^^^Playing with the camera as we prepared to leave for Utah.
Ahh, another trip to Utah. Jared has an away rotation in Spokane that we couldn't join him on, so he drove us to Utah to drop us off at my parents' house and then he flew to Washington. The weather here is waaaay nicer than it is in Casper right now. We picked a good time to come.
The next day we went for a little hike to the G on the mountain. We wished we were wearing shorts--it's so warm right now! We've never done this hike before. It was a bit steep and the G was just a bunch of old metal strips painted white, but it was a fun new adventure. We love explorations. Speaking of explorations, we also spent an afternoon exploring Saratoga Springs. I expected there to be a bigger city center, but really it was just a ton of houses with some shopping at the very North end of town near Lehi. We did find some hot springs near the lake and we drove up into Israel Canyon a bit. Didn't know either of those things existed before this. Saratoga is cute with its beautiful views of Timpanogos and the other mountains on the west side of the lake, but I don't think we'd want to live over there. We're too obsessed with the trails on our side.
^^^Jack tagging along with the 4 little boys who live next door to my parents. We would've put a helmet on him, but the battery died on this car so they couldn't get it moving.
^^^Getting our favorite pizza in the valley at Terra Mia--Jared wearing all denim and me wearing all linen.
My favorite hobbies are currently weaving and thrifting, so I thought I'd do a post to remember this time. I taught myself how to weave from YouTube videos about 4 years ago, shortly after we moved to Georgia. Now I feel like I'm finally very comfortable with the various weaving techniques and have developed my own unique style. The above picture is the only one on my phone representing both weaving and thrifting, but typically I prefer to weave round shapes in bright color schemes. I mostly weave for my own enjoyment, but it's nice when I make an occasional sale on my Etsy shop.
Since moving to Casper and trying to decorate our home on a budget, I have come to really enjoy thrifting too. I like to go on my own once every week or so when Jared can be home with Jack. Almost all of our furniture and home decor have come from our local thrift store. It's been a slow process, but I love every piece. I also live thrifting clothes. I gravitate toward linen outfits and unique vintage dresses. I have a collection of about half a dozen beautiful old dresses now that I just love. I thrifted my favorite one yet today, so it's fresh on the mind. It's a knee-length piece with half sleeve, old lace details, and tiny buttons going up the front. I'll have to take more pictures. Down the road I hope to get a sewing machine and learn to do my own tailoring for those thrifted pieces that don't quite fit right. Maybe my wonderful mom and grandmother can show me a thing or two about making alterations next time I'm in Utah :)
We had a very full Halloween. It started with all the parties I talked about last week, then on Halloween we went trick-or-treating at Jared's clinic in the afternoon. Jack was not excited to get in his costume. Poor guy is terrified of costumes. He did ok once he realized that the only people in costumes were other little kids wearing princess dresses, but then some older boys came around the corner wearing scary masks and he lost it. He clutched his stuffed bunny close the entire time. He did like saying "trick-or-treat" (more like "cheeee!") to the nurses and getting candy.
I might be the one having the hardest time with the whole binky weaning now. It's so sad to think that when I go to check on him in his sleep before bed, I'll never catch my baby boy sucking sweetly on his pacifier again. Ugh. I'm not crying, you're crying. One thing that's helped with this ordeal is that on the first day of the weaning, we went to the thrift store and loaded up on tons of new toys for Jack. Now even though he's not sleeping as much, at least he's usually pretty happy since he loves playing with his new cars. His favorite things to do are play with them in his Batman playhouse or drive them around the coffee table. He's more self-entertained than he's ever been before. Thank u dear thrift shop!
Woof, what a weekend. We had 3 back-to-back parties to attend, 2 of which were "put together" by us. And we are NOT party animals, so this is shocking and now we're exhausted.
