Lately Jared and I have been feeling some nostalgia for Georgia. It must be this frigid Casper winter. For as muggy and miserable as the Georgia summers were, her mild winters were mighty fine. It's also fun to remember a time when we had the ability to get out on spontaneous little adventures fairly frequently. Between the freezing weather, living in the middle of nowhere, having a baby who hates his carseat, and Jared's demanding schedule, we don't get out a whole lot these days. I was too sick to blog much while I was pregnant, so I thought I'd revisit this spontaneous trip we made to Providence, GA. I was 5 months pregnant at the time, and Jared was sick with stress for a big upcoming test. Although I just wanted to stay curled up in the fetal position at home, I told Jared we were going to go for an adventure to get his mind off the test, so we drove 2 hours down to Georgia's "Little Grand Canyon."
Providence Canyon State Park is cool mostly because it's so unexpected in a state where pretty much the only scenery you get is enormous trees as far as the eye can see. This "Little Grand Canyon" isn't anything like the big grand canyon. The red "rock" is actually soil that has eroded away because of bad farming/irrigation practices in the area a century or two back. We were the only ones there when we hiked around the rim this October day, and the hike took less than an hour. It was the perfect low-key adventure for a permanently nauseated pregnant lady and her nervous nelly of a med student husband. Also, at 20+ weeks along, I was finally feeling up to taking a photo to announce my pregnancy. It wasn't anything fancy, but we love going on little explorations together so it seemed fitting to announce our baby boy in a quiet, outdoorsy location.
Right across the street from the canyon is an old church and tiny cemetery. I looooove all the old and overgrown cemeteries in the southeast. We looked around to see if we could find any interesting names for our baby boy, and then we laid down on the grass to rest and talk about names. One of my all-time favorite girl names is Lark (see above picture). Most people I tell this to think it's a weird name, but I love how unique it is. When I was a little girl, my mom told me that my grandma wanted to have twin girls named Brooke and Lark. I don't know if that's true, but the name has stuck with me ever since.
Unfortunately, the odds of me ever getting to name a daughter Lark are pretty slim. The first reason is that Jared is OBSESSED with having a little girl named Alice. Any time he has ever talked about a future child of ours, he always calls the child "Alice." Having a girl named Alice is more important to Jared than having a girl named Lark is to me. So we'd have to have two girls in order for me to use Lark, which seems pretty unlikely. There's a family tradition in the maternal line of my family where you only get to have one daughter. Add that to how horrifying my pregnancies are...it just seems unlikely that we'll get as far as two girls. So anyway, when I came upon this picture just barely, it occurred to me that maybe I could name a son Larkin instead if we end up with a couple more boys. Boy names are hard for us. I'll add it to our list.
On our way home to Atlanta, we made a detour into Alabama and stopped at the best BBQ shack probably on the planet. It is literally just a shack in the middle-of-nowhere Alabama with a sign out front that reads "BBQ." I included the picture above just in case we ever make it back to Alabama and need details on how to get here. Don't ask me why I was running a google search for "KFC near me." Must've been the only thing that didn't sound terrible to my pregnant self.
We ate a lot of fantastic BBQ when we lived in the South, but none as good as this. And that's saying something, considering that I was pregnant when I ate it and EVERYTHING tasted terrible to me when I was pregnant. No pregnancy cravings for this gal. Only pregnancy aversions to everything. Even water.
Our first Christmas as a family of 3 was wonderful. Jared had Christmas Day off but had to work the days before and after, so we stayed home for a cozy Christmas in Bar Nunn.
We started some of our own traditions, which was very fun. We changed into our Christmas pjs from grandma and read Luke 2 and Twas the Night Before Christmas. Jack is a fireball and it's impossible to relax when he's awake, so we put him down for bed at 7:00 before enjoying our Christmas Eve dinner of pizza, hot wings, pineapple, and our favorite kale salad. I was disappointed not to be able to find Black Cherry soda anywhere in Casper, as Black Cherry with eggnog is my family's Christmas Eve beverage tradition. I knew we'd be preparing a turkey feast on Christmas Day, so I'm glad we kept our Christmas Eve dinner simple. Who doesn't love a good pizza?
We had every intention of watching a Christmas movie before going to sleep, but apparently we have already become worn-out parents because we went to sleep early instead. It's ok, we watched It's a Wonderful Life the night before.
Jack got spoiled by both sets of grandparents. His bigger gifts included a walker/toddler bike and this hiking backpack. We took it for a spin on Casper mountain but only lasted 5 minutes in the wind. Me and Jared got Jack a toy, a book, and some book ledges to make a library wall in his bedroom. He loves it!
Jack's favorite part of the Christmas season was the sparkly lights on the tree and our bed.
