Olympus High School Class of 2000 Alumni Website

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Aaron is 3 years old

We went to walk reverently around the temple grounds yesterday.  For one, the temple grounds have shade and grass.  Two things we are seriously lacking in.  Also, it gets us out of the house on a Sunday.  The kids had fun reverently playing on the stairs, the grass, the trees and the rocks and Kim and I had fun reverently feeding them candy to keep them going.   At one point, Eli was reverently playing around by himself on the stairs when he started running and reverntly yelled “The pioneers are going to get me!”  Mmmm, right. I forgot about how on Pioneer Day weekend all the long-dead pioneers come out to haunt those who venture onto the temple grounds.  Way to be on guard buddy.  We also met a family visiting from Logan.  They had 5 kids, and they had come down to Sanpete on a kind of ancestor finding trip.  They were so nice, we talked like we’d known each other forever.  It was the highlight of our Sunday.

Eli was trying to do exactly what Kim was doing.  He doesn’t quite have the “relax your face when you close your eyes” thing down yet.

Walking reverently down the hill

April kept stopping and posing for pictures about every three seconds.  This is one I actually took.

Janey at her most reverent.

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Those scary pioneers!

Playing “people” is Lyv’s first choice in toys.
Ah-Bee has People at her house- and that’s where Lyvia fell in love with them. She was overjoyed when I found some People at the DI for us to have! She plays with her People just about every morning. We have a house, furniture and families that she plays with for hours on end. She makes up names for them, sends some to work, makes lunch for a picnic, teaches the kids to go potty in the big potty, sends mail from their mailbox, puts the babies down for a nap and takes the kids swinging. When she play’s at Ah-Bee’s house, the family can even go on a car ride to swimming lessons in Bee’s People Jeep!
I love seeing her act out things that we’ve done as a family with her own little people! Going to swimming lessons and having game nights are favorite scenarios. But sometimes listening to her play is eye-opening! The other day the People Mom was telling the People Sister that she “had better stay in her bed for a nap or else no more playing with friends!” Hmmm…I wonder where she heard that?! But I loved coming upon her singing I Am A Child Of God to her Sister People when they were going to bed. (I’m glad good stuff is sinking in, too.)

Lyvia is a sweet girl and a wonderful big sister. We love her!

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people

We are soooo 20th century.

If we are not home- leave us a message. On our answering machine. Yeah- it’s not even voice mail, people! And no, I will not see your name on our Caller-ID, because we have no Caller-ID. I know, I know, “archaic” may be the word you’re looking for. I do have a cell phone that you are more than welcome to call. However, it really is for my convenience. I turn it on when I leave the house and usually switch it off when I get home. Feel free to call me- but be prepared to, what? oh yeah, leave a message.

I remember way back before you had to dial the area code when calling someone.

We get the newspaper on the weekends. That’s right. The actual newspaper delivered to our front porch. It’s wonderful.

Jason tucks in his polo shirts for work. He also matches his belt to his shoes. I haven’t checked in with Clinton Kelly lately, but is that still hip or not?

Using “Mr.” and “Mrs.” are still ingrained in me. If I am addressing someone I don’t know, I always use “Mrs.” or “ma’am”. Or “Sister Peterson” for those who are at our church. Lyvia has been taught this same thing and says frequently, “I think my Sisters at Nursery missed me this week!”

We were talking the other night with my sister (ten years my junior) and her boyfriend about people named Cameron (yeah- a whole other blog post). Jason mentioned Candace Cameron and the two college-bound students gave each other confused looks. “You know, DJ from Full House!” I prodded. “Oh yeah, that’s so old school,” they said.

My house is, what other people may classify as, “country”. I prefer “retro and homey”- but whatever floats your boat.

I say stuff like: Whatever floats your boat. And rad. And jive.

I am a Facebook slacker and Jason has no Facebook page. Apparently, the people who we want to stay in touch with are the people we chat with in real life. We also know nothing about twittering our tweets. (Come on, I blog, people! I can only keep up with so much social media!)

I just learned to text last year.

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I've said it before, and I'll say it again…

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Bun Bun

I’m in a rut. A blogging rut.
I just don’t feel like blogging.

