Year 16 This year's Birthday Dress tradition found us in Reno, Nevada once again. (Reno now holds the location for four of the years we've been doing this.) As I've shared before, squeezing this photoshoot into our furlough travels and family visits while also trying to be pr...

It’s been four-and-a-half years since we evacuated our home in Kyiv and our life took a turn we never imagined. After a hectic year of living out of our suitcases, helping start a refugee relief work, restarting the Bible institute, and adopting our daughter, we relocated to K...

This year, I read a grand total of 23 total books. That’s nearly half the number of books that I read in 2024. I love reading for many reasons, but I sensed this year that maybe one of those reasons is to distract my racing mind with new information. Thanks to a few of the bo...

This year marked fifteen years of our family tradition. Back in 2011, Katie was expressing she wished she had more dresses, and we came up with the idea that we'd buy her a dress and do a photoshoot together. (Neither of us remember when we decided it would become an annual tr...

This year we marked 15 years of our Birthday Dress tradition. Every year we are faced with challenges to get it done (weather, childcare, sickness, motivation, to name a few), and every year we wonder how long we can keep it going. This year was no exception. Travel, children,...

Twenty years later, I still tell people Katie is my best friend in the whold world because, well, that's the easiest way to communicate to others that I still really like her. But honestly that title isn't quite right. It doesn't capture the realitry of our relationship. She i...

2024 Books I read a total of 39 books in 2024. As always, the year was filled with a wide variety of books—short books, long books, fiction, and non-fiction. Like every year, there’s always a topic I find myself returning to which I usually deem my theme of the year. This yea...

This year’s Birthday Dress photo shoot felt a little harder to squeeze in than normal. Not only are we on the road (as we usually are on her birthday), but this year we have a baby who’s at an age which requires extra attention, and this year was a special birthday. Katie turn...

Last night, Katie and I watched with tears in our eyes as the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, addressed the United States congress in person.

This year’s Birthday Dress photoshoot took place in Charlotte, North Carolina. This was the second year (of the twelve we’ve been doing this) that rain got in the way, but thankfully this time we were able to get a lot done before the rain started. When it did start to rain, w...

Twenty years ago today, I first set foot in Mariupol, Ukraine.