love in the middle

Blogging is a tricky thing. It's sunny-side-up. We share the happy things, the exciting things, the celebrations. I strongly believe in focusing on the good in any situation, and on the positive power gratitude and happiness has when it's shared - whether we're sharing it to ourselves, to one close friend, or to the great wide Internet.

But, as we know, life isn't always sunny-side-up. I guarantee that every single blogger, like every single human being in the world, has their hard times, their struggles, their everyday trials and inadequacies and failures that don't always make it on the blog.

It's a hard, hard balance. I want to maintain a positive and happy space that people want to come and read, but I also want to be genuine and authentic about the hard times. I want to share some current struggles our family is having, but I also want to maintain the privacy of the people I love most.

So let me just say we are almost done with our grad school journey, and we are emerging so happy to have done it, but with a few broken edges, a few cracks and chips. We've known all along that we are exactly where we need to be, doing exactly what we need to be doing, but lately Sam and I just seem to be a little stretched thin, a little tired. It's the kind of tired a good night's sleep doesn't cure.

After two years of not having a reliable car that fits our family, we're feeling a little caged in, a little stir crazy. After two years of conflicting schedules and rarely paying for a date night babysitter, we're feeling a little far apart. After two years of budgeting and rebudgeting, we're feeling so starkly the need for a regular full-time income. After two years of having three children in very quick succession, we're feeling a little drained (a lot drained, actually). After two years of each working side jobs and weekend jobs and late-into-the-night jobs, we're feeling like we need a break.

And then there's the job hunt. Sam's in the middle of finding a job after graduation, and it has been so stressful on our whole family. The pressure he feels to land the perfect position, at the perfect company, in the perfect area, with the perfect starting salary, is enormous. The pressure he feels to just take any job that will get us food on the table is enormous.

I remember so clearly a recent Thursday night when Sam came home from work. It was 10:30 p.m., and I was exhausted, but still up with a fussy teething twin. I was walking and bouncing Lincoln up and down our small apartment hallway in the dim light, wearing my old glasses and my messy pony tail and my tired arm muscles.

Sam walked in, put his backpack down, kicked off his shoes, and came to lean against the wall near me. We exchanged a few whispered words of greeting and he kissed Lincoln's almost-asleep forehead.

I finally summoned my courage to breach the subject I'd been wondering about all afternoon. "How was the interview?" I whispered.

He looked at me the way we've looked at each other so many times during this hard grad school time of our life. I knew the answer immediately when I saw that look.

"It's a no," he whispered back.

I nodded. We looked at each other for a second. I tried to give him something resembling a reassuring smile. He tried to give one back.

And that was that. I put a now-sleeping Lincoln back in his crib, Sam changed out of his work clothes, and it was bedtime. But as that was happening, I kept thinking of a tiny phrase from an old song I used to listen to.

"Love in the middle."

It's easy to love when the times are good; when we have a job, financial security, no teething babies, a daily routine that doesn't drastically change every eight weeks, two working cars. It sure will be easy to talk about persevering through the trial of finding a job after Sam has signed somewhere.

But in the middle? When the happy ending isn't here yet? That's the hard time to show love, and that's when love really counts. And that's when I've been amazed at the incredible compassion Sam has shown me all throughout our marriage. When I tell him about a choice or plan I made in regards to work, church service, school, future plans, housekeeping, parenting, or anything else, he always supports me. He is constantly giving me the benefit of the doubt. He is constantly cutting me slack. He is constantly forgiving me. He is constantly loving me, despite it all, through it all, in the middle of it all.

And love in the middle is the hardest kind of love.

__________________

Sam's compassion has brought me so much peace, and has brought us both closer to the greatest example of compassion I know, my Savior Jesus Christ. Please join me in visiting mormon.org to learn more about eight principles of peace Jesus Christ embodied as we prepare for the Easter season.

This personal essay was shared as part of a sponsored post with mormon.org. To learn how to have more peace in your life, click here or click the ad in my sidebar. #PrinceofPeace

the greatest surprise of my life

I'm a planner. Big decisions in our house are always thought out, discussed at length, usually a pro-con list is involved, and then my poor husband has to wait while I go back and forth about our choice a million times, and then I finally decide and we move forward.