I’m sure it will pass soon, because it’s not like I don’t have a constant stream of things to talk about. I mean just the other day I cleaned out my refrigerator and found some strange, sticky yellow gunk on the back of the bottom shelf. It took a soaking and a ScotchBrite to scrub it off- but I’m proud to announce I have a clean fridge. See what I mean? Riveting, eh? Well, there is always Lyvia starting swim lessons. But other than her just being dang cute in her yellow swimsuit- there isn’t too much to elaborate on. She is in the pool, splashing and having a jolly time. Happiness is water at our house. Speaking of water- the littlest Jones girl absolutely LOVES the tub now. I try to bathe her often. Well, that sounded odd. I mean I just bathe her a normal amount that anyone would bathe a baby. Plus, I slather her red-hair-fair skin with shea butter lotion with sunblock after every tub. It smells good, like clean baby. Lyv usually wants to “help” dress Millie- so I let her choose an outfit out of the drawer. It’s usually pink. Exciting stuff. I was also considering sharing my thoughts on little girls t-shirts with sayings on them. Here it is: People, there is no need for shirts with sayings like, “Daddy’s Girl” or “Princess Attitude” on them. Are you trying to give your child a complex or something? I wince when anyone in elementary school wears a shirt with any sort of “tween-age” statement on it. Stop buying these shirts and then there will be no demand and therefore- they will cease to exist. Although, my sister Bailey does have a shirt that says “love a lefty” with an awesome picture of this kid trying to write with his arm twisted awkwardly- the way a lefty does. Oh, yeah-it makes more sense if you know she’s left-handed. See, now you appreciate the cleverness of the shirt. And she’s graduated. As of today. Woah. My little sister is leaving high school for good. Now off to SUU to conquer the world and learn to make Slurpee runs at 11:30 at night before an exam. Bay is an amazing sister and I can’t wait for all the adventures to come for her. I’m not sure she’d appreciate me blogging about her future.

But, lucky for her- I don’t really feel like blogging.

It’s this rut I’m in.

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oh, nothing.

My parents are downsizing from a 3 story house that they have lived in for over 25 years to a beautiful house up on the hill with a beautiful view. They needed to get their current house on the market but there was a lot of work to do to get it ready. I knew that this was going to be a stressful time for them and that they needed a lot of help. So I offered to come up for a month and help them. Eric drove us up to SLC and then he flew back to Bakersfield to work.
It was really hard to work on my parents house while taking care of 2 kids but it was better than not getting anything done. After being there for about a week I was getting burnt out and then my sister, Kim, flew out with her son Alex who is Aaron’s age. She got us all working again. Aaron loved having a little buddy around for him to play with.
It also helped that my sisters Cindy and Rebecca came up for the weekends to help as well. Then a couple of weeks later my other sister Melissa came out with her family from Japan to help and to vacation. With my brother, Craig, coming out twice from Texas for his sister in laws wedding and house hunting I had the opportunity to see all my siblings. It was fun hanging out with my family.
We sure did miss Eric a lot but I think the kids had fun playing at grandma’s house.
Here is Aaron with his cousin Alex who is 16 days younger than Aaron. It was so fun to see Aaron interacting with Alex. They were chasing each other around the house and playing outside together. They loved each other. I just wish that Alex didn’t live so far away.

Here I am with Melissa and Kim before Kim left to go back to Houston. Melissa and Kim only got to see each other for 24 hours. You can tell that we are all so tired. I love all my sisters and it is so hard being so far away from all them because I think we would have a lot of fun hanging out if we lived near each other.

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Fun in Utah

I can’t believe it has been almost two months since my last post. We have been busy especially when I went to Utah for a whole month to help my parents move. So I have some catching up to do. I will start with some Easter pictures.
Easter was fun at our house. We celebrated Easter in between Conference sessions and the kids loved the egg hunt out in our backyard. Eric loves the Robin Eggs and using it as lipstick. I have never been able to eat that candy. Growing up I would gag whenever I would eat a Whopper candy and I don’t dare try eating one now.

This Kaylee’s first Easter and she loved it. I remember being 8 months pregnant last year for the egg hunt. It is amazing how time goes so fast.

Aaron loved discovering the candy in each egg.

Here we are in our Easter clothes.

More posts are coming soon.

