8th Anniversary in the PNW

We made it to Washington! Also, it's mine and Jared's 8th anniversary today. I'm trying to get all packed for a little trip together while Jared is out depositing a urine sample for our home loan? Man, the home loan process this time around has been soooo much more involved than our home loan in Wyoming. But we have a way better rate locked in this time around, so we'll continue jumping through the hoops. 

Time is brief (and will probably continue to be brief until August--I'll give more thorough updates then). These are some pictures from swimming last night. Jared's parents have some friends from church who invited several families from the ward over to their gorgeous property for swimming and homemade ice cream. Jack was living his best life. 

^^It was the most picturesque PNW house imaginable. Dark gray shingles covered the entire exterior, with blue hydrangeas around the base. This enormous tree and swing were to the side, and magnolia and pear trees across the front.  

^^Jack playing "Wild Jack" after swimming and ice cream.

^^We were able to celebrate July 4th at Jared's parents home. Jared's cousin recently moved to the area with her family, so they came too. It's a novel thing for us to be able to spend holidays with any sort of family. This was wonderful.

^^We tried to put Jack to bed at 8:00 since he's so behind on sleep lately (yay moving). He absolutely was not having it though, so he got to stay up late to play four square and watch the fireworks.

^^I didn't get any pictures of the fireworks, but here's Jack by his second-cousin Mariah (he calls her 
Ma-rye) watching some roman candles go off in Grandma Lambert's driveway. This was probably my favorite part of the night. Jack was so scared of the idea of fireworks, but once he actually saw them he was just enthralled. They couldn't stop giggling and "ooh" and "ah" ing. After this we walked down to the neighborhood lake to watch them put on a big fireworks show. Jack was scared until I held him close and covered his ears for him to watch. He loved it. Sounds like fireworks might be banned next year here, so I'm glad we got to experience fireworks on the lake at least once.

Ok, I'm off to pack! It's not all roses and daisies, and I'm actually kind of sad. We were supposed to be boarding my very first cruise today to Alaska for our anniversary. I've longed to travel the entire time we've been married, but it wasn't in the cards during medical school. So I scrimped and saved extra grocery money throughout all 3 years of residency to be able to book this Alaska cruise. It was going to be our first big trip together since our honeymoon 8 years ago. Very much needed after residency. Then when we were in Washington looking for houses last month we got an email that our cruise had been canceled. Yay covid. We always knew that was a possibility, and luckily we were able to get a full refund, but I'm just sad because it may be severalllll more years before we'll have another opportunity to get away on a trip like that, with my track record of awful pregnancy/recovery/newborn stage. 

I'm grateful Jared's mom is willing to watch Jack and Savvy while we do a smaller getaway to an airbnb an hour north of here. I hope I'll be able to enjoy it and lay aside the guilt and worrying if Jack/Savvy/Jared's mom are doing ok. The nice thing about a cruise would've been I'd be trapped on the boat with no way of coming back early, so I would've been forced to let go and enjoy myself. Being an hour away makes me nervous I'll want to run home when I catch a whiff of Jack boycotting sleep and/or sobbing for mommy. Wish me luck and the ability to tune those worries out! Yay mom life!