But first, a highlight from the week. Jared had to work early Saturday morning into the afternoon, but when he got home we had time before my party to take a fun family trip into town. It was freezing and snowy outside, so we took to walking through some stores. Jack's favorite was PetSmart, where we spent ages looking at the fish, guinea pigs, lizards, birds, and cats. Jack's favorite was a light cat that he kept kissing through the glass and meowing at.
Afterward we went to a Mexican restaurant. This is the first time we've been to a restaurant all together and Jared and I were able to actually enjoy the experience because Jack was a good lil' boy! Jack ate a bowl full of refried beans and then watched a cartoon quietly on my phone while me and Jared ate and laughed together. It felt like a real-life date night.
Now to talk about the parties! The above picture is the only one I have on my phone from any of the 3 parties. It's a bit of a rough selfie of me (a scarecrow) and Jack (a duck) at the ward Halloween party on Friday. There are many better pictures on Jared's phone. I'll include them next week. Jared was in charge of the ward Halloween party this year. He spent weeks leading up to it planning and delegating. We decorated the gym together the day before, and the party went great. Well, I guess Jack didn't think so. He was terrified of everyone in their costumes. He spent the entire night whimpering and clinging to my neck. I took him home as soon as we finished our chili dinner, and Jared stayed until the end to help clean up. Jack was so cute in his costume, even if he refused to let us put the duck hood on. Ducks are his favorite right now. I'm glad I nabbed the costume up at Goodwill.
Saturday night I went to a "Witches Night Out" party with several other gals from our ward. We brewed homemade vanilla extract and played lots of games. The worst part of the night was when I tied another girl at Halloween Pictionary and they made us have a dance-off to determine the winner. I should've bowed out from the get-go. Someone captured the whole thing and posted it online, ugh. I got endless comments about my moves at church the next day. Of which I have none. Literally zero moves. For sure I lost that competition. It was still a great party though. The hostesses put a lot of love into the details.
The final "party" of the weekend was on Sunday night. We were put in charge of hosting an interviewee dinner for Jared's residency program. It's interview season for the next round of applicants, so we will host one or two more of these in the next coming months. Luckily we really only have to make sure we have a clean house. The program has dinner catered in, and it's basically just a socializing event with around 4 interviewees and 4-5 residents from Jared's program. Afterward Jared's resident friends stuck around and we played a game of Settlers of Catan. This was probably our favorite party from the weekend. We didn't have to leave our house or prepare anything, and now we have a fridge full of delicious catered BBQ leftovers.
^^Just a couple sweet moments from this week. I love the last one of Jack leaning on Jared to watch him play a computer game before bed. Basically Jared's dream. We're looking forward to a great new week ahead of us with hopefully no social engagements for a little while.
^^Jared's Harry Potter scar hahaha. We did a Harry Potter photoshoot at this crumbling park in our town where we have never seen another soul.
Exciting things from this week:
-We got a bed frame! It's a beautiful, sturdy bed frame and it means we are no longer sleeping on a mattress on the floor like a couple of college students!
-We got the biggest snow storm I've ever seen in Casper on Sunday. This would have been more fun if Jared didn't get called into work at 6:30 in the morning so I had to get me and Jack to church and back on our own, plus dig the car out of the driveway where it got stuck.
-Jared gets to do his first moonlighting shift this week. Basically that means he's picking up an after-hours shift at a local clinic as an actual doctor for some extra money. I would be more excited about this if it wasn't on a Wednesday night, meaning I'll have to keep Jack up way past his bedtime to take him to mutual with me yet again. I love my calling as YW secretary and the people I work with, but I have had to go to mutual every Wednesday for the past 4 years and I'm tired of it. If our ward wasn't so small I'd imagine I wouldn't have to go as secretary, but it is, and I do.