MY favorite part of the Christmas season was putting Jack in adorable little Christmasy outfits from his Grandma Lambert.
We enjoyed opening our presents, devouring our breakfast of Christmas rolls and cold cereal, chatting with my missionary brother Tim, and successfully roasting our very first Christmas Turkey. I was really impressed with how delicious it turned out. At the last minute we had our neighbor friends (the Higginses) from across the street over for Christmas dinner. They had just gotten back from a long drive and didn't have a Christmas dinner ready. The next day those neighbors found out that they were 6 months pregnant and had no idea! They thought they were having fertility issues and they went to see a doctor about it, and the doctor was like, "Nope you're super pregnant." So crazy! Anyway, our first Christmas in our very own home with our very own baby was every bit as magical as we hoped it would be.
^^A woven ornament I made for an ornament exchange party of a friend in our ward.
We drove around our neighborhood looking for Christmas lights. We didn't find many, but we did find this enormous homemade leg lamp. (Yes Jack is on Jared's lap. Literally we only went up and down the 5 streets closest to us and never saw another car the entire time. No regrets. Bar Nunn is the quietest town in America.)
Jared was so excited to get everything all set up for Jack's first Christmas! It was very cute. On Christmas morning, Jack loved climbing all over the piles of presents and gingerly pulling the wrapping paper apart.
^^Experiencing the joy of his first chocolate+marshmallow Santa.
Jared and I had a misunderstanding leading up to Christmas. Our plan was to just get new phones for Christmas (his was dying and I lost mine), and then we'd just fill each other's stockings. Well, we got our phones at the beginning of the month and by the time Christmas came along, Jared completely forgot that the phones were supposed to be most of our Christmas. So when I sent him a list with a bunch of ideas for stocking stuffers for me, he got literally EVERYTHING on the list and more. Meanwhile, I just got him a couple dinky stocking stuffers and a book. Whoops! We've always been really good at communicating so this was a weird misunderstanding. Jared's insane residency schedule means his brain has a hard time holding onto any non-work-related information.
But don't let the picture below fool you, he wasn't bitter at all! Just not good at smiling for pics haha. I felt really bad, but both of our parents pulled through for him and he still got a great haul. Next year I want to simplify Christmas and have me and Jared give each other a vacation instead of gifts. I'll just have to be crystal clear if/when we decide that, though. We haven't been on a vacation just the two of us since our honeymoon 6 years ago. We went to Savannah for a night when we lived in Georgia, but we took the dog with us and stayed in a Motel 6 so it doesn't count.
Only 2 weeks into the year and I already missed a "regular" Monday post. Oops. Sorry Grandma and Timmy! (Tim's my brother serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He can check emails and read my blog on Mondays).
I meant to post yesterday but it turned into a CRAZY day. I took a work project that I'm struggling to meet the deadline for, and Jack had the worst day ever. Basically he threw nonstop tantrums all day long and nothing I did could get him to chill. I'm hoping it was just teething pain and not a new phase, because I will lose my mind if this keeps up for long. Poor guy has two little toothbuds on bottom that haven't popped through yet so I'm thinking teething may have been it. I gave him some infant Tylenol just in case.
Ok so actually I have an editing project due in an hour so I have to make this a quick post. Here are 3 little recent updates.
1. Jared finished a long string of demanding rotations that went on for 4 months yesterday. I was so excited for him to start his 2-week radiology rotation because I figured he could see his son a little more often. It's only been one day so far. Pros: He really enjoys the work and will often be able to come home for lunch. Cons: He still didn't get home in the evening until after Jack went to bed. Thank goodness intern year is half over. The worst is when Jared has to work late nights all week, and then on top of that he has to spend his entire weekend working a 30-hr shift and then sleeping it off. It's hard not to see him, and it's really hard to never catch a break in the parenting department.
2. Jack is getting really close to walking! Occasionally I'll catch him standing up and not holding onto anything for support. It only lasts for a second or two, but I think within a few weeks he'll be taking some steps. Right now it's a race to see if he's going to start walking before he gets any teeth. It's going to be close.
3. I'm working on a large-scale weaving right now that I'm really excited about. I welded a copper frame loom for it by myself. Warping it up was really difficult because the string kept slipping on the metal, but now that it's starting to take shape it's looking great. I've dreamed of starting an online shop for my woven wall hangings for years now. Pregnancy and having a baby put a big fat pause on that, but hopefully this will be the year I'm able to make it happen. I'll post some pictures when I'm done with the piece I'm working on now.
The pictures in this post are outtakes from when we were trying to get a shot for our Christmas card. I love how me and Jack are looking at each other in the first one. We tried to take pictures in the prairie (see picture below), but the wind NEVER takes a break here in the winter, and it was just too cold to get a good one of everyone smiling. I'll try again in the summer.
