Let's go sailing!

My first time ever on a sailboat did not dissapoint. It was terrifying (were at a 45 degree slant for much of the first hour!), It was beautiful and most importantly it was something we would have never done with our kids. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

 I think I was the only one who was shocked there were not seats for us to sit on?! But a perfect day nevertheless.

 Some of my favorite views of Seattle yesterday!

 We didn't get brave enough to stand and snap pics till later on in the outing...

 My very first panorama on this newfangled phone of mine... Figured it out just in the nick of time!

 $8 for this cup of fruit. Incredibly delicious but probably only worth $5 TBH

 THE BEST PART OF MY DAY... Getting to put my feet up and watch Jane the Virgin with Cassie while the boys made us a crazy delicious dinner

Then we got some molten cakes for dessert which were heaven and played games back at the house till way past our bedtime. Brady and Cassie got married a few weeks after we had Annabelle so I never really felt like I got to hang out with them just as couples NO KIDS ALLOWED so this was just heaven! It was a perfect weekend away and I cannot thank Sarah and McKay enough for watching the kids for us this weekend!! It's definitely one I will never forget (and is right up there with our trip to Costa Rica two years ago for favorite trips sans kiddos!). I will be sad to say goodbye to the no kids life we had for a few short days but I'm excited to love on and kiss my babes again!

Weekend getaway to seattle

My amazing baby sister  and her hubby so kindly volunteered to watch the kids for a few days so I could take drew to a Red Sox game up in Seattle.

 Brady took us on a tour of those huge bubbles I saw back when I was here earlier for a conference. So many cool plants and they're all REAL(!)

 We had some lobster crab and corn chowder which was pretty much one of the most delicious meals of my life to date. Yet I still managed to share it with drew which probably goes to show how much I love him right?

 Our hostesess with the mostesess (in this case a wall of abc gum)

 She's my favorite little fur baby niece and I just can't even stand the cuteness!! Charlotte is just the cutest little pup ever

 We got samples of white peaches which Cassie and drew insisted were not enough so they got more. They we're $3 each so I'm assuming they have some sort of acai super growth hormone food injected in them...

 Love love love all the fresh flowers!!!

 I feel like I could reasonably make this baseball bat chandelier. Only problem is buying a house big enough for it....

 Everything I hoped and expected (minus the win)

 5 years of marriage!

 12 years of marriage!(I still can't believe it's been that many!)

 #treatyoself (one guess who picked out my manicure with sparkles?)

 Ice cream helmets!!

 We had such a good day. And the best part is we sstill have a few more left!

12 years of marriage (!)

I did a decent job last year recapping the last 11 year of marriage, which is good because I'm too lazy to do so this year.

While I think my last year self would have loved for us to have been on a trip of some sort today, that was unfortunately not the case... I barely saw Drew today! Between hosting a baby shower, going to little d's soccer game, attending a bridal shower and then working, he spent most of today with the kids (who cannot stop running away, all over the neighborhood, heaven help us!) and I spent most of the day in the car listening to my podcasts.

So while today was busier than I wanted it to be, it was a good couple of hours to reflect on our relationship for me. I started another round of whole30 earlier this week, and definitely not for the best reasons. We were supposed to go out of town for a day or two down south this weekend and obviously that fell through, so my way of coping was initially to eat my feelings, then I felt the need to reset that and feel better about myself this week by whole30-ing, which was pretty unfair to Drew since the reason we did not go was outside of his and my control.

The podcast I have been listening to the most is Nutrition Redefined, and I am just about caught up after not listening for a few weeks. There is so much that she talks about that truly resonates with me as Truth as she spoke about intuitive eating (which is something I really need to explore and research more) and something she said triggered some memories of Mother's Day a few years ago when I embarked on my first whole30, which left Drew and the kids unable to make me meals because I just said I would take care of it myself. It is definitely one of my biggest regrets to date. So when Drew asked me to pick out a whole30-approved restaurant for dinner tonight, I thought to myself, this is one of those moments. That I can stick to my guns and whole30 on with what I was planning on making for dinner (because: planning!) because I am stubborn and brought this upon myself, or I could accept that I was already getting home after 7pm, Drew and I both needed some time together to relax and enjoy a night of food that wouldn't be whole30 but certainly would not be something like McDonald's that would cause immediate regret. And when I really thought about what I was going for in my life, it was not to lose weight or do the most whole30s, it was to be happy and healthy and to have a good relationship with food and not make it weird for people around me but make food something we can celebrate in a healthy way with.

