Antelope Island in pictures

It's quite nice when you get together with friends twice a year and a couple of those friends have nice cameras and are very talented photographers.  We ended up with these from last night.

Thanks Bryon and Steve!

Breathe in... breathe out

For posterities sake, and for anyone who actually reads this blog curiosity's sake... we're selling our house.  I've mentioned it here before.  We've had it on the market 113 days to be exact.  About 3 weeks into that, we accepted an offer, contingent on the sale of the buyers house.  Five or six weeks into that, they pulled their offer and took their house off the market (health problems), so we were back to square one.  Before that, we had put offers on two other homes and would have put an offer on a third, but hesitated, and it was off the market.  We haven't been out looking since we were no longer under contract.  I still look online.  Sometimes every day, sometimes once a week.  It was beginning to feel like we were never going to sell, and started talking about what we were going to do in the next 6 months about having the house on the market.

Then, we had a week where we had a ton of showings.  More than we had had since we first put it on the market.  We were out of the house... a lot.  One of those showings turned into an offer.  A non-contingent, I'd-like-to-close-by-the-end-of-the-month offer.  After a couple of back and forths, we are under contract, with a likely closing date of July 31st.

So... we have 26 days.  And we're on vacation for 10 of those.  In between those dates, we need to pack the house.  Find a house.  Possibly close on a house?  Most likely figure out where to house our homeless family for a week or two (best case scenario) in between houses.  8 mornings of swim lessons.  2 afternoons of work for me.  A dentist appointment.  Packing and planning for an 8 hour road trip to Denver, two different stop over there, then a 8 hour road trip to Alpine, WY to spend 5 days at the Goughs new cabin.  A work trip or two for Justin.  If I'm really lucky, a morning of getting my hair cut and colored (yeah right).  At least two days worth of Uhauls.  Possibly find a storage shed, maybe an extended-stay place.  Oh, and the day before we turn over keys? Justin is on his way to Tanzania for a week.

So, like I said... breathe in, breathe out.

In the Mountains

We were supposed to go to our family reunion but a trip to Seychelles (Island off the East coast of Africa) shortened our availability.  So, we decided to try our luck up Big Cottonwood Canyon.  It was a nice evening, slightly chilly night, but all in all, we all had a good time.  The kids LOVED being in the mountains and getting dirty and climbing and jumping on everything in sight.

It was made more fun by the addition of a few Hardcastle's for the evening.

 For some reason, this was Milo's 'funny face' for the evening.

 Finally asleep.  For a while, anyway.

My view in the morning.  Everyone was finally asleep, and mostly warm.  And, I had to pee.  I did manage to sneak out and start a fire.  (After a trip to the bathrooms, of course).

Annual Cake Auction

Another year... another cake auction for the Young Women.

This year I helped one of the young woman make a kit kat cake.  It turned out pretty good.  I love cakes where you don't have to mess around with making the frosting look good on the sides!

Lemon Chiffon Cake with Lemon Buttercream and candied lemons on top. 

 Chocolate "Ding Dong" Cake with Salted Caramel Ganache.  

(My new favorite kind of ganache)

I can't remember what the cakes went for.  The chocolate one was $125 or so, and I think the chocolate went for $180.  

The next week (on St. Patricks Day) we had a Relief Society activity.  I made a white cake cupcake with fresh strawberry buttercream.  With a mint leaf for a bit of green.  

The end of an era

Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.  I mean, I still always wanted to 'be something' when I grew up -a dentist, a teacher, a lawyer, a therapist... I went through quite a few.

Fast forward (more than) a few years.  Baby number one was on the way and were in a position and made the decision for me to stay at home.  And it was awesome.  Well, not totally awesome, but I certainly didn't want to be anywhere else.  After baby number two I felt a little different.  I went through a period of time where I felt like I needed to be out of the house and get a job.  I trip to a nearby day care center and a month or two of counseling (seriously -looking back, it was pretty obvious I had postpartum depression but was oblivious to it at the time) cured me of that desire.  After baby number three I had pretty much decided I was never going back to work.  Ever.  I thought about going back to school at some point, but oddly enough I only wanted an advanced degree to enable me to teach online university courses.  

A lot of reasons have kept me home.  First, I wanted to be home.  It's hard enough to keep the house clean(ish), the kids fed, clean(ish), and on time to their various activities, get to the gym and the grocery store with some regularity.  Why would I want to add a part-time job to that?  

Second, I believe in the importance of having a parent staying at home with the kids.  It's not always possible, and I believe it isn't for everyone too.  I certainly haven't regretted the time I have spent at home.  We've definitely had the opportunity for a large amount of quantity of time, if not always the most quality amount of time.  

And third, I've never thought that an opportunity would present itself with the flexibility I would need (having a husband with a sporadic work schedule) and pay enough that it would be worth the time away from home.  Part time jobs in my field might pay $12 an hour, if you're lucky.  Not really worth the effort if you're paying a babysitter $10 a hour to sit with the kids.  