Those are the major new happenings. It was kind of a quiet week. Oh! I wanted to se if I can write down all of Jack's words. He's getting quite the little vocabulary:
dada, mama (finally!), nana ("great grandma" or "banana"), yaya ("Savvy"), dack (Jack), ama (grandma), umpa (grandpa), yes, no, mo bo (motor boat), coat, uh-oh, hep (help), wawa (water), choca (chocolate), kaka (cracker), gogo (gogo squeeze), bah (fig bar), gih-gih (again), hi, hewo (hello), die ("bye"), pahk (park), car, kack kack (duck/quack), bun (bunny), ball, whee!, swee (swing), ba-boo ("Kazoops"--his favorite show), bee-boo ("beeboop"--what we call our robot vacuum), buh-bow (bubbles), nose, eye, hair, please, thank you, on, off, up, down, boo, boots, shoes, moon, bird, tractor, truck, boat, spoon, jump, flower ("wow-o") bug ("buh"), night-night, ho-ho (what santa says), and probably a dozen or so animal sounds.
There are probably quite a few more, but those are the top ones that come to mind. His understanding is getting better and better. I can ask him to do just about anything and he gets it. And he'll attempt most one- or two-syllable words we ask him to say. These are just the ones he readily knows without being prompted. We love our Jack Jack!
Whew, that was a tougher week than it should have been. I think I expected everything to be perfect and wonderful because Jared started a new shift where he was supposedly going to be working half days for two weeks. Well, two half days came and went, and then the rest of the week Jared had to work long full days. This next week will be the same, plus Jared is working a 24-hr shift into Saturday, so there goes the last of our fall weekends together. To make matters worse, after our two nice half days were up, I came down with a terrible cold and Jack starting cutting three new molars. So I was sick, Jack was grumpy, and there was none of the assistance from Jared that I thought I'd have this week. I thought I'd mastered setting aside all expectations as far as medical training goes, but I still have some work to do on not getting my hopes up. At least we were able to make the most of those two half days. On one of them we spent the afternoon up in Casper Mountain, as we knew it was going to snow the next day and this would probably be our last chance.
Jack is a big fan of being spun around like this. All day long he holds his hands up for me to grab them and asks to do "Mo Bo" (motor boat). We spin around and around until I'm too dizzy and can't anymore, and then he pitches a fit because he wants to keep going. Toddlers are fun.
It does all of us a lot of good to get up there in the fresh mountain air and hike around a bit. This day we had the entire mountainside to ourselves. Jack loved flying through the leaves and throwing and jumping off rocks. It's a 30-45 minute drive to get up into Casper mountain from our house. Someday when we're buying our forever home, we want to be a 15-minute maximum from the nearest mountain. (p.s. I'm writing this post while Jack "naps" in his room. I just heard some very loud meowing coming from his crib, haha. He just learned how to meow and it's hilarious because he sounds like an actual very loud cat.)
This will probably be our Christmas card picture this year. Jared has another tough rotation coming up, and then we're gone for the rest of the year. Another reason it's been a tough week--I think it really sunk in that starting in November we'll be doing the nomad thing again for 4-5 months, and I'll be doing the single parenting thing for half of that. Ugh. It's difficult to feel settled into a place when this sort of thing happens yearly. Hopefully some good will come of it though. Jared's hoping to get to know all the family practice doctors in Evanston during that time and sign for his first post-residency job in the spring. Maybe in Wyoming, possibly in Utah, and potentially somewhere else entirely. I'll keep you updated!
Jared just finished working 6 weeks of 80-hr/wk night shifts. It was brutal for both of us. For him because all his life consisted of was working 15 hours during the evening and night, coming home to sleep all day, and then waking up and rushing to get ready for his next shift. Not to mention that every Monday brought a 24-hr shift. It was just as brutal for me. It's hard enough to feel like you're parenting without support. It's even harder when your husband is there at home all day, but you can't go to him for help or anything because you need to let him sleep all day.
During Jared's last week of nights I decided I needed to get away. Me and Jack drove to Utah to be with my family for a week and see the fall leaves. This was my first time driving so far by myself, and definitely my first time driving so far alone with a toddler in the backseat. I think it went pretty well, all things considered. Jack doesn't sleep great in the car, but I handled his tired whines just as well as I would have if Jared had been there to help out. It helped to have a box full of books, toys, snacks, and his kindle tablet loaded with baby cartoons.