Sushi has been that celebratory food for us for the last few years: I love it on my birthday, while pregnant, on anniversaries and any excuse we have to spend a little extra money on yummy food because it is one of the few meals we would never make ourselves but we love eating! So on my way home I found a really highly rated Sushi place right up the street from us that I never even knew existed and brought a few rolls home to share. The kids had done one of their houdinis when I came home, so about an hour after I came home we settled in what I had brought and bless his heart, the first question Drew asked when he opened the container was "Okay, which one of these can you eat?". I told him I could eat all of them, because I can, because I am a grown woman and can make my own decisions, and part of my Food Freedom is making empowered choices and being happy with whatever the consequences are. Drew knows that me doing whole30 is mostly because I love the way it makes me feel-- I have energy and feel most in control of my food choices, and most importantly I feel healthy. But one meal celebrating the 12 happiest years of my life was well worth stepping out of my comfort zone and I have no regrets--not even about the heath and oreo concrete I had after the sushi! Probably because I still have all the stuff at home ready for me to go back to the comfort and security of Whole30 tomorrow.

Anyways this post was not meant to be one about whole30. What it is meant to be is a reflection on my relationship with Drew in the last 12, but especially the last year. A year which has been one of tremendous growth and change and transition and difficulty. Drew is finally in a job where we see him home for dinner every night, something I hope I never take for granted. We have been emerging from the cocoon/fog of making and raising babies and now that the twins are potty trained, we are entering a new phase in life that doesn't have to revolve around naps or needing diaper bags. It is sometimes strange and different but good, to be able to focus more on myself than I have in about 8 years. An opportunity came up last month for me to sign up for a painting class in May and I was hesitant to take it because of little d's sports schedule. Drew insisted I go ahead and sign up and we would figure it out, and sure enough we are able to work around it, but then Drew found out he has his softball games the same nights as my class! What I am trying to say is that between watching the kids while I went off to Seattle for a conference and supporting me through a whole30 earlier this year, plus a hundred other things that I could mention, Drew has been my biggest supporter in figuring myself out. It is not without growing pains but we are getting somewhere, and I am grateful every day that I have him by my side because he is truly my soulmate and best friend. I never would have ran a marathon without him signing me up, never would have survived the twins without him by my side, or realized my love for the 2016 Honda Pilot without his nudging and encouraging patience. He is the reason we have lived in all the wonderful homes we have found and lived in and he is the reason why I feel more confident in my role as a wife and mother and woman now than I did 12 years ago.

picture from our honeymoon in Disney World 2006! We were babies!

Honestly I don't remember much about our wedding day anymore, as the moments between the posed pictures become even more blurred over time, but I remember feeling like I really truly loved him
with all my heart and I would do anything for him. I still cannot believe we have been through so much in only 12 years. I feel like I have changed the most of the two of us, mostly out of necessity because of my role as mother the last 8 years, but seeing Drew come into his own since we came out here has been really fun. For most of our marriage I have been a gym rat, working out around 5 days a week, so to have him join me as we joined the rec center this past fall has been beyond my wildest dreams. I love hearing about his workouts, occasionally working out side by side with him, and seeing him find something outside of intramural sports that he excels in and loves makes me so happy. Not to mention seeing him at work in an office with friends, winning office olympics and ping pong championships (so proud!), making friends with people at church and in the neighborhood as well as just being home more with our family. I also like to think our love for each other has only blossomed more as we have this newfound love of superhero movies, and I am so grateful we got an early date night this week thanks to Mike and Darsi to watch Avengers Infinity War opening night!