Choosing to marry Sam was a decision that took forever to make (actually, Sam was 100% on board two weeks after we started dating, and it was me who needed much more time). Choosing to start a family was another choice that took months to make, and literally hundreds of late-night discussions and prayers and seeking guidance from people whose opinion we value most. Quitting teaching for now - same process. Choosing my husband's grad school program. Choosing to move our family to Arizona. To raise my husband's little brother for two and a half years. All these big choices in our life took months and months and months to decide.

Which is why I keep thinking about what happened a little over a year ago. The day we had the biggest surprise of our lives and learned we were having twins.

*Photos by Hillarie Mae Photography

It's one of those moments I think I'll always remember. I knew I was pregnant - and had been SUPER sick. This pregnancy felt SO different (read: harder in every way) from my last, so I thought it must be a boy instead of a girl this time? I also started showing at 10 weeks, which in hindsight was another fairly obvious clue.

The ultrasound technician was just so casual when she broke the news at my first ultrasound. Within five seconds, when everything on the screen was still grainy and blurry and grey to me, she said in an offhand manner, "You're having twins."

I laughed at her. "No I'm not," I assured her.

One second passed in silence while I stared dumbly at the screen. Then another one. Then another one. Then my brain caught up.

"Are you serious?! I'm actually having twins??! There are two babies in there?!?!?!? You're serious?" This went on for at least 10 minutes. I was crying and laughing and half sure it was some sort of elaborate trick.

More of the same absolute disbelief and shock and happiness continued when Sam and I called and Skyped our parents that night with the big news. And then we were up until midnight thinking about how crazy our lives were about to be. And then we both ended up awake again at 3:30am, lying in bed thinking about it more.

Because twins? They were NEVER on the radar. Nobody in my family has twins. We weren't using fertility drugs that increase the chance of twins. I thought about having twins the same amount of times I thought about the quadratic equation or how often luxury cars should be serviced or political elections in Indonesia. NEVER! I never think about any of those things, and I never ever seriously considered having twins.

For a major planner like me, it was a big scary thing. An incredibly exciting and happy thing, and something we didn't take for granted, but a big and scary thing nonetheless. Nothing had been accounted for. It was not in the plan, and all the implications were new and scary and huge.

Everything changed.

We had to move. We really liked our two-bedroom apartment with the tall ceilings and the huge patio, but the thought of three small children on different sleep schedules sharing the same bedroom was just too much. So we moved to a place with a third bedroom.

We had to buy another car. We literally could not fit three carseats in the back of our Corolla (you should have seen us out in the 107-degree heat with three carseats trying all possible configurations though - it was a valiant effort), so we bought a van.

Sam changed his internship. He was looking at some really alluring out-of-state summer internships for his graduate program, but when we learned that we were having twins right in the middle of the summer (with insurance that only worked in-state) he dropped those leads and found a local internship instead.

And that's how the rest of my pregnancy went. It was a whirlwind of prepping everything, changing everything, and surviving modified bedrest. I couldn't wrap my mind around how to hold two infants at the same time, let alone how I was supposed to care for them (plus a toddler who would be barely two years old) while my husband was gone all day.

In short, a lot of time was spent stressing and planning for the worst and just trying to get through a terrible pregnancy. There were moments when I felt overwhelmed with love and excitement for the miraculous blessings that babies are, but to be quite honest my feelings were usually more practical, preparatory and pessimistic.

And then the twins came, and I got the biggest surprise of all.

I love it.

I love having twins.

Like, I really really love it.

I had forgotten how sweet the newborn smell is. I had forgotten how sweet the squishy, warm, cuddly newborn stage is. I had forgotten how much babies sleep when they're brand new.

Discovering the tiny, strong, amazing, different personalities that my twins had from day one was nothing short of amazing.

I also had so much more help than I had planned for, and that made all the difference. With my first, nobody ever came for more than an hour to help (we only had one child then and lived in the same state as our family so we saw them more often overall). With the twins, I had family staying with me around the clock and helping for the entire month of July, almost all of August, and a good chunk of September too. It was so fantastic. I got more sleep with newborn twins and a toddler than I ever had with my first simply because of all the great help I had.