Happy New Year! My Christmas gift to my grandma Roper was a promise to blog every week this year, aiming for a Monday morning post. I'm happy to start doing this, as I've been bad about posting for the past two years and really miss having those memories to look back on.
I know this is a weird place to start the new year, but I wanted to post about our Thanksgiving break. Other bloggers be like, "I'm so bad, posting Christmas 2 weeks late." And I'm just over here like, "Sweet, getting Thanksgiving posted earlier than usual."
Jared got a full week off for Thanksgiving, which is pretty much unheard of during residency. We split our time and spent a couple days in Orem with my family, and then the rest of the week in Bear Lake for Thanksgiving with Jared's family.
Jack was uncharacteristically content our entire time in Orem. Normally he's pretty fussy and high maintenance, so it was fun (*cough* suspicious) to see him playing happily for so long with various toys and relatives. He loved the swing my parents installed under their deck.
It's no secret that Jared loves Utah Valley. In fact, it's almost annoying how much he talks about his love for Utah Valley, and I'm FROM there. And I love it too! Yes that inversion's pretty gross, and yes it is getting a little crowded for our taste, but those particular mountains and trails are really special. Not to mention all the family we have in Utah, and Jared is oddly obsessed with Utah Lake. Also the food scene. Thumbs up. Apologies to Jared's family for Jared aggressively trying to sell everyone on moving to Utah with us someday. I do think the obsession is pretty funny considering that back in his college days Jared said he would N E V E R marry a Utah girl.
^^Check out those fabulous postpartum bangs. My mom and grandma will be happy to hear that I will be getting a new haircut very soon. I just have to scope out a good hairdresser in Casper first. Or maybe I'll wait until we visit Utah in March so I can go to my girl Sheree. Oh and also this is the spot where Jared and I got engaged!
Unfortunately our time in Utah wasn't all magical, inversiony hikes. I got insanely sick the night we arrived. Like, puking every half an hour all night long. I started sobbing because I was terrified I might be pregnant again (the pregnancy PTSD is very real for me). I was so relieved when the explosive diarrhea started up because I knew I must be sick with something that would be gone within a week instead of 9 months. Luckily I was only sick for a day, but then everyone else in my family caught my bug right before Thanksgiving and couldn't eat their Thanksgiving dinner. Oops!
Our Thanksgiving in Bear Lake was very picturesque. Well, up until everyone there started throwing up too and we ran for it back to Casper a day early. We succeeded in getting Jack home before he caught any bugs, but we hit some bad weather and had to stay a night in Rock Springs because the freeway closed.
Jack Jack's favorite holiday must be Thanksgiving, because homeboy can EAT. He was all about dem taters. And stuffing. And beans. And everything else on the table. We couldn't get it in him fast enough.
Jared's mom brought several Christmas presents for us to take home. Jack had just figured out how to walk around while pushing large objects, so we couldn't resist opening this really cool baby walker/bike and putting it together for him to play with. I'll put some better pics in my next post. He loves it.
This has to be one of my top 5 favorite pictures of Jack ever, in one of my top 5 favorite outfits of Jack's ever. Jared's mom got him this adorable Rudolph jumpsuit. It's completely fleece-lined and looks so classic and cozy. He wears it multiple times a week, even now that Christmas is over.
Other than literally every person in both of our families getting sick, we had some great times for Jack's first Thanksgiving. My only regret (besides all the sickness) was not making a film festival video to enter into the annual Welker Family Thanksgiving Film Fest. I had some really stellar ideas, too. Time just has a way from slipping away from me now that we have a baby. Here's to hoping we can spend Thanksgiving with family again next year!
I know this is a weird place to start the new year, but I wanted to post about our Thanksgiving break. Other bloggers be like, "I'm so bad, posting Christmas 2 weeks late." And I'm just over here like, "Sweet, getting Thanksgiving posted earlier than usual."
Jared's family's cabin in Bear Lake is seriously gorgeous. It is a thing of art. I loved the Haines cabin I went to growing up in little Mammoth Creek UT, but the floorplan of that little log cabin paled in comparison to this giant log lodge. It's perfect for large, extended family gatherings. Jack loved being up high in the loft area and looking down at everyone beneath. That kid loves heights.
^^Jared and Jack Jack enjoying the incredible view of Bear Lake out the cabin's front windows.
Other than literally every person in both of our families getting sick, we had some great times for Jack's first Thanksgiving. My only regret (besides all the sickness) was not making a film festival video to enter into the annual Welker Family Thanksgiving Film Fest. I had some really stellar ideas, too. Time just has a way from slipping away from me now that we have a baby. Here's to hoping we can spend Thanksgiving with family again next year!
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