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Easter Pictures

“Mom!  I’m hungry!”  I glance up from my shovel and notice offspring belonging to me is standing nearby looking at me with indignation and, apparently, hunger pains.  “Um, okay.  Go fix a quesadilla.  Can you do that?”  “I don’t want a quesadilla.”  “Hmm, how about a hot dog?  Can you warm up a hot dog?”  Offspring nods happily and trots off toward the house.  I breathe an internal sigh of relief.  Problem solved.  And, I didn’t have to stop what I was doing, which was digging in the backyard.  I’m trying to cover up the hundreds of feet of pipe that makes up our sprinkling system.  It’s not easy work, and I when I get going I don’t like to be interrupted, especially for silly things like feeding my children.  Is it just me or do meal times seem much closer together in the summer?  Breakfast seems just a few moments ago and the children are hungry again.  Thank goodness for microwaves.  It’s a happy day indeed when your kids figure out how to read the numbers and push the buttons.  All I have to do is shout out instructions from the yard: “Push three, zero, then start!  The green button!  That’s the start button!”  There have been a few mishaps.  For example,  chicken nuggets cooked in the microwave for three minutes on one side are not nearly as edible as those that have been cooked for thirty seconds.  Also, my children quickly learned (to their fright and my amusement) that one must remove all silverware from the plate before putting it in the microwave.  It’s alright.  A few sparks and small sacrifice of a bit of  “meat” and breading is worth being able to work uninterrupted for a few hours outside.  Yes, I have decided that summer is here.  And no, I don’t want to hear from those of you suffering from OCD about June 21st technically being the beginning of summer.  And yes, I realize there were three inches of snow on the ground yesterday morning.  Nevertheless, summer is here.  Children attending school will soon be finished this week.  I have partaken of the first small harvest from our garden.  And, I let my children run amok and fend for themselves for meals while I happily scraped about in my rocky maze of sprinkler trenches.  All of which lead me to this declaration: It’s summertime!  Now, go fix yourself a dang quesadilla.  (name that movie)

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I can’t be bothered with dinner. Summer’s here!

Sickness has come in waves at our house over the past week.

First, Lyvia had the stomach bug. There is nothing like a hurling sound through the monitor to wake you up quick! After lots of laundry, crying, ginger ale, pj changes and more laundry- she finally started to feel better. Much thanks to both grandma’s who came up to help us out. It’s the worst when your kids are sick. Every time Lyv would throw-up she’d say over and over, “I don’t want to, I don’t want to.” It’s heartbreaking! I just wanted to snuggle her until she felt better. Without getting myself soaked in vomit, of course.

Then Jason got it.
Then yesterday, I had it. Bad.
Apparently, the plague struck the Joneses!
My mom came up to save us yesterday, and bleached every hard surface in my house. I’m betting we’ve eradicated the bug.

My mom and I chatted about being sick when I was a kid. I have the honor of being declared “the worst vomiter” in our family. For some reason stomach bugs hit me hard! I remember my mom making us a little bed on the bathroom floor, so we’d be close to the toilet, when we had the flu. Jason laughs at me when I’m feeling sick and find it comforting to lie on the tiled bathroom floor! She would bring a few books and a cup of ginger ale with a straw in by our pillow. Then she would rub our back and speak softly to us while we “tossed our cookies”. Besides realizing that my mom must have a stomach of steel, I also realized how much she just wanted to snuggle me until I felt better.

And, I discovered, it doesn’t stop. When I had to come home from school, when I went through fertility treatments, when my wedding jewelry was stolen, when I have a bad day, when I threw-up every day while I was pregnant with Lyvia, when I was recovering from the world’s worst c-section- my mom was right there. Rubbing my back, speaking softly, bringing me books and helping me through the worst of it so I could get back to enjoying the best of it. She is an incredible example of motherhood to me. And I want to be like that for my girls- beds on the bathroom floor and all!

Thanks Mom. You are the best!
…And not just for doing my laundry yesterday.

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"blech" with a silver lining

As I type this post, I hear the constant noise of a carpet fan drying my basement carpet.

Visual:

My house smells like mildew and must and all I want is for it to go away. This whole big mess, which I will now title The Great Flood of 2010, all began on Tuesday when the basement toilet started overflowing. Luckily I was in my room when I started to hear the overflow of water. I bolted upstairs for the one toilet plunger in my house and immediately called my dad to find out what to do. He instructed me how to turn off the water to the toilet. Done. That was easy.

