Here’s to the spirits of Halloweens in years gone by!
2012
Tired bumblebee
First time trick-or-treating at Dada’s office
2013
Cowgirl and trusty steed
What goes well, ends…not-so-well
2014
“Salad” the beloved horse
2015
Nice kitty
On the haunt
2016
Cheetah chick
Trick or treat
Stayed tuned for 2017! Do I hear the sounds of ‘Let it Go‘ in the background?
Happy Halloween to all your little ghouls and ghosts!
It’s all about the journey,
Beth
Ten years ago on my wedding day, I sat on a bar stool with a friend at Eleven Winery on Bainbridge Island and raised a glass of wine in honor of my last hours as a single girl. If you’ve been a faithful reader, you know what happened next. My friend’s cell phone rang. She got a distressed look on her face and “What should I tell Beth?” was what I heard her say until she got off the phone and told me our wedding officiate had been in a car accident, was on medication, and would be unable to take the ferry over from Seattle and perform our ceremony.
Sarah, one of the winery’s owners, offered me another glass of “whatever I wanted.” Then she crafted an email which quite literally saved our wedding. She posted a note on IslandMoms, a Bainbridge chat group, which read Urgent! Officiate needed in 3 hours. Miraculously, a guardian angel (Debbi!) responded to Sarah’s post, just in the nick of time, and made it to Morgan Hill Retreat where our ceremony would be held.
I’ve told this story ten times now and each time it boggles my mind. A trifecta of trouble! Six months before our wedding, the site where we’d planned to hold our ceremony and host our family cancelled due to a rarely used city ordinance pertaining to hosting events at a B&B. Then, only a month out from our wedding day, the B&B where we’d hoped to spend our wedding night cancelled when they suddenly decided to get out of the business. And on top of it all—this!
Despite the obstacles, our ceremony was lovely indeed. Afterwards we went for a row in the little boat (with only one oar–oh the irony), on the tiny pond, beside the cedar tree under which we stood as we said our vows. Inside the boat was a bottle of champagne. We raised a glass and toasted—to us—because we were married. Well…not quite.
You see our former officiate—the one who never made the wedding—also had our wedding license in her possession and we weren’t officially Mr. and Mrs. until that piece of paper was signed. For whatever reason, she was not answering her phone. In fact, she’d blocked all incoming calls.
We left for our honeymoon two days later and raised a few more glasses as we made our way from Florence, Oregon up the Oregon coast, stopping at wineries along the way, collecting bottles to be opened on our first anniversary and all our anniversaries leading to this one, our tenth.
Returning home to Seattle we got the news our wedding license was no where to be found, which meant we had to visit the court house one more time and ask for our license to be reissued. The clerk was in disbelief as we shared our tale. He said it was “the second worst wedding story he’d ever heard.” License in hand we took the ferry back to Bainbridge and met Debbi at Eleven Winery, my wedding gown stuffed into a backpack. What a relief to finally sign our license! Then we raised a glass to celebrate. We were now husband and wife. For real. If you look at our wedding license, it reads “joined in lawful wedlock on the 28th of July” and “witnessed on the 11th of August!”
When you take vows of marriage you make big promises to do all sorts of really important things. To be faithful. To be there for each other in sickness and health. To stand by each other for richer or poorer. But in that moment there’s no way to foretell the years to follow, no way to know if you’ll keep your vows, continue to love and cherish each other, or what fortune and misfortune you will face as a couple.
Over the past decade, we’ve had some wonderful adventures. Trips to China, Tibet, Baja, Hawaii, Paris, Amsterdam and London. The discovery of pursuits we enjoy (photography!). We’ve hiked and dined and explored. There’s been a lot of love, and we’ve each learned a lot about ourselves and each other.
Of course we’ve also had our share of hardship. Two close friends, two beloved cats, two of our parents, and one sibling have all passed away. There has been pain, literally, confronting bodies that age in unforeseeable ways. And let’s not forget major life transitions, like parenthood, that unfold unpredictably. Raising our daughter, an adopted child with unanticipated special needs, has brought its own set of challenges, challenges we never imagined when we took our first steps as husband and wife.
We’ve survived living in our dining room for four months with one elderly cat and without a working shower while our house was being remodeled, and endured enormous grief when our first attempt to adopt fell through at the last moment. When we said ‘I do,’ I know neither of us imagined the entirety of what we just signed up for!