It was also crazy how much more confident Sam and I felt as parents. We worried so much less about the tiny things. We already knew each other's parenting strengths and weaknesses and philosophies. Things like figuring out how to use a breast pump or how to bathe a tiny human with no muscle strength weren't huge deals because I had done it all before.

I had no postpartum depression this time around, and that right there has made the biggest difference of all in how I perceived and handled and felt about everything.

Was it still hard? YES. Very hard. Everything that's hard about having a baby is twice as hard when you have twins. Trying to plan our schedule around their naps (or else powering through naptime and dealing with two very fussy babies), trying to get a toddler to adjust to two babies who constantly need mom, trying to get the twins on the same schedule, trying to get one twin to sleep through it when the other twin fusses, and dealing with double the diapers and bottles and messes and spit up and sleep deprivation are all very real struggles.

But even so, even in the hardest of moments -- when all three children are crying, the floor is littered with spit-up rags, Sam won't be home for hours and hours, and I would sell my soul for one twenty-minute nap -- even then, I surprise myself with how much I love my twinners.

I can't imagine life without them. I can't even imagine them coming as singleton children, a few years apart. I can't imagine them not having their other half, their built-in best friend, their snuggle buddy, and the only constant they've ever known.

I love that they still hold hands all the time. I love that strangers are way more friendly and kind and talkative when you're out with twins. I love how different my twins are. I love that they balance each other out completely. I love that Claire has a brother and a sister. I love their tiny perfect little bodies and gummy grins and budding personalities.

So I guess the biggest surprises can also be the best ones. That or I should constantly brace myself for the worst so I'll be pleasantly surprised when things turn out better. ;)

Happy almost-six-months to my darling Lincoln and Addison. You are my greatest and happiest surprise.

the "what's next?" phase

I n almost every possible way, our family is in a "what's next?" phase right now.

Sam will graduate in a few months, and his big "what's next?" is securing an awesome job. Corporate America, we're coming for you. Incidentally, if your company is looking for new employees, might I recommend one Sam Emery? He has a masters in business administration, a masters in information management, a freaking awesome work ethic, and sexy facial hair, although I couldn't get him to add that last one on LinkedIn.

Since it's still a bit too early for Sam to have accepted any offers, we're also in the "where next?" phase. Sometimes it's unsettling knowing that our lease is up this summer and we have zero clue where we'll move to, but mostly it's exciting. We'd love to put down roots and become homeowners one of these days, and we love to day dream about the awesome places we could be living.

About three times a day I go through an identity crisis (Sam will confirm - this is not an exaggeration). I'm constantly battling with my restless desire to do everything and be everywhere and learn all the things. First I'll swear I'm quitting my blog to have one more kid and happily stay at home with the munchkins for the rest of my days. Then I swear I'm going to business school to get myself a master's degree (or two!). Then I'm sure I'll go back to teaching and be an educator for the rest of my life. Then I think how much I love my blogging job right now and I'm convinced I'll never ever leave, even if I'm the last still-running blog out there.

A lot of my friends are in a "what's next?" phase right now too. My amazing nurse friend has risen to the top of her field, and is now thinking about what to do to advance and grow in her professional life. Lots of my friends are contemplating having a child. My pregnant friends and new mom friends are thinking about whether they want to work full-time or part-time or not at all when their babe comes along.

If you're also in a "what's next?" phase, know you're not alone. Sometimes not knowing the exact path you want to take is exciting and hopeful and full of possibility. Sometimes it's extremely scary and depressing and hard to not to be jealous of the people who have already found their path.

I wanted to take a good free online class that might help me narrow down my possibilities. And I found one with Concordia University Wisconsin's "How to Create Your Personal Place." It's a short online course delivered for free straight to your inbox. It only takes about three hours to complete, and can be very helpful in defining your goals for personal and professional development.

This course skims the surface of a lot of important tactical growth steps - analyzing where you are in your life, figuring out your strengths and weaknesses so you can play to your strengths, and recognizing opportunities you should fight for and those that won't be worth it in the long run. It's about growing, connecting, and encouraging. When you come to a point in your life where you deem yourself successful, you have discovered your personal space. It's an introduction to their 100% online one-year Masters Degree in Organizational Leadership and Administration (OLA) program, which acts as an alternative to an MBA.

You can learn more about the OLA program here, or sign up for the free course here.

