Jack and his closest cousin Asher were born 6 days apart. Asher had his third birthday while we were in Utah, and since Jack's isn't far behind, my sister-in-law Amanda and I threw them a joint birthday party at my parents' house. We went with a construction theme, since they are both mega obsessed with tractors and dump trucks.
We started the party with games. Jared made a "Pin the Tire on the Construction Truck" board. It was just janky enough to be amazing. The kids loved it.
We had the most wonderful weekend getaway in St. George! I'd only spent one night away from Jack in his life, and that was for Jared's interview in Elko. And Jack turns THREE next week. So this was long overdue. It can be tough to keep the spark alive when you're parents and your spouse is giving their soul to residency training for 60-100 hours a week. Also no family around, and also covid. So quadruple thanks to my family who helped watch Jack/stay up with him half the night while he had a meltdown. Yikes. Nothing quite whispers "cut your getaway short a night you monster" in your soul like hearing your child is falling apart and depriving all your loved ones of sleep. Oops.
I've only been to St. George maybe 2 or 3 other times in my life, so I was excited to do some exploring. We spent a few hours hiking in beautiful Snow Canyon. The weather was in the high 60s the whole time we were there, which made me very happy, especially when I'd check the weather in Casper and see that it was literally 70 degrees colder there. February was a great time to escape the winter.
The only thing negative I have to say for our experience is that I expected to have the homes mostly to ourselves since we went during a weekday, but we failed to take into account that St. George is a pretty hoppin retirement community. We had lots of company--mostly older couples. I'm glad we didn't go on the weekend though. That would've been way more nuts, especially since it was President's Day weekend.
^^Our AirBNB was the guest house of a beautiful big home in Santa Clara. It was above their garage and really nice. Also, somehow it was cheaper than all the motels we were looking at? We were only able to book it for one night because everything was taken for President's Day weekend. We planned to just stay at a Motel 6 the next night, but even the Motel 6 was more expensive than our AirBNB. Probably due to a combination of St. George being a bit of a tourist town, and also it being a holiday weekend. That's another reason we cut our vacation short a night.
The weekend was a big success and got us pumped for future getaways together. This was our first vacation ever where we were able to kind of do and eat whatever we wanted (within reason) and not feel guilty. We would have started to feel itchy if our stay/spending had gone on for longer than a day and a half, but this felt like a great step in the right direction! Our favorite meal was in a restaurant tucked up near Snow Canyon in Ivins called Xetava's Garden Cafe. It was fancier than I expected, and we were probably underdressed. Next time we'll request to eat out on the patio, but inside was beautiful too. There was a little fire pit going outside the window next to where we were eating. I ordered a burger with insane french fries and a slushy mint-coconut lemonade that blew our minds. Jared got a loaded chicken sandwich with an insane side salad containing the first blue cheese I have ever liked. I must be an adult now.
After dinner, we went to our first movie theater since well before covid. We saw "News of the World." I always love Tom Hanks movies, and it was really well done. However, Jared and I both started to feel a bit anxious when there were like 10 highly intense, life-or-death scenes in a row. They could've taken it down a notch or two. Otherwise it was great! We followed our movie with a short hike to a viewpoint on top of a rock overlooking St. George. It looked to be a popular hang with the college kids. We felt kRaZy staying out until 11:00. Until next time, St. George! Thanks for being so good to us.
It's a good time to be in Utah! Today Jared starts a short rotation with another family practice clinic in Orem. We don't have any inclination as to whether it will lead to a job offer, but it will be good experience regardless. It's also great to not be in Wyoming this week. The high on Thursday in Casper will be -4. Yup, NEGATIVE FOUR. As the HIGH. Woof. No thank you.
Before leaving we deep-cleaned the house, and we took advantage of a Costco sale--$100 off the cordless
Dyson we'd been eyeing--just as our old vacuum bit the dust. What a time to be alive. No Costco in Casper so we ordered online and shipped it to my parents. No words can express my disappointment in myself for being this level of excited about a new vacuum.
Jack is very excited to be in Utah. He has been looking forward to playing with Asher and everyone else for weeks. Our countdown was, "When Mommy's finished weaving all the way to the top of the loom it's time to go to Utah." I made my mom a woven headboard/wall hanging for her birthday yesterday. I was so happy we could make it in time for her birthday dinner. It's the biggest weaving I've ever done and it turned out beautiful. Jack was pumped when I cut it off the loom because he knew it must be Utah time.
