Monday, June 28, 2010

Happiness =

  • Night swimming in the summer
  • Getting a new tube of mascara
  • Spending time with loved ones
  • Coming home to a clean house
  • Getting flowers from your husband
  • Knowing there is a healthy baby growing in your belly
  • Getting a compliment at work
  • Reading a good book in the shade of a big tree
  • Eating freshly baked chocolate chip cookies
  • Trying your hardest and succeeding
  • Dancing your heart out
  • Running in the grass with no shoes on
  • Accomplishing your goals
  • Being married to your best friend

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Life Back in the West

I haven't written for a while, and I haven't mentioned anything about how we're doing back in Utah. We've been back for almost a month already! We're already in a routine here and we're remembering how much we love summer nights. You just don't get them like that in Tallahassee.

Anyway, when we got here Memorial Day weekend, we got to see a lot of family. We had so much help when we were moving all of our belongings. We had some family pictures taken with Lish's side of the family, since Maggie and Brandon were out.
I wasn't scheduled to start working for another week, so we spent the week settling in and getting organized. We had to reopen bank accounts, visit new doctors, figure out insurance stuff (still working on that one...) and took some time to relax and rejuvenate. Now we're both in life's groove out here. I'm working at my dad's law firm, for one of his partners. I'm in my 3rd week of work, and it's going great! I get to see my dad almost every day and my sister almost every day. The people are so easy to be around and are so willing to help. I don't have to be into work until 11 and I only stay until about 5:30 or so. It's fabulous! I love having time to sleep until 8, wake up and exercise, and take my time getting ready for the day. I get to eat breakfast while sitting down, instead of running around getting my stuff together like before. And Lish makes me lunch every day, unless my dad offers to take me out to lunch. I couldn't ask for a better job right now!

Lish's "dissertating" is going well. He's ahead of schedule, just by a week or so. I'm proud of him and all the focus he has. He's very hard working and so determined to get this done. He's been helping out a lot around the house and I know Karen and Scott have really appreciated that. He's pretty much amazing.

We love being close to family out here. We love the weather we've been having so far and love spending our nights outside. We don't get eaten alive by bugs out here and we don't feel sticky from humidity when we walk back inside. Life has been busy, but it's been wonderful!

PS. Here is a pregnancy picture for any of those who care. This was taken last week, so 16 weeks! My belly is growing, which is a good sign!

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Moving is a Pain

I know everyone who has read my blog has moved at least once in their lives, so you can relate, quite well I'm sure. But I hate moving. Hate it! Especially moving from Florida to Utah. Alright, moving from Utah to Florida was bad too. But this time it felt worse! Let me tell you about moving week.

Lish and I had this plan to have everything packed up and ready to go by 5:30 pm on Tuesday. All of our boxes were filled, for the most part. We had very little to do come Tuesday morning. We were scheduled to pick up our truck and car carrier at 1:00 pm that day. We got a call at 11:30 am on Tuesday from Budget letting us know that the car carrier they expected for us was damaged and we couldn't use it. There wasn't another car carrier in Tallahassee. The next closest one was in Thomasville, GA, 45 minutes away. We decided that since we needed our car carrier, to just go up there on Tuesday so we wouldn't have to worry about it Wednesday morning on our way out. We picked up our 24 foot truck and headed on up to Georgia.

On our way back into Tallahassee, right as we were about to turn onto the street where we rented our truck, a "check engine" light came on and our gas pedal stopped working. (Thankfully the brakes still functioned okay.) We decided to ask the rental place if there was another truck we could use, because we didn't want ot drive a faulty truck across the country. They did have another truck, clear on the other side of town.

I went on home in case anyone decided to come by to help us pack, and to finish packing up our last-minute random stuff. Lish came by in the truck, dropped off the car carrier, and headed across town, during 5 o'clock traffic, to pick up the other truck. It was 4:45. He didn't get back with the truck until 5:45, and we had a few people waiting to help load it. As soon as the truck was in our parking lot, people started hauling our belongings into that thing.

My friend Leah and I went out to get pizzas since we couldn't really help with the loading (since we're both preggers) and by the time we got back with the pizza, the crew was already done loading. They had been done for 5 or so minutes and a few people had already left. It went crazy fast! We had about 14 people helping.

We sat around and ate pizza and breadsticks and talked and laughed in our small, empty apartment. Then a group of us headed out to Brusters to get some delicious ice cream. It was a perfect way to spend our last night in Tallahassee.

After our ice cream break, Lish and I headed back to clean. We didn't get to bed (on our air mattress) until 12:45, and neither of us slept very well. We found out we were both up at 5:30 Wednesday morning, so we just got up and got ready to hit the road.

That first day we drove up to Bowling Green, KY to stay with some of Lish's friends. He served part of his mission there, so we stayed with a family who Lish served with (the father was the Bishop when Lish was serving). It was such a nice break to stay with them and have them make us dinner and breakfast the next morning. We slept so well.
(At some random gas station somewhere along the way.)
The second day we made it to North Platte, NE. It was such a long drive! And the next day we made it into Utah, despite some ugly wind in Wyoming. It was a horrible drive. Horrible! I think we calculated that we were driving (and by we, I mean Lish) for 39 or so hours. 39 hours! Yuck! But when we made it into Utah, and when we got to see and spend time with so much family that first weekend, it was all worth it. Lish's sister and brother-in-law were in town. I had a bunch of extended family in town, some that Lish hadn't met before, and it was chaotic and wonderful!

But I'll have to update you on that later. I'm gonna go finish watching the game with my husband now.