Please tell me I'm not the only one whose future isn't totally clear?

Anyone else going through a "what's next?" phase?

It's always comforting to know I'm not the only one.

Thank you to Concordia University Wisconsin for sponsoring this post today.

about vulnerability

I almost deleted this entire set of pictures as soon as I uploaded them. 

They were all taken in two short minutes (literally the timestamps go from 12:46pm to 12:48pm), when my daughter was reveling in the glory of her new "big girl bed" and my husband had a second to play with her. I grabbed my camera and clicked away, trying to capture these darling moments when they happened.

And in my rush, I didn't double check my settings, so my shutter speed was too slow, resulting in lots and lots of blur. As in, almost every picture was blurry, or just not as sharp as my pictures normally are.

My first instinct was to throw out the batch - yes, they were capturing authentic moments that were precious to me, but I felt I failed as a photographer, so what was the point in keeping them?

But I made myself keep them. And even more, I'm making myself post them (still feeling majorly vulnerable about this!). It's taken me a while, but I'm really trying so hard to let go of the insane ideal of perfection. Because done is better than perfect, and in this case, documented forever is better than without an ounce of blur.

A favorite quote from Brene Brown (my vulnerability guru - listen to this TED talk to start) is, "Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it's the thing that's really preventing us from flight." 

So here you go. Blurry, wonderful, highly imperfect pictures taken by an imperfect, wonderful, highly flawed photographer. I love the motion and the movement and the personality captured.

Anyone else trying to live the mantra that done is better than perfect?

I'd love to hear something you're trying to let yourself be more vulnerable about.

And please be kind about these blurry pictures!

Although I'm going to stand by them even if you're not kind, because I'm trying.

just a little thank you (turning down sponsorships)

Today I turned down two opportunities for blog sponsorships. Each company was going to pay $500 for an easy post, which is more than I usually make when I share sponsored content. To be honest I was tempted to say yes. Who can turn down a quick $1,000?

But you know what? They weren't good fits for my blog. I couldn't see a way to work in their content in a natural way. They didn't fit with what I normally blog about and the brand I'm trying to build. In short: It would feel like I was blogging about these products just for the money. Which I would have been, because I don't use either of the products in my home currently.  And trust me, my readers are incredible and highly intelligent; I would not have been fooling anyone.

This small experience this morning of ending conversations with two different eager brands has left me thinking about running a profitable blog. Running a blog is hard work, and doing it while I have three kids under three is even harder. Like anything worth doing, it comes with setbacks, makes me want to quit sometimes, and leaves me thinking my time would be better spent elsewhere some days. And with my family in grad school right now, it's hard to say no to an easy $1,000. But I try really hard to stay true to my brand and to myself, and I just couldn't justify these products.

So I guess I wanted to say thank you. Thank you thank you thank you for reading this blog! Thanks for reading the sponsored posts and the non-sponsored posts. Thanks for sticking with me when I have a blog post that's wildly popular, and when I have one that's a total dud. In the blogging world, the higher my page view count, the more I get paid for my work, and the greater chances I have to engage with brands I love. None of this would be possible without you.

Thank you for sticking around and providing those page views that allow me to provide for my family. I promise to stay honest with you - to turn down the opportunities that aren't a natural fit, and to keep up my fair share of unsponsored content as well. Thanks for every single page view, like, comment, share, retweet, pin, and on and on. My readers are the absolute best, and your engagement brings a smile to my face every day. Thank you.

scheduled resting

Well, it finally happened. I got put on modified bedrest.

This actually happened a few weeks ago, I've just been really reticent to tell people about it. Partly because I'm prideful and don't like people to think I'm weak. Also because I have so many close friends and family battling infertility. Little old fertile me, who got pregnant with twins without even trying, feels bad complaining about my pregnancy complications. But I still want to share my truth and my experience. The line between respecting those I love and also being honest with the world has been hard for me to balance lately.

But today I'm sharing my experience. So, at the risk of sounding like I'm complaining (I definitely complain in this post), here we go!

You'd think, since I'm growing two babies at once, my pregnancy would be twice as hard as my singleton pregnancy. But my honest truth is that this pregnancy has been about four or five times harder. I already complained about The Dark Ages (ahem, the first 20 terrible weeks of my pregnancy), and now I feel like I've jumped straight to the third trimester, with all the aches and pains and exhaustion that goes along with the end of a pregnancy. It's been a very tough few months for me, and there's no getting around that truth.