During my hours of weaving, I got hooked on Netflix's "The American Barbecue Showdown." It's a barbecue competition mostly focusing on meat smoking, set in Georgia near where we used to live. And dang, I'm gonna need a meat smoker at some point now. I've been toying with the idea of doing culinary school someday, but since I don't want to work in the industry, for now I'm seeing what I can learn from podcasts and free online classes. But I could see myself getting very into the meat smoking scene. Man, I miss that good southern barbecue of Georgia (and Alabama. The best barbecue I've ever had was off the side of a rural road in Alabama).
Whelp, that's a more lengthy update than I thought I had for you this week. Very excited to see if anything comes of this rotation in Utah. I'll keep you posted!
Well hey! It's been another slow January week. The sun is setting noticeably later each night, which is giving me some hope that winter might not last forever. This winter actually hasn't been nearly as bad as last winter. The roads have felt less icy, the days have seemed sunnier, and hey, no one's gotten the flu. Thank u face masks. I guess we'll do a brief catch-up, followed by the only two pictures on my camera roll this week.
Jared has been enjoying a more relaxed schedule in his hematology rotation. He's even taken up riding the stationary bike in our living room before work. He's had to jump through some unexpected hoops to get his Utah rotation finalized (his program coordinator is taking a verrrrry hands-off approach to 2021), which caused a bit f a frenzy last week, but looks like everything's all set again.
I am apparently rushing toward my 30s with vigor. Not only am I excited about spring cleaning and organizing, but I'm also a vacuum enthusiast now? Our vacuum we got for our wedding is dying a slow and painful death and I'm getting very excited about the cordless options on the market. Also today I took a stroll with my pre-covid thrifting self to our local thrift store to try and score a Candy Land or Hungry Hungry Hippos for Jack's birthday. I ended up finding literally everything on my "potential Jack bday gifts" list, plus a few extra gems. The thrifting odds were in my favor.
Jack is enjoying all the extra Dad time this week. He's also learned how to sound out the initial letter of words. He's surprisingly good at it! He can spell his whole name and is getting close to writing it all out. Saturday was warm enough to play some soccer in the backyard, and Jack was into it. I think we're going to have to put him in soccer in the next year or two.
Hi! I wish I had pictures and/or updates for you this week, but I don't have much. It was Jared's last week of a very demanding rotation and we essentially just survived our way through it. This morning he didn't have to leave until after Jack woke up, and we were able to have breakfast together! I woke up thinking it was just me in the house like it has been for the past 2 months, but then I caught a glimpse of Jared out in the living room and got so happy.
I hosted a small girl's night during Jared's 24-hr shift over the weekend. It was just me and the 3 women who serve in YW with me. We're all going to be released soon because the YW president's husband just got called as our new bishop. I'm feeling bittersweet. I'm excited not to have to go to Wednesday activities anymore (I've been going for nearly 5 years now), but other than that I'm actually pretty sad about it. I love being in a calling with 3 other moms of young kids, and we're all friends so it will be weird not to serve with them anymore.
I'm kind of feeling caught between two worlds right now. The girls' night was a lot of fun. We laughed and TMI'd and snacked for hours. I feel like if I put in the effort to keep hanging out with them we could become closer friends, which honestly I haven't had since college. But it's hard to want to put in that effort when I'm going to be moving away in 5 months. Ughhhh. Making close adult friends is hard. It's an energy drain to put my introverted self out there and invite friends over, and I always have a hard time sleeping afterward because overthinking, but I know it would get easier if I just did it more often. Maybe next move, when there's more of a sense of permanence. These next few months are going to be a bit chaotic with several away rotations and hopefully a job contract somewhere in there so we can start house hunting for our next place. Fingers crossed!
Nothing new or exciting to report this week. We are in pure survival mode as Jared goes into his last week of his OB hospital rotation. Hoping he can bounce back quickly afterward. Poor guy. He is overrr it and dying to sign for a job already and be done with residency hours. It's like the last semester of high school or college when you just don't care anymore. But worse, because he still has to work 80 hours a week and can't just play hooky. Ok, here are some cute old Jack photos on my camera card. These are from when we were building our fence a few summers ago. And by "we" I definitely mean just Jared. I tried to help him but I was too much of a perfectionist about it so we both banished me to take picture and hang out inside. I think basically I was just on Jack duty.