However, then he told me to lift off the top of the toilet to start diagnosing the problem and it was then that I knew I was over my head. And then I remembered something. Something so important that I almost didn’t care that all my nice towels were being ruined because they were on the floor trying to stop the water from entering the hallway. Justin was coming over, and for those that don’t know me, Justin is my boyfriend and the fact that I am actually typing that out on this blog is kind of a big deal. I don’t blog about dating unless it’s a hysterical story and I am no longer going to see said date again. Blogging about boyfriends to me means one of two things; 1) people will start asking a billion questions about our relationship and I won’t want to answer any of them or 2) I’ll jinx my relationship and we’ll break up next week.

I hope neither of those happen because of this post.

Anyway, back to the story. Justin has mentioned to me numerous times that he is “handy”. And by handy I don’t mean “handsy”, I mean handy and that he can actually fix things. As much as I like to tout that I don’t need a man, I actually do. And so when he told me this, I said to him, “One day I’ll test this. And our relationship will hang in the balance.” I think he kind of believed me when I told him that, too. He’s a smart man.

So as my dad is trying to tell me to lift the “bubble thing” and check the drain I hear the doorbell ring. I interrupt him and say, “Justin’s here. And he tells me he is handy. This is his test, Dad. Pray that he passes and can fix my toilet. Otherwise, we’re in trouble.”

And low and behold, he passed the test. With flying colors. For when we realized that it wasn’t just the toilet that was the problem, but the main drain line to our house that was clogged, he spent the next 1.5 hours helping me clean up the mess that had happened in our entire basement. And then he took me to McDonalds for ice cream.

Truly a man after my own heart.

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The Great Flood of 2010

Is time not just cruising by?! I honestly can’t believe that May is wrapping up and June is just around the corner. I am SO ready for summer, however, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with Jack out of school! The boy needs things to do, and Mom is just a little too boring sometimes! Anyways, I’ll try to do a little recap of the month. And seeing that I haven’t taken any pictures, this post may be a bit more wordy than usual

Speaking of Calahan lately this little spitfire of energy is my constant shadow. He sits on my lap while I work on photos, he’ll play by my desk or in the kitchen when I’m cooking, he has to have “mommy do it” which basically means only mommy can get him a drink, make him breakfast/lunch/dinner and all the snacks in between, only mommy can read him stories, play games etc etc. Most of the time I love being his number one… except when I need to go to the bathroom or want to shower! The other night as Tim and I just settled into bed Calahan started crying out for me. I took a deep breath, because I was exhausted and wanted to sleep, hopped out of my bed, turned on the hall light and walked down to his room. He was laying there half asleep, half crying for help. I asked him what was wrong and he said he was scared. It just about broke my heart. I kissed him and told him he didn’t have to be scared and that I loved him. He just looked up and said, “ok mommy” then he turned and fell right back asleep. I love this little boy. I love all his crazy ways, like how if he had the choice he’d wear jammies with his cowboy boots and his “robin” red sweatshirt EVERYDAY. How when I wash his clothes he runs up to me and says, “mommy, these clean?!” with the most enthusiastic grin he says “thank you mommy, thank you!” then hugs me and immediately strips down to put his freshly cleaned clothes on. How he is terribly picky and if you don’t do things the “right way” he’ll just throw what ever you were trying to give him across the room. Jack NEVER did that, seriously he never did. It makes me laugh when Cal does it, well most of the time I laugh, sometimes I just look at him and think, “really! you want to fight about this!” He’s so stubborn, knows just what he wants and I admire that about him. I can’t believe the boy will turn 3 this summer… he’s my baby!

Jack has become quite the little artist. He LOVES to draw and will sit at his desk every day and draw picture after picture. I absolutely love his creations. This picture above is Two Face from Batman. We’ve had a lot of conversations about Two Face lately. I hurt my leg in soccer and Jack was laying on my bed with me. He sprung up with excitement and said, “Mom, your hurt leg and your other leg, it’s like Two Face! One bad, one good!” I laughed and laughed at his observation, then squeezed him til he begged me to stop. Jack is sprouting into such a thinker and creator. Another one of his favorite topics is the “silent E” Out of the blue he’ll come up to Timothy or I and shout out a word that he thinks has a silent E, The other day he said, “dangerous has a silent E in it because A says it’s name” We try to explain to him that dangerous actually doesn’t have a silent E and then he’ll go quiet until he thinks of a new word that actually does have a silent E. He makes me smile every day. I love love being his mommy.