(It also didn't help that I had such an easy textbook pregnancy the first time around. Who knew I was getting spoiled with a normal, high-energy, low-risk pregnancy!)

The problem is that I'm bad at slowing down. Really bad. About a month ago, my doctor told me to find two or three or four things on my plate that I could let go of for now. Partly to slow down and maintain my sanity, but mostly for the safety of my babies.

But I didn't really slow down. I mean, I wanted to, and sometimes I'd remember to put my feet up or take a cat nap, but I felt like I was just too busy and too stressed. Between Sam in grad school, my church callings, Claire, work, trying to find new housing for next year, and everything else, I couldn't figure out what to cut.

So I kept going. And to be honest, it's been a pretty miserable few weeks. My back ached constantly, my hips ached, my feet and hands would suddenly swell and then go down with no reason, my vision blurred when I changed elevation, I couldn't sleep at night, I couldn't breathe well.... the list goes on.

And then, two weekends ago, I had a pretty scary run-in with preeclampsia. I was taking Claire on a walk, and all of a sudden the headache I had felt for the past two days got really sharp. And then I noticed my hands had ballooned up and my feet were swollen too. And then my vision started blurring really badly. I ended up on my hands and knees in the middle of the sidewalk calling Sam on my phone and telling him to come get us.

Sam wanted to drive me straight to the hospital, but I talked him into taking me to the pharmacy instead so I could test my blood pressure. Sam lead me to the blood pressure machine (I couldn't really see anything at this point) while Claire ran around the store throwing bottles to the floor at random. (I'm just now realizing we never picked up the huge mess Claire left. Sorry CVS employee.)

My blood pressure had skyrocketed, so we called the doctor. My numbers weren't quite high enough to go to the hospital, and the good news is that my blood pressure came down pretty quickly within the next hour. So in the end, the babies are fine and I'm fine, which is a blessing we're still thankful for in our prayers every day.

But I got put on scheduled resting, which is a type of modified bedrest. Luckily, it's the easiest type of bedrest there is. I just have to be sitting down (with my feet up) or laying down from 7pm to 7am. I can still work on my laptop, I can still get up early to do seated prenatal yoga and my breathing exercises, I can still rest or be on the phone or watch Netflix or whatever I want. Plus I get one or two late nights a week if I need them. Party animal!

Sam teases me that I'm the only person in the world who requires a doctor's orders to actually take care of herself and get some rest. (Bless him for putting up with me all these years.) I still have the back and hip aches, the trouble sleeping, the trouble breathing, all of those other really fun pregnancy symptoms I mentioned earlier. But I feel much calmer, more in control, and better rested. And no more preeclampsia scares, wahoo!

So that's an update on my pregnancy. We are still so darn excited for these two babies. They are moving around constantly, and even though I'm only 25 weeks, Sam's been able to feel them move quite a lot too. Also, I have at most 12 weeks left, which is a really exciting thing for me, because I have NOT loved being pregnant like I did the first time around. Ha.

Any takers to come join me for a night of scheduled resting? We'll lay on the couch and watch movies and eat snacks and chat. It's a party!

Photos by my sweet friend Beverly of SWEET SNAPS PHOTOGRAPHY. Check her out!

wearing my brave and my beautiful

This is my first spring in Arizona, so the day I had been avoiding came much earlier than I'm used to. The temperature (and the temperature of our community pool) was climbing slowly higher and higher each day. One day, it reached 97° outside on a Saturday afternoon, and I knew it was time.

I grabbed my maternity swimsuit, closed the bathroom door, and stood in front of the mirror. I took in my gigantic pregnant-with-twins belly, filled with light stretch marks from my last pregnancy that are just starting to become prominent again. I took in my size large body, with my size extra-large belly, and all my curves and angles from head to toe. I did a slow 360, looking over my shoulder to see exactly what I looked like in my swimsuit.

And then I looked myself straight in the eye.

"Brooke," I said out loud to the mirror, "What kind of mom do you want to be?

