indianapolis

I'm going to go ahead and just say this.  I never thought I would ever travel to Indianapolis for vacation. Morocco, yes.  Croatia, yes.  Switzerland, yes.  Boston or New Orleans or some remote town in Montana, all yes.  But when some of your best friends live there and you miss them and haven't seen them (other than skype, god bless it) for nearly a year, Indianapolis feels like the perfect place for a vacation.

All I knew about Indiana before making the trip there last weekend was that it was in the midwest.  And all I, embarrassingly, knew about the midwest was that it was humid in the summer, there are crazy thunderstorms, lightening bugs in the evenings, Dairy Queens abound, and baseball reigns.  What I discovered was that while all those things are true (and I got to experience them all except for a baseball game) what was especially amazing is just how friendly people are there.  I've always thought people are pretty nice in Oregon but people are even friendlier in Indianapolis.

We've only known Josh and Kari for a little over two years but it feels like we've been friends for so much longer.  We met them under the saddest of circumstances, at a grief support group, shortly after the death of their daughter Margot.  Only a year before that we had lost our own son, George, and so could relate to the heartbreak they were/are experiencing.  Up until we moved here we saw them nearly every week, sometimes more frequently, and they quickly became a big part of our lives.  They saw us through the latter half of my pregnancy with Clio and we saw them through Kari's pregnancy with Leo.  We love them like family.

And these great shots from Josh...

Turns out Indianapolis is a lovely place for a vacation.  Now we just have to convince them to leave Indiana and come live in Oregon.