Jack and his best buddy Hunter. These two Star Wars fanatics would be tied hip to hip if they had the choice. Hunter has “the coolest house” according to Jack. The other day he asked if he could live at their house with all of their toys. Don’t you remember that friend that had all the cool things? Gotta love friends with all the cool stuff!

(this picture is from 2 years ago… kinda makes me miss my short hair!)

Timothy was sworn in last week to officaly be a lawyer in Utah. The poor boy didn’t want to go but thankfully he had to! It was the first official event that we’ve been to for his Law degree. Last year he loathed the idea of walking for graduation, so he just up and decided not to walk even though I pleaded on my knees for him to do it. You can imagine my giggly reaction when he said he “had to go” in order to be sworn in. Anyways, I’m sure proud of my man.

I’ve been busy with photos, helping my sister with her Delicious Health Classes in Midway, just finished The Help, we’ve been trying to get out to explore the beautiful mountains, so fart we’ve done 2 little hikes this spring, LOVE my Utah mountains! We also got a family pass to our local gym and are loving it! Tim and I have been working out and then we’ll grab the boys and all go swimming, they have a really cool inside play pool that the boys would live in if we let them. Anyways, this is us in a nutshell! Hope your May has been fabulous! We are very much looking forward June and all the wonderful things that summer will bring.

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May

It turns out that 24 hour access to cute and fluffy is officially not as cheap as we thought it was going to be. Do we regret deciding to keep the kitties? No, but I can tell you right now that if we had seen the numbers before we saw the kittens, those cats would be growing up in the ghetto of Columbus, Ohio.

It started out seeming like it wasn’t that much. We got them a cheap little litter box, some crappy litter, and a small bag of kitten food, which they didn’t eat much of. True, we also had to buy some kitten milk because they were too young to be weaned and we ended up buying them lots of toys and treats. There was also that travel carrier after we decided to keep them and the upgrade to the nicer litter and a few more kitty toys, but all in all we only spent about $100 on them in the first month. That’s really not that bad for pet costs.

Little did we know that just around the corner was…

• the $350 first vet visit
• the increase in appetite leading to $60 in cat food every month
• the increase in post-eating-activity leading to $100 in kitty litter every month
• the $200 second vet visit
• the $300 spay/neuter visit
• the $250 emergency vet visit for Charlie’s inflamed mouth due to his sucking habit
• the $300 emergency vet visit after Scout decided to nibble on some of the house plants
• the $100 microchip fee we’re about to pay
• the $100 damage to the wall in the guest room that we’re about to cover
• the $300 vacuum we need to buy because they won’t stop shedding
• the $1,300 pet deposit that goes on top of our regular deposit.

That’s right, folks. These kittens were born in July and they’ve already cost us thousands of dollars. Remember that the next time you hear that someone is trying to adopt out some kittens and you think, “Free kittens? Wow, what a deal!…”

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The Cost of Kitty Ownin’

Man, blogging is like pulling teeth lately. One of the downsides to doing this whole freelance writing thing is that I never feel like doing my non-paid writing anymore. Words, words, words…I’m so sick of words! (Theater geeks, anyone?)

I only have minuscule updates to share. We found a place in Cottonwood Heights, but I started feeling picky and we kind of let it go. I’m going to see another place in Holladay tomorrow, which is funny because the house hunt has been almost completely based on anywhere-but-Holladay. If this works out, I will be about a three minute walk from my junior high school. That’s not a huge selling point, by the way, since most of my junior high school memories involve doing various things to sneak out of my junior high school.

Nannying is going fine, although I can’t believe how often I say things like, “don’t touch” and “spit it out”. I think I’m getting a little better at toddler management in general, although we had quite the scene at the park the other day. I thought he’d want to play on the playground, but he wanted to play on the very crowded and active ultimate frisbee field. Since frisbees to the head are bad for toddlers, I insisted he stay in the playground.