I love Drew so much, and I am so relieved that I have been blessed with someone who does not only celebrate me and us on the "big" holidays or celebrations but that our relationship and our love story has been built by "small and simple things", if you don't mind me borrowing that phrase. We are planning a fun adventure in the fall together, and we already have a trip planned for next month (one of my christmas presents to him) and then our first big (no diapers!) family vacation in July. There were probably a hundred thousand little decisions that brought us together in Provo Utah nearly 13 years ago, and I still can't believe he picked me. I am the luckiest. Every year has been full of surprises and I can't wait to see what year 13 will bring! (maybe I will finally figure out coding so my text doesn't have to wrap around pictures?!)

nothing like a few kidney stones to put life in perspective

Yesterday afternoon I was out running some errands when I got a phone call from Drew and my sister in law. I called her back first because she was the most recent and she told me to call Drew and she was on her way over to my house. I was about 30 minutes from home so I turned around and headed back, calling Drew and getting a panicked answer: he wasn't feeling well (what did that even mean?! he was fine when I left) and Blake and Nat were coming to take him to the hospital and something was wrong. That was all I got out of him before I told him I was on my way and he hung up on me before I was able to find out how the kids were doing. So the next 30 minutes were some of the most torturous of my life as my mind immediately went to some of the worst things.... stroke? heart attack? something we have never even heard of before? I was spiraling, fast, and completely panicking in the meantime. He did not sound like his usual, composed self and while it was comforting that his brother would be there within minutes, I was beside myself but I knew as I got closer to home I needed to pull it together so the kids when they saw me wouldn't be freaking out.

So I started praying, really simply I started praying that whatever was going on, I would not be left a single mom of 4 (super selfish thought, I know). It felt like we just barely made this really hard transition in Utah and the thought of having to go change all that again was almost more than I could bear. Then my praying transitioned to "thy will be done" and "I know you will not give me more than I can handle....so will you please help me calm down so I can handle whatever is being thrown my way right now?". Then my prayers turned into hymns. I need thee every hour. I know that my Redeemer Lives. I am a child of God. And so on. And as I sang, I was still concerned for Drew and for whatever lay ahead for us but I felt an overwhelming peace and strength return to me. I was doing the right things. Everything would be okay.

By the time I made it to the emergency room a few minutes from our home, I was much better. It just felt so surreal and seeing him laying down, sweating and shaking and obviously still freaking out from the pain, was terribly overwhelming. He wouldn't even look at me when I came in which just about broke my heart. They finally gave him morphine shortly after I came in (he ranked his pain on a 15 on a scale of 1-10) and gave him something else to calm his nerves. I never in a million years thought I would see the day when there would be a need for medicine to calm down my husband. But he had been hyperventilating from the sudden onset of pain (which he thought would be his appendix) in his back and moving down to his groin and all over his body. I know it wasn't quite the same because he will never experience childbirth and he didn't have nine months to prepare mentally for all that pain and discomfort but it was probably the closest I will ever get with seeing our roles reversed like that and to think about what he went through and how helpless he felt when I was laboring (at least for the first two pregnancies since the last one I barely started labor before my c-section). It was terrible. When they finally got him scanned and had him give a urine sample they were able to officially diagnose him with kidney stones, and he passed the larger of the two in the urine sample. We finished up the paperwork and I let Blake take him home while I finished up my errands. He and Natalie were so amazing to help us out in a pinch yesterday, not to mention my neighbor Melissa for letting little D continue to hang at her house with her son and then took him to the ward halloween party later that night. Sometimes it is hard to feel so indebted to people because you don't feel like you could ever properly thank them enough but then I think about the times I have been able to offer service and I realize what goes around really does come back around, it's all Karma.

So the perspective part came in two waves. One was more of a holding on desperately to faith sort of thing when I was driving to get Drew. I thought, really thought about my testimony of the Plan of Salvation and did I REALLY believe in it. Did I really think if something happened to Drew that I would see him again? And I do. It doesn't matter how many years I get with him on this earth, whenever he is gone it will feel like too short of time when compared to eternity. And I Know that since we were sealed for time and all eternity, as long as I continue to do what I am supposed to do that we will be together. It is one thing to know and quite another to Know. It is not a perfect knowledge but it definitely helped sharpen my vision and help me really appreciate what I have in Drew, which was the second wave of perspective: that Drew has so many incredible redeeming qualities I was allowing to be overshadowed by the handful of faults/weaknesses recently, and this experience really made me see him for how he truly is: an irreplaceable asset in our family, truly the other half of me and one I cannot imagine life without, especially as it relates to parenting, but more importantly in how he is my most favorite person in the world and I just love him.

I am so grateful for a renewal of our relationship, for a fresh set of eyes and a more open heart that has probably been slowly closing up without me really noticing over the last few years, holding necessarily long grudges from years of sleepless nights and the ever exhausting role of "Mother" that I sometimes wish I could table for a few hours some days (most days?!). I could be doing this alone and I am so very grateful that I am not and that I do have a partner by my side who provides so much more for me than "just" the primary financial support that he has given us over the last 7 years. I know too many others who are not as lucky.

father's day 2017

Drew and I missed our dads but were lucky enough to facetime them for a bit 

(between screaming cries of our banshee children of course).