Our marriage has been tested and tromped on, yet here we are ten years later. Together for better and worse.
Today, on our tenth anniversary, I will raise a glass to my husband, a good man who has stood by me and his commitments, even though I know there have been plenty of times when he sure wished he were somewhere else. And you can bet I’ll be raising a glass to us, to our marriage, to who we’ve become. As my husband has said on more than one occasion: We are a force to be reckoned with!
Here’s to ten years!
July 28, 2007-July 28, 2017
It’s all about the journey,
Beth
I’d barely begun my story,“While we were in Tibet your dad and I saw…” when my daughter interrupted with,“Where was I?” My reply, “You weren’t born yet,” was the only clue she needed. Time to move on to a new subject. Another story about mom? Boring.
2008 Beth and Joel in Tibet
I understand children are the epitome of self-centeredness. A world they’re not in? No such thing. Private conversation with my husband? A question to another adult? She assumes I must be talking about her. From my daughter’s perspective, there’s no me without her.
Most of us know very little about who our moms and dads really are. Their lives before parenthood happened in another time, a different dimension. It’s almost impossible to imagine your mom was once a 6-year-old let alone a young woman with an independent life, goals, dreams, desires. How ironic considering many people become parents, in part, so they can “carry on” their lineage and be remembered. Yet the life our children remember is the life lived after they were born. We might look at high school photos of our parents with curiosity, but we are clueless about the entire story.
When my mother was almost 16, she was riding on the handle bars of a boy’s bike. She fell and broke her jaw. Doctors wired it together but my mother missed most of her friends’ ‘Sweet 16’ parties. This was a pivotal moment in my mom’s life. She’s told me this story numerous times. I know she felt deeply hurt and alone. I can tell this was one of the significant memories in her life. I’m pretty sure this is why she never learned to ride a bike. But that’s really all I know. Did her friends check in on her during her recovery? Did she like the boy whose bike she was riding on? How did he feel about what happened? Did he visit her? If they were dating, did they continue to date after the accident? These are details I would remember if it were my story. But it’s not. It’s my mom’s.
What my daughter doesn’t fully comprehend is I did have a life before motherhood. In fact because I became a mom later in life than most, I spent more Mother’s Days as just Beth, not Mama. During those years, the experiences I had formed who I became and influenced the choices I made, including becoming a mom.
Beth, single, in 2002
Had I not spent a semester overseas during my junior year at college, I might not have fallen in love with international travel and international travel is one of the reasons I really wanted to adopt from another country. If I had married earlier in my life, I probably would have had a biological child. If our insurance hadn’t pulled out at the last minute, I might have given birth using a donor egg. Had our first trip to Armenia had turned out differently, I’d be the mother of a son not a daughter. If we’d decided to back out after another adoption fell through, I would not be a mom at all.
All these experiences, the minutiae, the twists and turns, the emotions and subtext. All these little details my daughter will never fully know or understand, make my story, pave the path that brought me to motherhood, the path that made me—for better and worse—the person I am today, the mother I am now.
A family of three in 2016
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms…no matter how you got there!
It’s all about the journey,
Beth
Our daughter spent the first year of her life in a “children’s home” in Armenia, aka an orphanage. All of the children’s homes I visited in Armenia (three in total) were, as orphanages go, “good” homes. The facilities were clean. Children had their own crib or bed. Basic needs were met. Our daughter was well cared for by loving nannies.
But nothing in that orphanage was hers and hers alone. The eight nannies who cared for her, also cared for other children. And whereas in most families a baby can count on the same person feeding, dressing or bathing her, a baby in an orphanage can never be certain who will come soothe her cries, when they will come, and sometimes whether anyone will come at all. Diapers were washed, hung on the line outside to dry, and reused. Blankets, towels, clothing—all shared. Everything our daughter touched or wore, was touched and worn by other babies. I’ve seen pictures of babies who were also adopted from our daughter’s orphanage wearing the same bunny slippers or the same sweater.
I think about this a lot, especially when I see babies being cared for by a mom or a dad, knowing that baby associates comfort and security with seeing the same face over and over again. The familiarity her mom’s arms wrapped tightly around her, how she smells, even the baby’s own scent on her very own blanket. Visceral memories deeply ingrained in our psyche.
