Life + July 4th

I started this post weeks ago and sooo much has happened since! Our house is finally under contract after almost a month on the market. We packed up, cleaned everything, moved out, and drove thousands of miles across the country (with much help from my mom!!) After two full days of driving we moved straight into a townhome in Syracuse and we've been here now for about three weeks. It's been a fun, busy, but hard time. It feels so good to be back but the transition has not been easy on the kids. They haven't been sleeping great and are acting out more than normal. Emmett tells me daily he wants to go to his "old house". They miss their friends and going to the gym daycare everyday. Jason went back into work for the first time since Brielle was born. He also had kidney stones for the first time ever which was so so so painful for him and scary for me! Because of that we spent our Labor Day in the hospital and ended up missing Callum's first birthday party. That's just our luck!!

I was really hoping I'd fall in love with the area we're in because it's so close to Jason's job, but that's not been the case. I don't like the whole living an hour away from everything and everyone, especially during the day when it's just me and the kids. Soooo we will likely be looking elsewhere for a house. We actually put an offer in for a house in Saratoga Springs today. It took a lot of convincing because that's an hour commute for Jason, but I have high hopes that he'll be working from home part-time or be able to transfer to the Northrop Grumman office in Magna eventually. I'll keep praying! But I truly, truly think our daily life (and my sanity) will be better off living somewhere we actually want to live that's closer to the people we want to be around. If they accept our offer we'd live two minutes away from Britta, five minutes from my parents and Mauri, twenty minutes from Hailey, Karlie, Ryan, Mel and about thirty minutes from Shilo. To me it's a no brainer!

I feel like I could share so much more about life in Utah so far... like Britta's baby sprinkle, the Biddall's reuniting, City Creek with Sydney, car shopping, house walk-throughs, Tierra and Cort visiting, Reese being born!!!! But I need to cut myself off somewhere or this will sit in my drafts forever. I'll update more on some of that later, but let's finish what I started and take it back to the 4th of July! This was our last holiday in Alabama so we decided to drag out the celebration haha. We spent the afternoon of July 3rd swimming with friends, eating pizza, hanging at the Collins, and going to a firework show. On the 4th we dressed festive, took pictures, went back to the Collins house for a yummy bbq, sprinklers, and street fireworks. It was a good time. We're all really going to miss holidays with the Alabama fram!

^^ Brielle's face is my fav haha.

Love these cute cousins. We're so happy baby Harvey followed us to Utah!

Alright, that'll do for now. I hope everyone had a festive fourth!

GOD BLESS AMERICA.

A Long Hot Summer

It has been a busy, busy summer. Lots of company, lots of traveling, lots of stuff. I'm going to do my best to quickly recap it all. I'll start with the beginning of July when my parents came to visit! This was my mom's fourth time driving to Alabama within a year. I'm sure I've loved it more than her haha. That's a looong drive! A brief summary of that week: haircuts, costco runs, couch shopping, main street cafe, bruster's ice cream, two-year-old tantrums, ikea dresser building, random home church, new construction houses, greenway walks, an exploding firework, and fireflies. My mama has more to say over on her blog. We celebrated Independence day with a bbq dinner at Ryan and Karlie's new house. This was our *festive* contribution.

Mmm! Now for a few photos.

We absolutely loved having gigi and grandpa here!

Next up: Orlando, FL. We toughed out the 10+ hour drive so we could spend the weekend with some of Jason's fam. Debi, Ryan, Karlie, Alisha, Matt, Raquel, and the kids were all there. We split the cost and rented out a big airbnb to share (which I'd rate a 5 out of 10 haha). A summary of that trip: dinner at The Sugar Factory, loud music, tiny lizards, playalinda beach, crazy rainstorms, ice cream at Disney Springs, politics, late night swims, alligators (yes, Emmett went wild), and a Titusville tour. I'm really glad we were able to make it out! It's crazy to think that the last time we were here I had just found out that I was pregnant with Emmett. Time flies.

My babies!!!! I'm obsessed.