Long story short, there was a lot of screaming, much of which was “mama no! mama no!” since he has a bit of confusion about the whole nanny thing. I ended up dragging him to the car while loudly explaining to him that I’m not his mother, mostly for the benefit of the other people at the park. I don’t care if people think I’m a bad nanny as long as they don’t think I gave birth to someone who likes to scream in the middle of public playgrounds.

No other news, really. Kyle and I both got save-the-dates for our high school reunions this week, but I don’t think we’re going to either. Kyle has a much better excuse for not going, what with it being in Ohio and all. Unless I invent a reason to leave town next August, we’ll probably be here. Even so, I think I’m going to give it a miss. It bums me out that Kate won’t be there, since she’s still in Iraq. Plus, with Facebook and all, I’m pretty up to date on everyone. Maybe Facebook will be the ultimate demise of high school reunions everywhere.

In movies, people go to high school reunions for two reasons: to show off and to reunite with that person they had a huge crush on. I can’t imagine what I’d be showing off (that law degree is frickin’ useless!) and the only person I had a crush on in high school is probably the least likely person to show up for the event, outside of Kate. I think I’ll wait for the thirtieth or fortieth, when the point of the event starts being that you can congratulate each other for making it that far and compare notes on what happened to everyone else.

It’s too bad, though, because they’re demolishing my high school. Unlike John Cusack in Gross Pointe Blank (the greatest high school reunion movie of all time), I will not be able to slow dance uncomfortably in the girl’s gymnasium of my high school ever again. I’d be less sad about it if they hadn’t also torn down my junior high school and the local mall a few years back. I’m going to be driving my kids to random parking lots in the future to show them my old stomping grounds and all they’ll have is a general confusion about the fact that their mom grew up in the back of an IKEA.

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Must…Blog…

It’s spring in Utah…Which means really nice warm weather one day and snow the next.

Bryan and I found a lot of bulbs last year as we were working in the garden, but this is our first spring in this house and we had no idea what they were going to bloom into.

It’s been really fun to see them grow!

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Welcome Spring…Maybe

I spent April 7th through the 11th up in Salt Lake with my family.  My brother was visiting with his family from Colorado.  Hmmm.  That makes it sound like he has families in other states.  He doesn’t, just to clarify.  Only the one.  But I digress.  We had a lot of fun hanging out with them.  We went to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point, which I must say is very cool, even if it is a tad pricey.  We also got to celebrate some birthdays and visit Temple Square.  Good times.  But (you were waiting for the ‘but’, right?)  I was so glad to come home.  And kind of delighted that this home in E-town really feels like home.  I hadn’t been away for that long in a while, and frankly, I missed my home and friends and life in Ephraim.  It didn’t always feel that way.  When we built our house, we spent so much time and work and stress planning, choosing, working, bleeding, sweating and crying that I thought when it was done I would feel this great sense of relief and joy at being able to finally live in my house.  Nope.  I hated it.  I was sick of the wretched thing by the time moving day came. But, (yay!  another ‘but’) the change from ’stupid house that I hate’ to ‘home sweet home’ did come, though somewhat gradually.  So, when I came home on Sunday night, even though the house was a mess and there were piles of laundry and dirty dishes waiting and a mystery smell emanating from the drain in the kitchen sink, it was really, really great to come home.

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It’s good to be home

I haven’t blogged in about a week. In fact, to be totally fair, it’s been longer than that since I “really” blogged and didn’t just put up some photos or video or a short link. I’ve been really having to drag myself to the computer lately. I think part of the problem is that it’s gotten nicer outside and part of it is that I’ve been unusually busy and my online time has been cut in half, if not more. On top of all this, I’ve been really pushing myself to stay on the wedding blog, since it’s still a one-woman show and it’s turning into something of a three-ring circus over there. So, those are all my excuses for not blogging.

I really need to blog, though, because part of the purpose of this blog (outside of sharing incredibly personal information with strangers and people from law school who never really liked me anyway) is to keep my long-distance friends and family up to date on our little life. Because I’ve fallen behind, I have a lot to update everyone on. In fact, it’s safe to say that I have more to blog about right now than I have in a really long time. (And no, this post isn’t focused on my hair.)

