

When you have dreads and you are able to spend time in the presence of others who have dreads…especially other women, there is just something magical about it. There is such acceptance and love…it’s awesome. That’s why I love traveling so much…so I can find all of you!! Anyone up for a huge dready retreat somewhere where we can all be together? Hmmmmm….

Fast forward to right now…we are in San Diego, where we have spent time with the lovely Boho Girl, Denise and her family again. She took all of the amazing photos of my dreads. Thank you thank you thank you Denise…for making me feel beautiful!! We had a wonderful time communing and eating together…the time flew by too fast. She wrote about our time together on her blog here. If you aren’t reading her blog on a regular basis, you should be!

Here’s to another year of adventures…on the road, with dreadlocks!

If you are new to my blog, here are the links to:
Why I Have Dreadlocks
One Year Dreadiversary
Two Year Dreadiversary
My Dreadlock Journey – A Photo Gallery

Photos used with permission – by Denise Andrade – Boho Photography

We had 421 entries for the Lisa Leonard gift certificates…you guys really love her work!! Isn’t her jewelry amazing? And the winner trend continues…someone I know in real life is one of the winners! I guess I’ve just met so many of you on our travels that it’s not so random anymore!

Drumroll please…

Comment #123: Christina
I love her jewelry! My fav is the laundry line necklace.

Comment #292: Laura
I like the open circle necklace. Yours is lovely. How sweet is it that Lucy likes to play with it!

*I just spent time in San Francisco with Laura doing a photo session of her daughters.

Congratulations to Christina and Laura…you will each receive a $50 gift certificate for Lisa Leonard’s jewelry. Enjoy!! The discount code will continue until Monday…so be sure to go to her site and order your favorite piece! You can get 15% off your order (use the code “walkslowly”).

This weekend we are in Minneapolis spending time with my entire family…our last hoorah before we fly back to L.A. on Monday. Let me just say that I am looking forward to the sunshine! I love you Midwest, but you’re just too cold and snowy for this girl. Have a great weekend everyone!

xxoo
sara

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever. It remembers little things long after you have forgotten everything.” – Aaron Siskind

In 1997, I took advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity. A position had come available at the North Dakota Air National Guard, one that was highly sought after and rarely opened up…the position of “Still Photographic Specialist”. Otherwise known as “a photographer”. I was 1 year into college, and still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I had loved photography for as long as I could remember…so when my dad told me about this position, it got my attention. I went for a tour of the base, and the rest is history. My life was changed forever.

I held up my hand and swore to defend our country. I spent 6 1/2 weeks in Air Force basic training, and another 6 months in training at Ft. Meade, Maryland. Ft. Meade houses the Defense Information School, which is basically the artsy fartsy school for all military branches. What a hoot…try to imagine…military meets art. Crazy. It was so much fun…and I learned alongside some very talented people with whom I am still in touch with today (a big hoo-rah to my ladies!)

I spent the next 6 years working for the military…shooting generals (now that sounds dangerous!), documenting deployments, donning gas masks, flying in KC-135 tankers,…always in search of the perfect shot. I started on film cameras because that is all we had back in the olden days. In school, we learned in the dark room, with black and white film…and then spent a lot of our time shooting slide film. We only had a week or so of Photoshop training.

When my unit finally bought us the new fangled digital cameras, every one was excited, but almost scared to use them. The first digital camera I used sported a whopping ONE MB image size. Whoa! And we were all amazed. And after that, the technology exploded. And we always seemed to have the latest and greatest. I feel very blessed to have had such a great background in photography and in learning Photoshop. I truly enjoyed my time with the military and I am thankful for the experience. I went in with one goal…and that was to learn as much about photography as possible. Mission accomplished.

I finished up my bachelor’s degree in photography and design and continued to fall in love with capturing life. Fast forward to today…I’m now in business for myself, and loving every minute of it. I am passionate about life, and it’s only natural for me to want to freeze my favorite moments in time forever! My camera goes with me EVERYWHERE. When I don’t have my “big” camera, I use my iPhone. And this brings me to the whole point of this blog post.

I want to encourage all of you who are reading this to CAPTURE YOUR LIFE!! You will forget many things…but when you take a photo, you can remember forever. Who will be around in 100 years to tell about what you did every day? Not you! But your photos will be (if you remember to back up your hard drive! ha). Think of your photography as a treasured heirloom that you are passing down to your family.

You don’t have to have a fancy camera to take photos. As Chase Jarvis would say, “The Best Camera is the One That’s With You”. And for me, that happens to be my iPhone. His philosphy is to use whatever you have with you at the time to make amazing, memorable photos. Chase’s book is made up completely of photos taken on his iPhone (even though Chase is an incredible, sought after commercial photgrapher!). It’s totally inspiring. It forced me to SEE again…to really notice the details around me. In the book, he says,

“As an artist, I feel more free with the little camera built into my iPhone than I ever have with any other camera. I somehow recovered an innocence I’d lost, and I was able to see the world again for what it is: a beautiful, funny, sad, honest, simple, bizarre, and wonderful place. If taking pictures helps you see this, then keep shooting.”

Yes! I love this. As someone who knows a lot about the technical side of photography, I sometimes over think and over perfect my photos. I can rely on my gear and post processing skill to clean up a shot or make it into something that it wasn’t. I don’t have that luxury with a camera phone. It is what it is. Sometimes it’s grainy. Other times it’s too bright. Or too dark. And blurry. Just like real life. And that’s what I love about it.

