the end of september

The end of September brought a few more adventures.

My friend and I had decided to take our families on a joint camping trip in Idaho, but as the days progressed, the weather forecast continually predicted rain.  And truth be told, I am a fair weather camper.  I think you've all heard stories about me crying when it's too cold outside or about our tent ripping when it was too windy or leaving early because it was too hot outside.

Oh wait.  That last one has never happened because it has NEVER BEEN TOO HOT OUTSIDE.  My family only loves to camp when it's frigid.  Bring on the heat, I say.

But I digress.

I didn't really want to camp in the rain.  Tim and I ultimately decided to wait on camping and just go up for the day on Saturday.  My friend's family still went, and of course, it never actually rained.

But hiking on Saturday was awesome.  There's something about being out in the middle of nowhere that brings so much peace.  Breathing deeply somehow seems a little more possible.

And although it doesn't look like it from the picture, Ellie was a huge fan of sitting in that pack.  She kept sporadically yelling, "Hike!" every few minutes.

Later that week, we spent a great deal of time cleaning out our cars, resulting in a few forgotten treasures.  Behold this wig from our first Halloween together:

[Don't tell Tim, but it's probably safe to say that Ellie looks way cuter wearing it.]

The following weekend, we drove down to St. George for Swiss Days.  There were few things that could actually be considered "Swiss" except for a select group of children wearing clothes that looked vaguely Von Trapp Family Singers, but it was a lot of fun.  The best part, of course, was seeing Tim's sister's family and his parents.

My favorite part of the picture below is that our photobomber looks like he is practicing for his next modeling audition.

We spent a great weekend with them, and I especially loved having Tim's mom and sister to watch the LDS women's conference with.  Usually I just go by myself!  I am so beyond grateful that I married into such an amazing family.

bowling date

I can't believe it's November already.  Time just flies by...especially now that I'm not in school anymore.  I remember October taking forever in college.

Waaay back in September, Tim and I went on a date.  Actually, we go on dates all the time, but usually we take Ellie, so I don't know if that actually counts.  Sometimes it feels like it counts, and sometimes it doesn't.  Anyway, in September we went on a real date, sans Ellie.  [Don't worry, she was with a great babysitter and probably didn't even notice we were gone.]

Call us nerds, but both of us really enjoy bowling.  We're terrible, but we love it.

We were the only customers in the entire place.  On a Friday night.  You'd think in a small town, it'd be a hot spot, because WHERE ELSE.  But it was just us, which we loved.  Just when we thought a bowling alley couldn't be more romantic.

Tim was still recovering from knee surgery and consequently employed the skip-hop bowling technique, but he somehow managed to beat me [by quite a lot] [but I'm not bitter] anyway.

After the bowling alley, we headed over to Firehouse Pizza for some dessert.  It hasn't been open for very long, and it's one of the few restaurants in town.  And well, it has pizza cookies, so enough said.  New favorite place.

I always love that one-on-one conversation time with Tim.  And as an additional bonus, there was an entire table of teenagers behind us, which made for great people-watching.

After our date was over, we dropped by, picked Ellie up, and drove over to the temple.  It's one of our favorite places.

Lately, Ellie enthusiastically yells, "Cheeeese!" every time she thinks you are going to take a picture of her, and sometimes she even sticks out her belly, as pictured below:

Hilarity ensues every single time.

I love that Ellie really appreciates our romance...

"That's disgusting, Dad.  Stop right now."

It was a great evening.  And I'm already missing that perfect weather.  [Right now I'm inside wearing my sweatshirt with the hood on and my fingers are about to achieve frostbite.  But I suppose at least there are no more mosquitoes?]

peach days 2014

My laptop officially bit the dust.

The top half literally broke off from the bottom half.  Which, you know, can generally cause a few problems.  Thankfully I am no longer ninety years old and actually have a smart phone, which covers most of my day-to-day issues with the internet.  Essentially the biggest change is that now when I want to blog, I have to get off my butt and make the trek to our desktop downstairs (only to sit on my butt again once I get there).  It's a tough life.

And here I am!  Downstairs.  At our desktop.  Ready to blog.  I feel so motivated.

Let's talk about Peach Days.

If you recall, our experience last year with Peach Days wasn't the best.  To be fair, it was kind of a stressful time in general, and we didn't have the time to really explore.  This year, I went around to all the booths on Friday with my friend and her kids, and then went back with Tim that night, and THEN went back again on Saturday.  And we loved it!  Turns out that when you actually have the time and aren't on the phone the whole time, it's a pretty fun place to be!