There have been a ton of changes with us lately. I hate change, by the way. Is there anyone who really likes it? I’m always really reluctant to change too at once, especially if I don’t feel like I have control over anything, even if the changes are good ones. All of our recent changes have been good, but they make me want to roll over and take a big fat nap.

Anyway, updates and changes in no particular order:

• No, not pregnant. I feel like people are going to be looking for that from now on, but (as a heads up) I won’t be telling anyone even if we do get pregnant because I’m understandably more cautious these days. It will be a “Oh, we’re pregnant! And it’s a boy! And I’m having him in about four days!” kind of post, but we have a good couple of years before that’s going to happen. So no holding of the breath, please.

• We made a decision about the house thing. I really can’t commit to buying right now, since I can’t commit to anything that permanent, so we’re going to rent an apartment. We thought about renting a house or townhome or anything with a bit more room, but we’ve decided that we don’t want to have to maintain that much while it’s just the two of us. Plus, whatever we save on our rent goes towards our future mortgage. However, although many people made good arguments about scaling down to a one bedroom apartment, we’re getting a two bedroom in the Cottonwood Heights area because sometimes we really just need to be able to retreat to our own spaces so we don’t strangle each other. (Hopefully that doesn’t say anything terrible about our marriage!)

• Our car got totaled when a woman hit Kyle in the city library parking lot. We’ve actually got two cars, but one has been broken since we got it in August and since Kyle takes public transportation a lot and I’ve been working at home, we’ve just been sharing my trusty old Jeep. Luckily, Kyle wasn’t hurt in the accident but Baby (my Jeep) isn’t going to make it through the summer, so we’re going to take the insurance money and get something else soon. I’m on the hunt right now for a car dealership that isn’t going to rip us off. I’m sad about my Jeep, just because I’ve had her forever, but there are worse problems in life than having the opportunity to buy a new car.

• I got another job. Now that I’m officially not going to be worried about maternity leave or daycare for a long time, I didn’t really have an excuse not to go out and work. Plus, although the freelancing is working out nicely, I actually have a harder time organizing my day if I don’t have to do anything, so I needed an outside responsibility to balance things out. So, I’m now a nanny forty hours a week for a pair of doctors who have a two year old son. Yes, I’m probably the most overqualified nanny in the world, but I needed something that was semi-flexible so I could keep up my freelancing and other projects. I work two to four really long days and have the rest of the week off, so that works out nicely for me, and they’re paying me much more than they probably should. Plus, I just hang out with the kid all day and he takes three-hour naps, so I have time to work even when I have him. The other benefit is that it’s definitely curbing my mommy urge. He’s about the cutest kid in the world, but I’m pretty relieved to leave him at the end of the day so I can get the stickiness out of my hair. I never realized how much work it is just to make it to the grocery store or the bank when you have to worry about diapers and car seats and temper tantrums.

A trip to the zoo, where we watched the same elephant for an hour
because a certain someone had no interest in the rest of the park.
An hour.

That’s about it. There are other exciting things in the works that I might be sharing in a while, but right now we’re just worried about buying a car and getting ourselves moved. It really is like we’ve been on hold for a long time and now we’re moving forward, even if it’s not in a direction I thought we’d be taking. It might be lazy, but I’m sort of looking forward to just laying low for a while, with minimal responsibility and lots of saving up for bigger things in the future. As crazy as this life is, I’m still so grateful that I’ve ended up in a place where Kyle and I have lots of time to spend together and we don’t feel pressured to do anything we don’t want to. Sometimes, I think we really couldn’t have asked for more right now.

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Changes

When I left Tallahassee I was 32 weeks pregnant and excited about a two week trip to see family and friends. I am now 36 weeks pregnant and STILL in UTAH! Why you ask? The first week I was here I got a really bad cold that turned into a sinus infection and the second week I was here I got the stomach flu. With all of the wonderful symptoms that go along with those illnesses, coughing like crazy and throwing up it threw me into preterm labor. I went to the hospital and low and behold I was dilated to a 2. The Dr. highly recommended that I didn’t get on an airplane while still pregnant. So I am here waiting for this little guy to arrive.

Scott was with me the 2nd week I was here but had to return to FL to take care of our doggies and house for 2 1/2 weeks. I think that is the longest we have been apart since we got married and hopefully we won’t have to do this ever again.