The leaves were beautiful. I think this was my first time seeing Utah with its peak fall leaves since before med school. There weren't as many yellows as I remember, but lots and lots of reds. Jack and I went up to Big Springs one afternoon. It was perfect, and Jack found a little playgroup of toddlers playing tag. He couldn't resist joining in.
Jack enjoyed plenty of quality time with grandma and cousin Cole.
My must-eat food list gets shorter and shorter each time we go back to Utah. Not because there's a shortage of good food there, but because we live close enough now and visit often enough that I don't feel like I NEED to hit up all my favorites every time. This time the only two on my list were a Cubby's salad and Chubby's burger and fries. I only made it to Chubby's and wasn't in the mood for a burger, but their battered fries hit the spot. I was sad I couldn't take Jack to the Puppy Barn next door--they were closed for renovations.
Jack is a biiig fan of "Umpa" (Grandpa). He loved playing with and reading with grandpa so much. I've never seen him sit so still for so long as he did while reading bedtime stories with Grandpa Haines.
My favorite outing was our trip to Cornbellies with Mom and Dad. It was insanely crowded when we get there and the entrance fee was outrageous, so instead we enjoyed jumping off the hay bales in the parking lot and watching the animals at Thanksgiving Point on the way back to the car. This kept Jack more entertained than I think he even would have been at Cornbellies, for free! We stopped at Del Taco for dinner on the way home because they had a play place. Jack enjoyed organizing everyone's belongings in the shoe bins.
Jack loved playing in Nana's (Great-grandma Roper's) yard! We stopped by two afternoons and he loved her snacks, flowers, and swings. He got a kick out of making the swing rotate in a big circle around him without touching him.
During Jared's last week of nights I decided I needed to get away. Me and Jack drove to Utah to be with my family for a week and see the fall leaves. This was my first time driving so far by myself, and definitely my first time driving so far alone with a toddler in the backseat. I think it went pretty well, all things considered. Jack doesn't sleep great in the car, but I handled his tired whines just as well as I would have if Jared had been there to help out. It helped to have a box full of books, toys, snacks, and his kindle tablet loaded with baby cartoons.
Jack did better than ever in a shopping cart when we went to Costco. I think he liked looking around at everything and everyone. But his favorite shopping trip was probably when we went to HomeGoods with Grandma and Jack fell head-over-heels in love with this giant rubber duck he found in the toy aisle. Grandma bought it for him and he hasn't stopped snuggling it or giving it "muh"s ever since. He even sleeps with it in his crib. It's so sweet.
^^These pictures are at Big Springs, but on our last day we were able to drive the Alpine Loop. This was a good decision because the leaves were beautiful and I haven't done that drive in probably half a decade now (WOW), but a bad decision because Jack was very tired and not happy to be stuck in the car for two hours. Next time I want to do this drive I'll do it when he's down for a nap or bedtime.
All in all it was a good, needed break. Jared is finished with night shifts and just starting to get used to sleeping at night instead of during the day again. He's still wanting to take naps whenever he gets home from work, but I'm hoping that will wear off in another week or so. This life of medical training sure is tough. I thought the toughest times were behind us, but I'm realizing that we will be living the nomad life once more over the next 5 months as Jared has a month-long away rotation in Spokane, and then we'll be in Seattle for Christmas, then back to Casper for a little over a month, and then another month-long away rotation in Evanston. I'm growing weary of this lifestyle. I may have adapted to it to some degree, and I'm able to accept it as the life we chose to take on to get where we want to go, but I just feel weighed down by it right now. I wish we could settle down in our forever home in the mountains, somewhere closer to family but with a sense of peace and solitude and permanence. Where we could leave if and when we wanted to, but not for several months out of the year because we HAVE to. Here's to hopefully only doing the nomad thing for 2 more years until Jared graduates from his residency!
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