It’s been awhile since I’ve updated you guys on where I am in life and introduced myself to some of my new readers, so I thought I’d take a minute to do that!

Who am I?

I’m Sydney, but go by many names depending on who you are…like syd, squidney, squid, syd the kid, and most recently swids cheese haha (I don’t even know haha). I went from sheltered, small town midwest living to living in Florida and traveling to places I never dreamed I’d go. While I studied agriculture business in college, I now am the administrator behind School of Wake, my husband’s wakeboard/wake surf school that operates in Florida and in Missouri.

I sometimes come off as reserved and kind of a loner on the outside, but once you get to know me, I’m talkative and crave genuine, fun friendships. I’m still figuring out this life thing, marriage, family, and me…discovering where God has my fit in this world. I like to write about things God is teaching me along the way with hopes that maybe someone out there relates and is encouraged too.

I’m a critical thinker and over thinker (which causes me stress and anxiety I don’t need sometimes haha so I’m working on that), lover of Christ, a new coffee drinker (though I’d say water and unsweet, fresh brewed ice tea are my go-tos), my family is everything to me, I’m a casual, nothing fancy, always comfortable dresser, awkward dancer (though awesome in my mind), love boat naps, LOVE to read…probably my all time favorite past time, I love action movies, WW2 history, wholesome love stories and chocolate covered strawberries.

I’m all about researching almost any product I use or purchase for others, and love finding good quality items at an affordable price (this keeps me from wasting things by purchasing and realizing that I hate it ha!). I am also the wife to my courageous husband, Kirby and a dog mom of our one year old Mini Australian Shepherd, Maverick. That’s kind of me in a nut shell.

Where we are in life

Kirby and I’ve been married for two and a half years. To be real, marriage is tough! Especially for an independent soul like myself, learning to bend, compromise, forgive, and humble myself. BUT, marriage has been my greatest adventure! Last year, we followed God’s leading and bought our first home, a small condo, in Fort Myers, Florida and through many changes now have our wake school and our residency there (whoop whoop, loving my sunshine state license plate!), but we still go back to Missouri to work during the summer months.

I LOVE our home!! It’s a 928 square feet, two bed, two bath, second story condo nestled up in the palm trees of Florida overlooking a grassy courtyard. It is everything to me because it’s ours! I’ve been simplifying our “stuff” and with the help of @nestingwithgace and Joanna Gaines have been working to make the space work for us and feel like ours even more. It’s been fun and freeing to slim down our things to create a more functional, more meaningful, cutter free home. I’m firmly a believer that if my space is clutter free, my mind is less cluttered and stressed.

We recently purchased our first boat for the wake school! It’s a Malibu, which is now the company that we’ve picked to work with and represent, for the long haul – another blessing from God.

We are in Missouri right now and are off and running with lessons and events. We just finished up our three day camp called Awakin. This was a God-inspired event, even the name where we encouraged campers to Awakin their passion, purpose and potential. We love working with youth – this event brought us so much joy to be able to create an atmosphere for the campers to experience Christ, hear the truth, hear how valuable they are all while having fun wakeboarding and wakesurfing.

This summer we are staying at my family’s lake house which is right on the lake with a big yard, so Maverick is the happiest of puppies. He is a champion swimmer and loves running turbo speed around the yard, jumping on the chill mat, and playing with Jersey the sheep-a-doodle and Auggie the Doggie, our full size aussie neighbor.

What’s new faith wise?

Faith wise, I’m in a seeking stage right now really trying to grasp true forgiveness. It’s one thing to say “I forgive you”, but it’s another to have God invade your heart to be able to truly forgive, like wiping away all the past junk to be able to see that person without remembering all the times they’ve continually, deeply hurt you and knowing it’s something that may never stop (because truly we can only change ourselves – not someone else) We’ve been greatly forgiven, so we have the ability and responsibility to forgive others. I know the truths, but I want to experience that in my heart without feeling like I am faking forgiveness on the outside because of lack of trust and the memories that still exist on the inside. Does that make sense?

What’s next?

That is the question! The answer is not that exciting haha. We will be lakin’ it at the Lake of the Ozarks for the rest of summer and will head back to Florida in the fall. We have a potential trip planned for fall possibly, but that’s still in the talking stages. I may pop on here and share some items I’ve purchased/researched for a baby shower I’ll be attending in a few weeks and also some face/hair/makeup product finds I’ve been loving (thanks in part to my personal shopper/makeup consultant, Hanna) In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you on what you’d like to hear more about from me AND if you’re new to my blog, I want to extend a warm welcome, I’m so glad you’re here! Thank you to all of you who follow along with my life and blog – it really means the world to me.