So, when a friend of mine mentioned that her employer needed to hire someone else and she mentioned the extreme flexibility it offered coupled with the compensation, I was interested.  It's something in my field, doing the same type of work I did for the State, minus all of the court and legal issues I had to deal with.  We were getting ready to list the house, so I sort of put off contacting her boss.  I finally did, found out a few things from my friend, and then met with her today.  And... told her I would work for her.  

I'm sort of freaking out.  Not in a 'I don't want to do this' sort of way.  Mostly just, I can't believe after 6+ years of not working, I have a job.  A job where I'll work a couple of hours a week out of the home, and another few at home.  If it feels this strange going to work after such a long absence, I can't imagine how it would have felt if I had waited another 10 years to do it.  

Now, if we could just sell our house...

The nicest mean things people can say

We finally pulled the trigger.  We've been talking about moving for a couple of years.  Figured it would be another year until the rest of the new units in our development were finished and sold, but then decided we didn't want/need to wait that long.  So, an email was sent about 5 weeks ago to our realtor, followed by a month of feverishly deep-cleaning, de-junking, and simplifying our living space, and now... it's on the market.  And, I have to tell you, our house has NEVER looked this good, especially all at one time.

We've been looking online, been out to see about 7 or 8 homes, driven by another couple dozen (at least).  We've seen about 3 that we could live in, but we're not convinced that we've found the one worth putting an offer on yet.  It's exhausting.  Mentally and physically, and as I finally realized today, emotionally.

I've never considered myself an overly sentimental person.  In fact, if you ask my husband or a few close friends, they might even say "I'm dead inside".  I think pictures and journals are incredibly valuable and worth saving.  I save practical things (children's clothing and baby gear) until I can safely say that we aren't going to use it anymore, but other than that... I think if any one decade of your life can't fit in a plastic tote... you need to throw some stuff away.  I didn't think, and still don't think, that I'll get too sentimental or sad when we leave this house.

Yes, this is our first home.  My father-in-law was the builder.  I brought my babies home here.  It's new... so there hasn't been too much blood, sweat, and tears of our own that have gone into it.  We've had baby blessings, family parties, and a lot of friend get togethers here.  We finished part of the basement, and put up a small fence in our small yard.  For the most part, we've managed to not completely wreck the place.  Something that has become even more apparent as we've spruced it up to move and have had the 'opportunity' to walk through a few 'well lived in' homes.  Justin spends most work days here in his office.  Hyrum hit his forehead on almost every square inch at least twice.  Milo had a seizure in the living room.  Kate became an artist on quite a few of the walls.  It's been a great home.  It's kind of been a great transition to home ownership (half of any issues we've had Dave fixed as the builder, and the other half have been extremely mild and inexpensive).  We haven't had to mow the lawn or shovel the driveway.  We planted flowers in the the flower bed, once.  But, it's a house.  We have our memories, our pictures, and that's probably all we'll need from here.

To move on to the reason I wanted to write tonight.  I'll miss the people.  Hyrum's best friend, Max lives next door.  Do you know how awesome it is when your kids best friend lives next door?  A few afternoons a week they play 20 minutes at our house, run over to Max's for a half hour, back to our place, back to Max's, etc.  It's great.  Hyrum is really going to miss having Max so close.  And me?  I've gotten to know a lot of the neighbors, and they're great.  And I LOVE our ward.  It's small, but not as small as it was when we first moved in.  The people are friendly, and welcoming, and willing to go out of their way to help each other out.  I think it's great for kids and the youth to be a part of a big ward, but as far as adults go, it's nice to be needed and noticed and feel apart of something.

I sat up at the organ today and nearly started crying more than once thinking about saying goodbye to so many people in the ward.  The secret started getting out last week that we were trying to move and most people that hadn't already heard, found out about it today.  The (new) bishop called me a traitor when I walked into the chapel.  When I mentioned to a couple of ladies that I nearly started crying today when I thought about moving one of them said, "Good, I'm glad you're crying, I don't think you should leave."  When Justin told Brenda (the kids church-grandma) a couple of weeks ago, I thought she was going to get emotional.  She told me that she'd be praying that we stayed, and couldn't sell our house.  I've had quite a few people mention that I'd still have to come back and provide cakes for the annual cake auction even after I left.

So... it's nice to know that we've become so much a part of the ward the we'll be missed.  It's nice to know that I might mean as much to some of the ward members as they have meant to me over the years.  I will never be able to pay back the kindness and service that I received when Justin was deployed.  I just hope that we will allow ourselves and do our part to be as accepted and 'well used' in our next ward that we have been in this one.  I hope that my kids will be loved.  I hope that as they get older they will be lucky enough to have good friends in the ward and connect and bond with their leaders and other ward members.  Those relationships meant so much to be when I was growing up in my home ward, that I just pray that my kids will be that blessed as well.  I hope that if/when we move from our next home, we get dirty looks and disapproving comments when we decide to leave.

Or... I hope we just never leave, because this whole process is NOT one I'm going to sign up for anytime in the near future!