Chase also has a GREAT app for the iPhone called “Best Camera“. I love love love it. The photos in the collage above are some that I’ve taken recently with using the app. I’ll be adding more photos (hopefully daily) to this set.

And lastly, here are some people, blogs, and a book that are inspiring me right now:

• “Within the Frame: The Journey of Photographic Vision” by David duChemin. It’s a MUST READ for every photographer. So good.
• Flickr…I LOVE Flickr. If there was word bigger than love, I would use it.
• Clickin’ Moms
• Shutter Sisters
• Denise
• Erin, especially this set.
• Lens: New York Times
• Sarah Rhodes
• Tara Whitney

I want to hear from those of you who love capturing life…what or who are you inspired by? Why do you keep shooting?

I’m sure many of you are already fans of Lisa Leonard’s amazing jewelry…her hand-hammered pieces of art are breathtaking! So…you can imagine my delight when she offered to do a giveaway here! Choosing just one piece was rather difficult for me…they are all so amazing. I finally decided on the “Jumble of Charms” necklace. When it arrived in the mail…I was GIDDY. It was perfect. I don’t think I have taken it off since then. It’s also become Lucy’s favorite…she loves the light sounds it makes when she plays with it. It’s just the right weight and size…and I love that it’s customized with my sweetie’s names and our family motto.

Are you in love? I knew you would be. If you haven’t been to her site, you must RUN there now. She does more than just necklaces…there are bracelets (for women and men), rings, baby spoons, earrings, and more. My favorite necklaces are Mama and Fly Free.

Lisa is generously giving away not one, but TWO $50 gift certificates to her site. In addition to that, she is giving 15% off your order (use the code “walkslowly”). The discount will expire on Monday, Jan. 11. I will choose two lucky winners at random on Friday, January 8 (entry cut off is 12:00pm CST).

To enter the giveaway:

• Leave a comment below with the name of your favorite piece(s)
• For an extra entry, put a link back to this giveaway on Facebook or Twitter (and then do a second comment here that says “FB/Twitter”)
• You will get yet ANOTHER entry for posting about this giveaway on your own blog (add another comment here that says “blogged here” with a link).

See you back here on Friday with the winner!!

{Arrival}

We made it to Bozeman! After many phone calls, we finally got our tickets re-booked after the blizzard/ice storm. We flew in on Tuesday and SURPRISED our family and will be here until Saturday. We’ve had a fun time re-connecting with our dear friends…and the time with family is so fun. Mindy (Matt’s sister) and Ryan have a little boy who is just 5 months older than Lucy, so it’s been entertaining watching them interact. They live up in the mountains and it’s so beautiful with all the snow. Here is where we are staying…although there isn’t quite as much snow this year! We’ll be back in the Midwest on Saturday, and then we fly back to our RV in California on January 11. Weeeeee! I’ll be ready to get back to the sunshine! I’ve uploaded some of the photos to this set already, and will be adding more soon.

(P.S. I couldn’t resist doing just one more DPP photo…I’m thinking about doing another photo project in 2010, so stay tuned!)

This morning as I was scanning through my Facebook updates, I gasped out loud when I came to Laura’s:

Most everything is burned/melted or water-damaged.
Only home my kids have ever known.
SO hard but thanking God we were NOT there!

Laura is the mama of 5 sweet babes, and wife to Jeromy. She is a photographer friend of mine and a beautiful, giving soul. I am so heartbroken for their family and can’t even begin to fathom that feeling of loss. They have lived in their home for 5 1/2 years…and to find that it burned down on Christmas day is devastating.

Please say a prayer for their family as they sort through all the pieces of this tragedy. If you are able to give a financial gift, you can do that via her blog here. Even just a few dollars will uplift this sweet family.

Photo credit: Taylor Christian Jones

{Tradition}

Mom’s famous caramel rolls for breakfast…a Christmas morning tradition. Hope your Christmas was joy-filled! More photos from our celebration here.

This is officially the last day of the December Photo Challenge. It has been so much fun and it’s forced me to be more present in my daily life, taking note of the details. I liked it so much that I think I will continue it…in some form. Not every day, but whenever I have something to share with you! Love love love you all…Merry Christmas!

{Worship}

Snow is lightly falling outside…creating a blanket of white as far as the eye can see. It’s beautiful. I am with my family, in a warm house, with lots of food…and lots of love. I am blessed. And thankful.

This morning, we awoke at 3:45am in Omaha and headed to the airport with the expectation that we would be in Bozeman tonight to surprise Matt’s family for Christmas. But God had other plans. Our connecting flight in Minneapolis was canceled and we had to make a quick decision between possibly being stranded in Minneapolis or driving back to Des Moines to spend Christmas with my family. We chose to come back…to guarantee we would be with family. It appears that our flights actually went out…but we had no way of knowing that at the time. Needless to say, today has been a very long day. But God is good, and He is always in control. We trust that there was a reason why we couldn’t be there this Christmas.

We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas Eve service at church tonight…my heart was full, thinking of the love Jesus showed us by coming to earth. Tomorrow we celebrate and remember that amazing gift. Merry Christmas Eve my friends!

{Held}

Today the girls stayed with Nana while Matt and I did some last minute shopping and errands around town…it was the first time she has taken care of them alone together and she did great! Lucy slept in the Ergo…it’s so fun to see my mom wearing her

{Delivery}

“Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures-in this century as in others our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together.” -Antoine de Saint Exupéry

You should have heard me squeel when my mom walked in the door with the mail today! Our package had arrived from Texas with all of your wonderful cards and letters. Thank you so much to those of you who took the time to make my day brighter. Can’t wait to get more! Here is our address for those of you that missed it.