Of course, we got the Dutch Oven food again (of course)...and some cotton candy...and some spiral-cut potatoes with nacho cheese...and even some slushies from Sonic.  Needless to say, even if everything else had been terrible, we would have had a good time, because FOOD.

The first night, we got Ellie a toy bus for $1, and she was totally thrilled.  I mean, thrilled.  Like, she still talks about buses all the time now.  And she got a free balloon at one of the booths.  If you're wondering what heaven looks like to Ellie, I think that pretty much covers it.

I'm still bitter that she hated balloons back when her first birthday party was "UP" themed, but I guess I can be glad that she likes them now.  I guess.

On Saturday morning, we walked down our street a few blocks to Main Street so we could see the parade.  Talk about charm!  I was totally sold from the moment they walked down the street with the American flag and everyone stood and put their hands over their hearts.  Makes me teary every time.

They had marching bands and dance troupes and cute floats and if you can't tell I kinda loved the whole thing.

These next two pictures just kill me, for different reasons:

 Those eyes!

 That smile!

After the parade, we went home for a little while, and bought Tim a nice bike at a garage sale for $10.  Holla!  Then a couple of hours later, we met up with Tim's brother, Jeremy, and his family back at Peach Days.  We are so happy that they live so close!  It's the best.

We were definitely converted to Peach Days this year!

ogden temple open house

If you're not familiar with why members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints love temples so much, let me just briefly fill in a couple of those gaps.

It's because we believe that in temples, marriages last forever.  Like, no "till death do you part" clause.  We make covenants with each other and with God so that marriage doesn't have to end at death.  And not only do marriages not end with death, but entire families don't end with death because of those sacred covenants.  I know that because of the covenants Tim and I made in the temple, Ellie will be ours forever.  No matter what.

It's a pretty liberating thing, really.  What a paradox it is that in following the rules necessary to go in the temple, you find ultimate freedom - liberty over death!  I never feel God's love more strongly than I do when I am in those sacred walls.

Because we find those temples so sacred, we have to prepare ourselves in order to enter.  Ideally, everyone would be able to go!  I know Heavenly Father would love that.  But you have to prepare yourself spiritually before you go, under normal circumstances.

Every once in a while, a new temple will open up (or one will be remodeled) and it will briefly be opened to the public to walk through before it is dedicated to the Lord.  It's called an open house.

A couple of weeks ago, we were able to go to the Ogden Temple open house.  And it was incredible!

To help keep the temple clean, everyone who goes through the temple wears little booties over their shoes.  Ellie loved being able to wear them like everyone else, and she loved every second of walking through the "emple."  She held both of our hands the entire time!  

I felt it then, and I feel it now.  We were walking through God's house.  He loves His children so much - so much, in fact, that he gave us all a way to return to Him.

Find out more about temples here.

it's a wonderful life

I'm behind.

As usual, lately.

It's one of those habits that's hard to keep up and even harder to start over again.  But heaven knows if I don't write everything here, it'll never get written down anywhere.

Our third anniversary was August 5th, 2014.  I have a million mushy things to say about Tim, and I've written a lot of them before, but today, I'll just tell you that our life is beautiful.

It's a beautiful, wonderful life.

The day of our anniversary, we left Ellie with a sweet family in our ward.  We got some KFC and drove over to a park, where we spread out our picnic blanket and ate a romantic dinner under an ever-darkening sky.

[It was the same picnic blanket that we used the day I thought he was going to propose to me and then didn't.  I was relieved.  And disappointed.  I think it was the day I knew part of me wanted him to.]

"Wouldn't it be funny if it rained right now?"

It had taken Tim at least 10 minutes to get down the hill with his crutches, and we knew it would be even harder for him to get back up that hill in a hurry.  The wind was starting to pick up, but we ate and laughed and listened to the creek humming along behind us.  It wasn't supposed to rain today.  Was it?

The few minutes we got before it started raining were filled with such peace.  We talked about everything and nothing.  And when it finally did start raining, we laughed, picked up our things, and ran back to the car.

[I say "ran," but I think we both know that's quite the stretch for a man on crutches going up a wet, grassy hill.]

It's funny, because I definitely wouldn't have planned it that way, but it turned out perfectly.  Isn't that the way things always end up?  Eventually?

A few days later, we drove down to Provo to see Matt Walsh.

[I feel here that I must insert a caveat that we in no way agree with everything Matt Walsh says.  We agree with a lot of things he says, but certainly not all.  But what we appreciate the most is his willingness to say unpopular things.  So often I have an unpopular opinion but am too afraid to express it.]