We are feeling the January vibes BIG TIME over here. It's cold, it's gray, the Christmas lights are gone, and the relentless wind keeps carrying huge piles of snow from the prairie and dumping them on our front porch. We're determined to keep ahead of that front walkway snow drift this year before it turns into an unshovleable 4-foot-tall hunk of ice that sticks around until June. Not that we've let that happen every other year we've lived here or anything.
What's going to get me through this Wyoming winter is hygge. Have I talked hygge on here yet? Probably. Here's a simplified rundown: "Hygge" is a Danish word that describes a feeling of coziness/contentment. In world happiness studies, Denmark tops the charts year after year. It's not because they're the richest country, or the country with the best climate, or anything like that. It seems that they have engrained into their culture a deep love of hygge. Essentially this means that they get so, so happy about all things "cozy." This probably developed as a survival tactic to get through their 10 months of brutal winters. Relatable.
So the Danish (and Norwegian and other Scandinavian countries) get very excited about staying inside when the weather is miserable, spending time with small groups of family and friends (or alone), making home-cooked meals, and just basking in the joy of simple things like candle-glow and cookies. Essentially they get their happiness from simple things that happen everyday. Instead of holding out on happiness until they get the big promotion, or are able to go on a foreign vacation or build their dream home, they recognize the greatest happiness in simple joys that can be found or created every day. I recommend the book "The Little Book of Hygge" if you want to learn more about hygge (pronounced "hooga"). Jared's mom got me a new hygge book for Christmas: "How to Hygge," by Signe Johansen. She's a chef from Norway, and everything I've made from her recipe section has been just incredible. On that note, me and Jack made the best chocolate muffins this week!
I've been keeping up with my goal of taking a sunset walk in the prairie most evenings, even when it's bitter cold and windy. If you bundle up every inch of your skin, it's mostly pretty nice! Occasionally we get a day that's so windy and freezing that you can feel your eyeballs turning to ice. Mostly it's worth it to get a few minutes of fresh air each day. Savvy and Jack appreciate it.
^^A picture I took for Jared so he'd know where we hid some McDonald's outside the hospital for him. Can you spot it behind the wall? Poor Jared had a rough week. He's in a demanding 6-week OB hospitalist rotation. Not his favorite, and the hours have been long. He finished off this last long week with a 26-hour shift from Saturday into Sunday, and then he slept the rest of Sunday when he got home, only to have to wake up early again this morning and start another tough week. We planned to have a quick dinner with him in our car outside the hospital on Saturday. He'd hop in, we'd scarf down some burgers, Jack would get to tell Daddy about his day, and off Jared would go to work another 15 hours.
Unfortunately, right as we were pulling up a patient was admitted in preterm labor and Jared had to deliver the baby. We waited outside for almost an hour before we finally just hid his dinner (didn't have masks and Jack didn't have shoes so I couldn't drop it off inside) and drove home. I think he got to it 3 hours later. He came home so sad the next morning and has been down ever since. The baby nearly died and had to be lifeflighted to Denver. These things happen, especially with premies, but Jared took it hard since he was in charge. Anyway, two more weeks of this stressful rotation for him. Then hopefully things will get better. Prayers for Jares would be appreciated. (Also prayers for the preterm baby.)
Happy New Year! This is the first year since before having Jack that I haven't ended up violently ill at some point during the holiday season. (Ironic because the-year-of-the-covid, but also unsurprising since I genuinely love living my best quarantine life so we haven't had as much exposure to cold and flu germs). My parents drove up to visit for New Years Eve and Day like they have each year since we moved to Casper. We had lots of fun and I didn't pull my camera out hardly ever. A good sign since it means I was caught up living in the moment, but it also means this post will be sparse on pictures.