As an adoptive mom and a photographer I also think about how the minutiae of infancy is meticulously documented, at least in the U.S. Most moms I know have albums full of pictures showing their baby being held and fed, sleeping in their crib, their first smile, cute outfits they wore. Images reflecting their baby’s life during that formative first year.
These are the kinds of things many kids look back on as they grow up, and ask questions about. What did I look like as a baby? What was my favorite toy? What did I wear?
This is why the day we took our daughter out of the orphanage is forever etched in my mind. I was excited and nervous because our lives were about to change and from this moment forward we would be together as a family. At the same time I felt a deep sadness, knowing we were taking our daughter away from the one place she’d lived and the people who had taken care of her. Imperfect as orphanage life was, it was all she knew.
Other than the memories my daughter has tucked deep inside, there are only a few things we can share with her about her beginnings. We have referral photos and a short video we received from our adoption agency when our daughter was a few months old. There are pictures I took on our first visit to meet her when she was almost six months old. But until she became a member of our family that is all we have, except one precious gift: a pair of tights.
When we picked up our daughter we made sure we had all the clothes we thought she’d need, because her nanny would change her out of whatever she was wearing before bringing her to us. We brought a long-sleeved onesie, cotton pants, a cotton shirt, a sweater, one coat with a hood, a cotton cap, socks and shoes.
We waited on a bench outside the office of the orphanage director. Her nanny dressed her in the baby room and then came down the stairs and and handed her to us. We took a few pictures with the director and then piled into a taxi and headed to Yerevan.
Two hours later, when we reached our apartment in Yerevan and changed our first diaper, we discovered her nanny had also put her in a pair of tights, blue cotton with pictures of buttons and spools of thread woven into the background. I remembered those tights from our “get to know you” visits to the orphanage. Each day when one of her nannies brought her out to us, she was dressed in an adorable outfit. One day she wore a tiny beret, another day she was completely decked out in a white hand-crocheted ensemble, and on yet another she was sporting the cutest bunny slippers. On several occasions her outfit featured the blue tights. But cute as those clothes were, they weren’t hers.
When I look at her tights now, I see a treasure, the one tangible thing she has from her days spent in a children’s home, and the only thing she can literally hold in her hands knowing they were once on her legs when she was a baby. The tights are tiny, only 15-inches long, yet enormous when I reflect on what they stand for. To me those tights are priceless.
It’s all about the journey,
Beth
March 22, 2012. Gyumri, Armenia. Snow lay on the ground and temperatures hovered around freezing. We made our way to the orphanage where our daughter was living. Our daughter. Only moments before she was simply a little girl who lived in an orphanage. Now she was ours and we were hers.
Two days before, we’d stood in an Armenian court of law and made our case as to why we should be this little girl’s parents. Then, on March 22, we went to court again and received the news our adoption was approved. We were a freshly minted family! But even though she met us six months ago and we visited her every day for a week, in our daughter’s brain we were just a couple of nice nannies in the rotating cast of nice nannies she saw on a daily basis. She had no idea what becoming part of a family would mean. And neither did we.
For some time I’d thought about retrieving a memento from the land upon which her orphanage was built, something we could share with her as she grew up, a physical reminder of her first home and her homeland. A leaf maybe? Or a small rock? When we first met her, it was autumn but still very warm. Gold leaves hung on the trees, shading us as we sat together on a bench in the courtyard of her orphanage. However now it was March, and there was nary a leaf to be found. We decided our treasure would be a small rock.
As we walked across the courtyard to the door of the building in the orphanage where she was living, skating across ice on the pathway, I said to my husband, “Now is the time. Let’s find our rock!” Joel’s eyes scanned the ground around him, covered with snow, and landed on a small rock poking it’s head out from a drift a mere three feet from where we stood. He stepped away from the sidewalk, took two big steps and reached down to pick up the rock, instantly finding himself ankle deep in mud. Who would have guessed—in the dead of winter, despite a blanket of snow and temperatures ducking below zero (F) at night, a slithery soft puddle of mud lurked beneath the surface? Mud dripped from his hands as he held up his prize, and we both belly laughed, a much needed release from the months of angst preceding this moment.
How fitting. A perfect metaphor for the days and years to follow. Fitting because family life is messy. Things rarely go the way you expect. And sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you find yourself stuck in the muck.
Gyumri, Armenia: March 22, 2012
2017: Our family turns five!