We both felt so motivated that night.  Essentially, his message was that we need to be willing to share our opinions, especially when they are unpopular.  Otherwise, the vocal minority wins because the majority is too afraid to say something.  It was definitely a message that I needed to hear.

Our sweet sister-in-law Alison drove 30 minutes to come watch Ellie for six hours while Tim and I went to Provo together.  Ellie absolutely loooved her, and even let Alison put her to bed seamlessly that night.  We were so grateful - most especially that we could leave without an ounce of worry.

We missed our baby girl, but it was so fun to have so much uninterrupted time together.  It's the longest I've ever left Ellie, which subsequently meant that it was the longest conversation we've been able to have in 1.5 years.  It felt like we were dating again.  We even got to hold hands.  Steamy!

Those two days were the perfect, low-key anniversary celebration.

I have so much love for that man.

feminism: it should be about empowerment

Motherhood is falling further and further down the list of priorities.  For some, it's not a priority at all.  And for a growing minority, it's something that shouldn't be on anyone's priority list.  Ever.

It's a sentiment I've heard - expressed and implied - in classrooms, on blogs, and through various interactions with my peer group.

[Spoiler Alert: No moms means no babies.  Bye-bye, human race.]

I am all for women's rights.  I feel a deep sense of gratitude for the women who made it possible for me to vote and have a voice.  I am beyond grateful that I was able to obtain a college education and degrees that have become priceless to me.  I appreciate the ever-narrowing chasm of equality in the workforce.

What I don't appreciate, however, is the feministic notion that motherhood (and perhaps stay-at-home motherhood in particular) is an obstacle to be overcome in the pursuit of equality.  The word "equality" is, ironically, often used to dictate that there is only "one right way."  In my stay-at-home-mom-and-therefore-lesser opinion, feminism is - or at least should be - about empowerment.  It's about empowering women to do whatever it is that they dream about doing.

Sometimes that means accepting that someone's dream might be different from your own.  From the societal norm.  From what's socially acceptable.

Socially acceptable.  

Fifty years ago, half of the marvelous and magnificent accomplishments of women today would have been considered socially unacceptable.  Only stay-at-home-motherhood would have been acceptable.  Anything "less" would have been an affront to women throughout the world.  And today?  It's completely reversed.  Stay-at-home moms are the brainwashed, uneducated swine that produce brainwashed, uneducated piglets.

If you are a woman who doesn't want to have kids and hopes to eradicate cancer, good for you!  If you are a working mom who also just happens to be a politician, I'm impressed!  You're both amazing.  Seriously.  I am indescribably grateful for the difference you make in this world.

But please understand that those aren't every woman's dreams.

My dreams have changed throughout the years, but right now, they are definitely about staying home every day with my beautiful, brown-eyed little girl.  I have never felt more myself than I do when I sit on the floor reading books about cows jumping over the moon, or walk hand-in-little-hand through the grass as we learn together about the sky and the water and the birds.

One of my favorite quotes reads:

"Through the thick and the thin of this, and through the occasional tears of it all, I know deep down inside I am doing God’s work. I know that in my motherhood I am in an eternal partnership with Him. I am deeply moved that God finds His ultimate purpose and meaning in being a parent."  (source)

It's one of my favorites, because it's one of those times that a quote resounds so deeply in your heart that you're surprised you didn't say it yourself.

I believe in God.  I believe that He has a plan for me.  

And I am eternally grateful that His plan for me includes being a mother.

It may not for you, but it (more-than-happily) does for me.

Let's support each other.

it's okay to be sad

There is an endless list of horrible things going on throughout the world.

It's not hard to recognize that this person has it worse than you, or that person has it worse than you, or that entire country has it worse than you.  And I think it's good to recognize that, most of the time.  It allows us to be grateful in and even for our circumstances.  It motivates us to make necessary changes in the world.

But sometimes, in those moments of personal hardship, we think about those other people or those entire countries, and we think we're not allowed to feel sad.  We're not allowed to feel hurt.  We're not allowed to feel hungry or tired or miserable, even if it's only for a few minutes of the day.  Because, hello, someone else has it worse than you!

Go ahead and be grateful.  By all means, save the world.

But don't feel guilty because you are having a hard time.  Don't feel guilty because you are sad.

It's okay to feel that way sometimes.

Just remember that the source of relief and happiness is the same for all.

via

And if you just need a pick-me-up today...

You're welcome.