On one of my parents' days here, Jared had an extremely long hospital shift followed by a jail shift. We decided to have him meet us at a restaurant for dinner. I haven't had a proper sit-down meal at a restaurant in ages. This was a new place we'd never been that I'd been meaning to try (Ludovico's), and it exceeded allll expectations. Easily the best carbonara, wings, and pizza I've had in Casper. Jack even stayed entertained all evening without requiring any assistance from my phone. He played with a Minnie Mouse doll that my mom brought him as a present. He saw a Minnie doll at his cousin Sadie's house last month and he's been talking about it ever since. He's in heaven haha.
On New Year's Eve we broke tradition from our "international appetizers" theme and instead roasted a turkey. Jared's program gave him one for Thanksgiving, but we already had a smaller turkey, so this seemed like a good time to roast the big one. It turned out amazing. We played board games and threw boiling water into the Wyoming air to watch it instantly freeze. It wasn't even in the single digits outside this year, but it still worked. We stayed up pretty darn close to midnight. Close enough that when our neighbors behind us set off a grand display of aerial fireworks at midnight, Jared and I were still awake to watch it from our bedroom window. Jack also heard the fireworks and woke up screaming. He then proceeded to fall asleep in our bed for the first time . . . ever?! We've tried in the past, but he would never do it. It was equal parts sweet/exciting/exhausting. Homeboy slept horizontally with his feet kicking me in the face, then woke up 2 hours earlier than usual demanding to start his day. Neat start to a new year. Probably not a metaphor.
On my parents' last night here, I made a German dinner. It was a thing to behold. I wish I'd taken a picture, but it was pretty similar to the feast in my Christmas Day post last week. I made rotkohl and spaetzle again, but swapped out the sauerbratten for bratwurst. An all-around excellent choice. The bratwurst was much less work, cheaper, and honestly rounded out the meal better than the sauerbraten did on Christmas. I'm going to keep tweaking until I have the perfect German dinner menu for an annual German Holiday Feast. We loved having my Mom and Dad here, and Jack has already packed his suitcase (full of toys) to go visit them when Jared has his next Utah rotation in February. 
And now for some resolutions talk! Don't worry, nothing too motivational or lofty here. This is probably my least lofty year of resolutions yet. In 2020, I was forced to slow down. I know, everyone was, but my slowing-down hit in January and I fought it for a couple months until I realized I wasn't meant to fight it. I'll talk more about that in a future post, but basically after a series of back-to-back-to-back setbacks (so many sicknesses and lost devices), I took the hint and was like, "Wait, maybe I'm not supposed to be chasing lofty dreams right now. Maybe I'm supposed to just chill out for a minute." So I tried that for the rest of the year. Don't get me wrong, I still kept very busy, but in a less manic way than before. Sometimes I really miss the old hustle, but I know I'm where I need to be for right now (not forever) and I'm trusting in the journey. And also, I have frequent moments of feeling so happy and grateful that I was not-so-gently pushed to back off from my social media platform before the storm of 2020 drama hit. Woof. Some people are cut out for that. I am not one of those people. My mental health would have plummeted.
ANYway, it's getting late and my typing fingers are getting rambly. To summarize my resolutions, I'm keeping my year low-key on purpose this time around. I've got some big things to prepare for, like getting our house ready to sell, moving to another state, hopefully planning a really great post-residency vacation, and eventually probably signing onto 9 months on my near-death bed after we start trying for baby #2 later this year. (*shudders from the nausea ptsd*) In the past my goals and pursuits have been focused on future happiness. This year I'm focusing more on present happiness, because for the most part, I'm already living my dream life, and I just don't want to overlook that on my pursuit for "what's next."
My one big goal for the year was going to be to write a book. I've always wanted to do that, and it feels like a goal I can finish, check off my list, and be proud of without having to continue to feed for years to come. But when I went to write it on my resolutions list, I couldn't do it. There's just too much uncertainty and too many other big things to prep for this year. So instead of writing a book, I'll continue writing this blog. I'll continue to do mostly life updates and journaling, but I'll also throw in a smattering of other topics I feel inspired to write about. It's been a long time since I've written anything other than a journal entry. I'm excited to change it up occasionally this year, especially on slower weeks when I don't have much to report.
Ok, it's too late. Hopefully I'll do a year in review post next week! Just waiting on a good day for family pictures when Jared's home before dark and it's not crazy windy outside. Sooooo, probably in July! You'll get a 2020 year-in-review post from me in July :-) (kidding, probably)
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