It’s all about the journey,
Beth
What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? This is the quote on a paperweight sitting above my desk, given to me some years ago by my husband. The answer to this question is not difficult for me. Photography! However turning my answer into reality took many years. And a lot of courage. 
I’ve fantasized about being a photographer since I was in high school. Anyone who knows me knows photography is, and has always been, one of my greatest passions. Doing something for money doesn’t make it more real, I understand that, but doing photography—and getting paid for it—is something I’ve dreamed about for eons. I confess I’ve spent too many years being afraid, telling myself I’m not good enough to put myself alongside the thousands upon thousands of amazing professional photographers out there in the world.
But you know what? Life is short. I have enough regrets already, like not being fluent in another language, or spending years (and $$$) chasing college degrees instead of traveling the world. So I decided to take the leap! Insecurities be damned.
And with that, welcome Beth Shepherd Photography! I’ve got a new website with a blog, and a business Facebook page. You can read about how I found the chutzpah to turn my dream into reality in my first post: Hello World—Let me take your picture!
Pampers and Paklava won’t be going away! But I’ll focus this blog on adoption, travel, gardening, cooking—musings about life in general, whereas Beth Shepherd Photography will be tailored to showcase my photography business and projects like my 365 Project (now in its second year!), highlights of photo shoots with clients, and any of my gal-about-town photography excursions and exploits.
It’s all about the journey,
Beth
Flavors filled my mouth as I tucked the amuse-bouche between my lips, and thoughts of parenthood filled my head. March 15, 2012. Our last supper. The final time we’d share dinner—just the two of us—without a child somewhere in the picture. Here we were, in London, dining at an impossibly elegant Indian restaurant with white linens covering our table, fine wine chilling in a silver ice bucket. Everyone around us was behaving in a very civilized manner, this being an upscale London restaurant after all, and no children as far as my eyes I could see. I couldn’t help but wonder. Would we ever enjoy an meal like this again?
Without a doubt, becoming a parent is one of life’s biggest game-changers. There are countless ways in which one’s life will be irrevocably altered. For us, in a mere 12 hours we’d board a plane bound for Armenia. And parenthood. I can’t tell you how much my mind mulled this fact over as I rolled each delicious morsel of food around in my mouth, listening to the clink of crystal wine glasses in the background accompanied by polite, subdued conversation.
What would it be like, sharing meals with an infant? A toddler? Would she be a picky eater? Enjoy the vegetables I lovingly grew in our tiny backyard garden? Food, whether cooked and served by my own hand or ordered at a restaurant was, for me, one of life’s greatest pleasures. At home, I spent a lot of time choosing which dishes we would eat and then cooking them. I found it exciting to explore new global cuisines. Reading about food, growing food, going out to eat, cooking at home…I loved it all!
Might my epicurean inclinations go the way of the dodo, along with private toilet time, gown-up music and Disney-free movies? What will become of my foodie self? Whenever I queried friends about what I should do B.P. (before parenthood), their advice was nearly universal. Watch movies—in—a movie theater! Go—out—for dinner at fancy restaurants! As we dined I was consumed by ruminations such as these, weighty as each of the five impeccably arranged courses laid out before us.
It’s all about the journey,
Beth
“In like a lion, out like a lamb” is the proverbial saying about the month of March. When March begins, it is still winter but by the end of the month spring has begun, even if it doesn’t feel that way in some parts of the world.
There are a few theories about the origins of this proverb. Astrology, for one. At this time of year, Leo is the rising sign, and by April it’s Aries. Then again, others have pointed out that Jesus arrives as the sacrificial lamb, but will return as the Lion of Judah. And sometimes this plays out with the weather as well. Calm at the beginning of March, followed by wild storms at the end. Weather-wise: false spring.
Any way you rearrange the proverb, or the weather, March is a particularly potent month for our family because March is the month we became a family (more posts on this in the coming weeks). My father was also born in the beginning March, so I often think about him as the month begins.
Unfortunately, this March has been a doozy for me and I haven’t published a post in five weeks! In the eight years (my blog anniversary is April 13) I’ve been a blogger, I’ve rarely missed a week. In fact, for many years I consistently published twice weekly! Why the lag? Well, I’ve been down for the count. Literally. I spent the month of December and early January recuperating from a partial knee replacement (doing well!) and then, a few weeks ago, I pinched a nerve in my back. Badly. I was in a lot of pain. I couldn’t walk very well and I couldn’t sit comfortably, which made blogging a tough row to hoe. So I didn’t.
