my personal update

I have had a few notable things happen in the last little while but no pictures to document it, so here is my update:

- Last week my old mission companion Jodi Crick and her husband Dan Arrieus (who was in the MTC with me and then served in the same mission with us) and their two kids came and visited for the afternoon. They drove quite a ways and it was so great to see them. We reminisced about the mission, looked at old pictures, and caught up on life. They have two little girls and Thatcher had fun with them.

- Last weekend, Ty and I left the boys with a friend here in Flagstaff and then went to Phoenix to see the law firm that Ty's law firm just merged with. Davis Miles is in a beautiful huge building on the Tempe town lake and it was pretty impressive. We took a tour with the rest of the Flagstaff office, I ate a cookie and read a book while the employees got a training, and then we walked over to a restaurant for a very nice dinner with all the partners. We got to know a bunch of new faces and everyone was very friendly. A number of them recognized Ty's name and talked about how he was going to be moving down to the valley in November. Ty spent the evening sitting next to Mark Lassiter who will most likely be the attorney Ty will work with and we left the dinner feeling excited and hopeful about Ty's future in Phoenix and with this law firm. We will see! Ty and I spent the rest of the evening swimming on the roof of our hotel, drinking daquiris at the bar, and walking along Tempe Town lake. We stayed up till midnight and woke up at 8:30. It was so much fun to have that freedom, fun things to do, and the opportunity to sleep in!

The next morning we ate breakfast at IHOP and drove back to our kids who needed us (Thatcher had stayed up till 1:00am because he was homesick for me and Ty...not at all what I was expecting from Thatcher).

That night we celebrated Samantha Pickup's birthday at the cabin with her family and the Mungers. As soon as James saw the water he started to climb in so we stripped him down and let him go for it. It made for a crazy weekend, but a fun one too!

- My list of projects to do is getting longer and my list of completed projects is getting shorter, but a few things in the last month I was able to put together my first real blog book from my blog from last year. It took a lot of time, it is 240 something pages long (a little excessive, I know), but I love it! For now it combines my journal, scrapbook, and blog. Someday maybe I will come up with a better family history keeping system, but for now I think this is the best for me. I also put together a wall collage above my mom's computer. I wanted to help the space look better and considering I didn't want to spend even a penny on it, I think it turned out pretty cute. The only other project I have tackled recently is canning. I have now made 3 batches of freezer jam, 12 quarts of peaches, and 1 quart of salsa. My mom gave me so many jars that I am determined to use them and learn how to can, or throw them away. So far, it has been a pretty positive experience. We will see if/when I am ready to move onto harder things.

- My goal to be teaching step classes by the end of the year might become a reality. The whole process of training has taken a lot longer than I thought it would, but if all goes according to plan, hopefully I will have a job teaching step by the time we move to Phoenix (getting pregnant, our trip to Switzerland, and then moving could easily ruin those plans). If I don't get hired and certified before we move, I don't know if anything will come of this time invested in learning to become a step teacher. I still really want to do it, but my desire and drive to do it has waned recently. I have been wanting to just walk, run, and do home exercise videos for a while, but have been holding on the the gym membership in hopes of becoming a step teacher. We will see.

- Relief Society has been keeping me busy with meals, visits, befriending new members, babysitting, planning the monthly additional meetings, and I taught a Relief Society lesson in July about how incredible we are as LDS women. I love my calling even though I feel like I am never doing enough, but super busy at the same time.

- I feel like between April 29th and June 17th we are inundated with events every year. It starts with my birthday, Mother's day, then Ty's brithday, our wedding anniversay, Father's day, and Thatcher's birthday. This year Easter was right before my birthday. It really felt like for two months straight we were celebrating. Ty and I went to a cool mountain biking film showing to celebrate our anniversary (because I am a cool wife like that), and Ty got spoiled on Father's Day and his birthday. I love celebrating...but after Father's day I was ready to take a break. I am glad that the next time any one in our family is going to receive a gift is Christmas.

- We have been trying to have a baby for a few months now and am wondering what the timing is going to be with that. I felt the spirit so strongly a long time ago that our family was ready for it and it took a couple months to actually act on that prompting. Since I acted on the prompting and took my IUD out, James has been harder than ever, Switzerland has been closer than ever, and our lives have felt more uncertain than ever (the house and moving situation occupy my thoughts constantly). I have been questioning what I really felt and what the Lord would have us do. Who knows 9 months from now we could have a baby girl and be living in Gilbert with our townhouse behind us...or we could be here in Flagstaff, with no baby, still wondering what our future holds for us.