Although all of this seemed quite annoying when it all first started to happen, I have been realizing more and more the reasons for why this is happening this way. For example, while Scott was here the first time around there was a PDL soccer team that he tried out for in Ogden. He didn’t make the team and figured it was because he was too old for that league. Then a week later the coach called him and told him he was the best player out there and the only reason that he didn’t choose him to play for his team was because of his age. I guess in the past the coach took some older players and they always seem to quit because family and work were priorities. Any way, the couch said that since he was going to be here anyway that he could come train with the team. So there is one resson I got stuck here in good old Utah. If we would have been back in FL Scott wouldn’t have the opporunity to train with the team and the possibility of still playing for this team.

Our wonderful friend back in Tallahassee is taking care of our dogs and our house until we get back and who knows when that will be so thank goodness for our friend Lila!

We are staying at my parents for now and see Scott’s family quite often. The best part about being stuck here is that we get to be around family for a good 2 months. I am sure that will just make it harder to leave when the time comes but for now we are just going to soak it all in. Logan LOVES being around so much family! There is always someone to play with and laugh at!

He is growing up so fast! He is starting to say more and more words and has such a funny little personality. I am so grateful that he is so easy going because I am sure there are some babies/toddlers who wouldn’t be as happy without the comfort of their own house.

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Not the trip to Utah that I had planned…

Interesting factoid about goldfish: if you buy a goldfish and you put it in a little bowl, it will stay little. However, if you put it in a larger bowl, it will get bigger and it will never fit in that little bowl again.

The same seems to be true for me and Kyle. Well, not that we get bigger (although that would be the best excuse for weight gain yet!). It seems that no matter where we live, we accumulate enough stuff to fill our home up. When I moved to Ohio, I shared an apartment with another law student and had a very spartan existence…a small bed, a small desk, a reading chair, and a little bookcase. When I got my own studio apartment, I got a little couch, a TV, a little table, etc. Then, when Kyle and I moved in together, we managed to take our two bedroom apartment and fill it to the brim with stuff. Fabulous stuff, but stuff nonetheless, which is why it looked like this when we moved out of it:

Now that we’ve been staying with my parents, my husband and I have taken over two of the upstairs rooms and most of the basement. I don’t know how or why, but we’ve actually managed to acquire even more stuff since the move…probably because we’ve never had a basement to fill before. So, when we were looking for a place, we kept thinking that it had to be at least three or four bedrooms with a good sized basement…and perhaps a garage…and maybe a storage shed out back. I mean, where else are we going to put all of this STUFF?

Recently, however, I realized that we’re probably going about this the wrong way.

I was perfectly happy in my own little space when I had a studio apartment and Kyle was perfectly happy living for years in half of a bedroom with his college roommates. So how is it that we’ve become unable to live together in tiny spaces? I think that Kyle and I, just like goldfish, have been adapting to our larger living spaces simply because we could…not because we actually had to. The downside to this, of course, is that we keep getting more stuff, which requires more housework, more storage, and more keeping-track-of.

So, now that I’m officially off the house-buying wagon for a little while (I’m sorry, but the whole buying a house thing was way no fun), I’m actually wondering if Kyle and I should go the other direction and just rent a one bedroom apartment. It’s apparently going to just be the two of us, at least for the upcoming year, and realistically, what do we need? A place to sleep, a place to eat, a place to hang out, and a little corner for me to do my writing. Beyond that, the rest of the space is just a place to put objects we like and people who come to visit.

What do you think? Is getting larger spaces a part of adulthood or is getting a space that is just big enough smarter in the long run?

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The Argument for Shrinking

You’d think he has had professional training with that black belt pose

Oh right master jedi jack has taught this little super guy all his moves.

It’s so nice to know we have a super hero living in our house. Even if he does stay up all night, leaves crumbs on the couch, falls asleep in random places, uses the word “way” way more than any other 2 year old we know, ie; way scared, way cold, way wet, way dark, way cool… I think you get the point, when he kisses you he gives the best sound effects of mmmmmwuhhhhhh to emphasize the love in the kiss, has a mad obsession with getting the eggs out of the fridge for no particular reason, loves to go potty, both on the potty and not, will do practically anything for a penny.

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Adventures of Super Cal