But I’m on the mend and plan to do my best to make up for lost time and posts! Pain and hardship aside, I am also hoping to balance March 2017 out with some great news. Aside from our fifth family anniversary, I’ve got something in the works that I’ve been plugging away at for quite some time. Hope to post the big reveal soon!
It’s all about the journey,
Beth
“Why is that man yelling? “ my daughter asked recently when she heard a protester on the radio. This and other government-related questions have been frequent topics in our home lately. Whether it’s questions about voting, the president (past and current), or why mom and dad talk endlessly about something she has no clue about, the U.S. government has been at the center of many conversations.
My husband and I both do our best and try to explain Why this and Why that to our daughter, but it can be a challenge so I decided to bring in the big guns: BOOKS! There are a lot of books out there to help kids learn about our government, politics and U.S. history. You can find lists like this on Amazon, ParentMap and even the U.S. Senate! I’m going to introduce three books that are great for younger kids, like our daughter, who is 5.
Bad Kitty for President
Bad Kitty for President, by Nick Bruel, is one book in the beloved his ‘Bad Kitty’ series. In this story, the Neighborhood Cat Coalition must elect a new president. Of course no one knows who will win (wink, wink). Will it be the candidate picked by kitties on the right side of the street or the one chosen by the kitties on the left side of the street? There will be suspense because one candidate never registers to vote! There will be surprise in the form of a last minute absentee ballot sent by Old Kitty. But mostly there will be an entertaining and very informative book about the election process and democracy. It’s no secret that kitties are #1 in our house, so this book is a huge hit. This is a great choice for the age 5 and up club.
Duck for President
“Ha-ha-ha,” my daughter laughed. “Guess who Peter (her BBFF) and I voted for? DUCK!” Snort. Duck for President by Doreen Cronin tells the tale of a humble duck who lives on a farm and describes how he works his way to farmer, then governor, and then possibly the highest office in the land. We love Click Clack Moo, and this is another hilarious book by Cronin. There’s a little math and a lot about the electoral process. The illustrations are a hoot and Cronin’s books always share a lesson (like working hard but having fun in the process). This book works for ages 4-8.
This Little President
This Little President: A Presidential Primer by Joan Holub is a board book that kids age 2-5 will enjoy. The Little President is a rhyming book and covers 10 Presidents: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan, and Obama. This book is really cute and colorful, and the rhymes help kids learn names as well as a little bit about the presidents Holub includes.
I have always been a book lover and I must say that when you’re a mom (or dad) trying to explain life to your kid, there is nothing like a good book to ease the way. Happy reading!
It’s all about the journey,
Beth
This year I completed two photography projects! For my 365 Project I took one photo every day, of whatever I wanted, for twelve months. But I’ve also had another project in mind for a long time: Take pictures of our garden for one year. And in 2016, I did it!
Once each week, I stood on our deck and took two shots of our tiny—14′ x 48′—garden. I wanted to document the seasons, see which plants bloomed when, how plants grow and then fade away over the course of the year. I also took a few photos each week of the “highlights,” a few specific plants or something remarkable going on in the garden each week.
When I started my project, trees were bare, soil was exposed. The garden beds were empty. Spring came quickly, buds poking their heads from the cold soil, leaves springing from trees, birds returning to nest.
By June I was planting vegetables in our garden beds, tiny apples began to form on our espaliered apple trees, bees everywhere, baby birds finding their way to our birdbath.
As summer warmed, our plants grew and before long our tiny yard filled with shapes and colors and scents.Then came harvest, apples and tomatoes, basil and beans, all made their way from the garden to our table.
And as they did, summer turned to fall, leaves glowed in mind-blowing colors, brisk breezes through our yard, and once or twice, we woke up to a dusting of snow. Slowly, one by one many of our plants disappeared into the earth, and by December 31, it was all as it started one year ago.
By the time this project ended, I’d taken 104 photos of our backyard and several hundred of the various plants, trees and flowers in their glory. Here are a few photos, taken from the porch, to give you an idea of what happens in one garden throughout the year. Our tiny slice of urban heaven.
January 2016
April 2016
July 2016 
October 2016
December 2016
It’s all about the journey,
Beth