Spare Minutes

I've been a stay at home mom for 6+ years now.  For a good part of that time I've found myself being bored.  Not bored in the sense that there was nothing to do, but bored in that there were probably lots of things I should or could be doing, but I didn't.  I've played who knows how many hours of Words with Friends on my phone and I have an impressive list of movies and tv shows I've seen.  Once upon a time before kids started preschool and such we'd go to parks and walk around the mall or IKEA or meet up with friends.  As my schedule got more hectic between drop-offs and pick-ups, desperately trying to go to the grocery store with as few as children as possible, and the hurried chaos that usually happens between 3-5 every afternoon, I'm not so bored any more.  

In fact, I don't feel like I have many minutes to spare these days.  Which, is pretty self evident in the amount of blogging I've been doing.  (Which is pretty close to none, without actually being none, so I guess that's something).  

I don't really have these minutes I'm using right now either.  I'm in the middle of two projects, the kitchen is a mess, I'm preparing a lesson, and hoping to get to the grocery store and library before dinner.  But, maybe I just need a change of pace for 20 minutes, or the guilt has finally got to me.  

So... here's what we've been up to since Christmas

Justin- Spent two weeks in Mauritius.  What?  You've never heard of it?  Neither had we.  Here's their official website.  It was for the Navy.  I'm pretty sure he spent most of time in an airport hotel and at the port.  They did get a half a day or so at the end to do something tourist-y.  I think he went snorkeling.  He's still managing two auto shops and now a rental property adjacent to the Salt Lake shop.  The end of his first full quarter with the new sales position at Oracle is next week.  I'm not sure all of the places he's been for Oracle since Christmas, I know California has made the list a couple of times.  

Mel - Most of my time continues to be spent in the car.  Taking and picking kids up from school, dr's visits, music lessons.  Any time now I'm going to get a call or text telling me when baseball starts up, and we'll get to add Herriman to our commute again.  Most likely for the last year, so I'm going to try and have a better attitude about it.  

I'm doing my second round of Whole30.  To be honest... I really like it.  I like not eating sugar, and making all of my own meals.  I even added making my own Almond Milk this round.  I've been doing it with a lady in the ward, and she's noticed remarkable changes in her overall health, so that's been fun.  It's also been nice because we get together and cook once or twice a week.  I actually hit the 30 days sometime this past week, but Kate and I have something big going on in another 2 weeks, so I'm going to continue it until then. 

I started Operation Deep Clean and De-Junk at the house.  And not just, "clean the house because your in-laws are coming over" clean, but seriously clean and wipe down every surface in the entire house -even those crayon marks on the closet doors you've been pretending aren't there.   So, for the past 10 days or so I've spent every spare minute working on specific area's of the house.  You are more than welcome to come into the boys room, Kate's room, the upstairs bathroom and laundry room.  I finished the toilet part of our bathroom and one half of the kitchen as well.  Unfortunately, when I'm cleaning that one part of the house, the rest of it get's pretty trashed by the kids.  So, the house is actually a wreck, but in those 5 rooms you would see clean windows, doors, walls, baseboards, and everything the in closets are current and organized.  Unfortunately I've got 4 more days to get the rest of the house done, and at the rate I'm going, it's not going to happen.  

Hyrum - I was quite worried about how Hyrum would handle the change in his spanish class after the break.  But, he's surprised us all (including his teacher) and is doing amazing.  She said that he was really nervous when she told the class they couldn't speak english anymore, and for the first few days he didn't say a whole lot except for one word here or there and a lot of actions, but he's speaking full sentences and doing really well, it's been great.  I love that he's doing the dual immersion and hope that he'll be able to continue it.  He wants to play video games every day and still loves playing with our neighbor Max.  We dusted off his bike the other day and he rode it to music class.  I was worried he'd struggle with it, but I guess riding a bike is truly like riding a bike, because he did just fine.  

Kate - She still loves preschool, and has been writing her name every where she can.  We still spend many hours a day in princess dresses or her own unique blend of clothing choices, or just her underwear.  Her newest thing is pretending to be a dog, and we all know dogs don't wear clothes.  I guess I should be glad she's got underwear on still.  She loves Jessica, girls nights, and her blanket.  She loves to eat, but still won't eat a crust of bread or pizza.  She loves everything pink and purple and sparkly.  She's had a sleepover at Jessica's and got her nails painted.  

Milo - Poor Milo has had a rough month or so.   We switched him to a toddler bed, which he didn't love.  He had a hard time going to sleep at night and for naps, so he was pretty ornery because of lack of sleep.  Plus, around that time he had a cold as well.  The no sleep and wanting to be held all day, every day went on for probably two weeks.  I was at a loss on what to do.  I finally took him in to the doctors wondering if he might have an ear ache that was adding to the lack of sleep and over-all unbearableness.  Turns out he had a really bad ear infection in both ears.  I think they actually popped the next day because of some drainage.  It took 4 or 5 days on the antibiotic but it seemed to do the trick.  Then a whole week later he got another cold and fever.  I didn't wait that long this time, and took him this past week.  Another ear infection in both ears.  So, he's half way through a second antibiotic and yesterday seemed to be the turning point.  

That's about it.  There's a few more things coming up for our family shortly, but I'll leave that off for a while.  I think I've procrastinated enough.