I thought a lot today about how Drew's dad's dad passed away when he was a teenager and my dad's dad passed away when I was a teenager and that neither dad got to see their boys become grandparents and it made me sad. But then I thought about eternal families and how very blessed Drew and I have been to not only have righteous dads who were imperfect but taught us the best they could and ultimately are the reason why Drew and I are the way we are and were able to meet and fall in love and have these amazing little minion children we are trying to (also imperfectly) raise the best we can. And I love that our dads will be a part of our lives past this life and forever, with our moms and I am just so in love with our family, both wonderful sides, and grateful that we have these good relationships among each other because they are not without work, but I know it will be worth it in the end to be able to keep these relationships on through the eternities.

And the kids were rotten and whined and complained and nothing we did was good enough and somehow I got them all to force a smile at the end of the day and call it good. I mentioned this on Instagram, but I really am grateful and super very much blessed to have a guy by my side that I adore and I can be honest with and he can help me be a better mother and wife and daughter and friend and he continues to push me. Obviously I do things for myself but when I accomplish some things (like surviving that first year of the twins lives), it is only because Drew is carrying me nearly every step of the way, guiding me away from the ledge of criticism and pointing out all that is still good in me and in our lives. I love him so much!

when it rains it pours(literally at Cedar Point): the good news ... and the bad news (Utah home update)

HUGE thanks to my sister and sister in law for going out to our home the last few days to take pictures and make us feel like we were making progress on our home.

Good news: We have doorknobs! We have fauxwood flooring down! Outlet covers! Baseboards! Cabinets! Closets! and a driveway!

aaaaand the Bad news: we had just gotten home from Cedar Point this evening (we got rained out after 3 roller coasters and it was freezing so we called it an early day) when we found out from our builder that our date for our Utah home was being pushed back. And they couldn't (won't?) give us a firm date until the meeting they are having on Monday.

So now all of my "awesome" advanced planning goes in the toilet. (except we have no toilets in the new house yet haha!)

We have to cancel the U-haul.

Reschedule our flights.

Buy more groceries (I was trying to use up the little we had left!)

Call all the utilities and make sure we don't get shut off until ...well we don't know when yet.

gahhhhhhhh

BUT. it's all good. Seriously. All I keep thinking about is how grateful I am that since our first buyer dropped out, the second seller won't be closing till mid-June which means we can stay in our Ohio home until then.

Appliances in the living room. Every girls dream right? :) Almost as good as building junk all over where my countertops are supposed to be.

 But at least it looks like a kitchen!!!! eek!

 LOVE the floors (somethings gotta cover all the dirt we track in right??) and my pantry I can hold a lot of chocolate chips in (And lock myself into when the kids get crazy!!!!

 Master closet and bathroom

 kids bathroom (again the brilliance of putting dark flooring down!!)... is it nerdy I am SO excited to have pull out drawers for my kids?! SOMEWHERE FOR TOOTHBRUSHES! AT LAST!

 the downstairs layout

 the two floorings downstairs. LOVE LOVE LOVE

 basement that still has metal studs sticking out of the walls

and a peek at the upstairs

 (no carpet yet)

We will move eventually. And In the meantime I will just work on getting more doorknob covers and outlet covers for most of the house to twinproof the whole thing... ;)

Ooops and lest I forget thanks to my parents and DK for watching the kids so we could do Cedar Point for a few hours before the rain!

over an hour for Raptor

 Just about an hour for Valravn (our favorite!): fastest, tallest, longest!

 and then we were in line for GateKeeper and it started raining. A lot.

 So we ran and got some ice cream (post-funnel cake for me of course)

 went almost right back onto the roller coaster once the rain let up but we were chilled to the bone, it was so cold and windy and we were completely soaked. But we couldn't leave before checking in with the weight/age/birth month guesser! My dad did this for his summer college job so it's a must see... she guessed I was 30, but then guessed Drew weighed about 20 pounds more than he does (I'm glad she didn't guess my weight!) so we won a stuffed animal.

 It was a quick fun trip and besides, its always the crazy trips that turn into adventures you remember forever, right?