We had a little bit of a "break" between our Florida trip and more company coming to town. I say break lightly because we kept ourselves so dang busy during that time. Bunco, boating, cliff jumping, paddle boarding, dentist appointments, a duck pond, taco mama, game nights, swimming, Guntersville lake, well visits, shopping, and cleaning are just a few of the things I can remember filling our days.

We wrapped up July with Tierra, Cortlen, and Jax! They drove all the way from Idaho (!!!) to hang with us in Alabama during their break from college classes. They crashed with us for a week and Ryan & Karlie for a week. While they were here we obviously had lots going on. We hiked a bit, shopped a lot, played games, found some turtles, talked conspiracies, paddle boarded at the pool, drove to Nashville, ate Costa Vida, went to the zoo, walked the greenway, stayed up late, and hit the gym.

Cutest lil cousins!! It's so fun that they're one month apart.

Our cute neighbor tagged along with us on the 1.5 hour trek to the zoo. It was a tight fit and we had some stinky diapers and a sad Brielle along the way, but Tyler was a trooper! He only had to plug his nose and ears a few times hahaha.

Next: UTAH. I had been looking forward to this trip for a long time. This was the longest I had ever gone not seeing most of my siblings. It was also the first time all of them, besides Mauri, met my little Brielle! It was a sweet, sweet reunion and it felt so good to be back. Emmett probably said, "Mommy, mommy! Look! Mountains!!!" a hundred times on the drive up to Park City. It was so cute, but also made me kinda sad that it's something he's not familiar with. I miss the mountains! 

The first couple of days were spent with the entire fam at the Park City house. Last time we were here Emmett was Brielle's age! That's also when Jason received Boeing's job offer making our move to Alabama a reality. Feel free to reminisce here. Park City was a lot warmer this time around so it looked like chairlift rides, little hikes, squirt guns, backyard exploring, barbecues, water balloons, outlet shopping, mexican train, baby shower prep, family pictures, hot tubing and a whole lotta food.

Mid Park City trip, the girls drove down to Riverton for Shi's baby shower! I am sooo happy that I could be there for it. It was basically one big family & friend reunion celebrating the sweetest mama to be!

My mom and Britta are charcuterie QUEENS. Maybe one day I'll reach their level of talent and creativity (okay, probably not haha). It was such a perfect shower. We all can't wait for baby Callum to make his appearance in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS!!

We wanted to make sure we saw Jason's fam as well while we were in town, so we crashed at Britta and Austin's house for a few days before heading back to Alabama. On Sunday afternoon we went to Kaysville to spend some time with Debi, and on Tuesday we went to Logan to see Brent, Jackie, Evan, Blaire, and the kids. I'm happy we were able to get with everyone! Emmett loved being around all his grandparents and cousins.

We soaked up the last little bit our our Utah stay in the best way possible. We hit up our favorite food places, went to the dinosaur museum, got the hair dyed (thank you mom & shi), barbecued, played games, stayed up late watching selling sunset, and decided that we should probably to move back to Utah... eventually. It was the perfect week and we were sad to say goodbye.

The flight situation going home was the absolute worst. Our first flight was delayed after boarding so we sat on the plane for an additional hour. The gate to our connecting flight was on the opposite side of the biggest airport ever. We ditched waiting for our stroller and ran as fast as we could carrying two kids + two carry-ons. We ended up missing it by maybe five minutes. The plane was still parked and our luggage and carseats were on it. UGHHHHHH. The next flight to Huntsville wasn't until the next morning. We waited in line for customer service to basically tell us we're out of luck. We decided we'd rent a car and drive the rest of the way only to find out that it'd be over $400. No thanks! After a few hours, we eventually made our way to a nearby hotel and paid a ridiculous amount of money to sleep in a bed for six hours. Well, at least we'll get a free breakfast out of it. Nope! Closed 'cause covid. Despite the terrible circumstances, both kids did amazing. They were happy, smiling, and probably loving the late-night adventure haha. That was a tender mercy. If they were being difficult in an already stressful and annoying situation, I would have lost it for sure.

ANYWAYS, we finally made it home. It's been nice to relax a bit and live the normal, boring day-to-day life. Well.. at least until our next trip in like two weeks :,) I guess summer isn't over quite yet!