"You're the mother of a toddler girl. Do you want her to grow up watching you on the sidelines of the pool, too self-conscious to jump in and swim? Do you want to be the mom who finds a shaded corner and curls up on a chair, unwilling to take off her cover-up? Do you want to be the mom who avoids the pool altogether because she's too embarrassed?

"Do you want your daughter to learn that what her body looks like is more important than what her body is capable of doing?

"Or, do you want to be the opposite kind of mom? Do you want to be the mom who jumps right in and splashes around with her children? Do you want to be the mom who is confident in her knowledge that, at the end of the day, true beauty has so little to do with physical appearance at all? Do you want to be the mom who uses her body in the most beautiful of ways: by playing with and teaching and helping her children?

"Do you want to be the mom who listens to her fearful and self-conscious thoughts, or do you want to be the mom who listens to her brave and important thoughts?"

And then I took a deep breath. And then another one, just for good luck. And then I turned away from the mirror and went to the pool with my daughter. I took off my cover-up and bared my swimsuit body and all its imperfections, and I played with my toddler in the water.

There were a lot of other moms there, too. More than I thought, considering it's still pretty early in the season for seasoned Arizona locals to start frequenting the pool. I saw a mom there in a neon pink bikini, freshly manicured toes, and a tanned, stretch-mark-free stomach. I saw a mom wearing a more modest suit, with thick straps, a higher neckline, and a swim skirt. I saw a mom wearing a plain blue t-shirt over her swimsuit. I saw a mom that was probably size 00, and a mom that was probably size 20.

But guess what? Mostly, I just saw moms there, swimming with their children. They were wearing their witness to themselves, to their children, and to the world that they are much, much more than what they look like in a swimsuit. They were wearing their strong, and their brave, and their beautiful.

And that is my commitment to myself for the rest of the swimming season this year. I am going to wear my swimsuit body with pride, and choose my brave and important over my afraid and insecure. And I'm going to splash and laugh with my daughter in the pool. 

on moving to Arizona

Historically, when I move somewhere new, it's a rough transition. The first week is new and scary and filled with homesickness: I miss the familiarity of old friends and family, the certainty of knowing the good grocery stores near me, the comfort of knowing all my possessions are in their place and not piled in boxes.

I was prepared to feel like that when we first arrived in Arizona. But the weird thing is, it never felt like that. It felt... like home. Right away. And every day since we moved, it has felt like this is the exact right place we need to be. Sam and I feel really good about why we're here and what we're doing. I'm assuming the magic of looking outside and seeing palm trees and cacti everywhere will wear off eventually, but for now, we can't get enough of our new place. Sometimes it scares me how smoothly the transition is going, and how much we love it here. Are we missing something? Or is it actually possible to move to a new place and fall in love immediately?

The short version: it's ridiculous here, and I love it.

The longer version:

I feel like we need to talk about the weather first. The weather is the first thing anybody asks about, and for good reason. This is inarguably the worst time of the year in Arizona. It's 115 degrees some days, it's the middle of summer, and there are monsoons every week. However, although I complained pretty badly about the heat in this post - dare I say it hasn't been too bad? 

The middle of summer in Arizona is like the middle of winter in a northern climate. You mostly stay inside. It's worth the extreme temperatures because the rest of the year has gorgeous temperate weather. And it's a super dry heat, which makes everything more manageable. I think I really will miss defined seasons though. 

Our interior house temperature is set to 79. SEVENTY-NINE. This is how I know we're insane. 79 is so hot. But weirdly, it doesn't feel hot? It feels so nice to walk into a 79-degree home when the outside temperature is thirty degrees warmer. (To my Canada friends: You better still come visit after this post! We'll turn down the temperature just for you!)

We're learning how to survive in such a crazy hot place. When we go somewhere, we always look for a shade spot in the parking lot. The second week I moved in, I had the washer, the dryer, the dishwasher, and the oven going - all at the same time, when it was 116 out, at the warmest part of the afternoon. Rookie mistake! It was terrible! Now we do our laundry and run our dishwasher late at night or early in the morning to save on our already ridiculously expensive energy bill. I'm even starting to learn how to precook things in the morning so our house stays even cooler.

A side note to all my local friends: I have a problem! When I was house hunting, people would list "north/south exposure" as a selling point, alongside granite countertops or a garage. I didn't get why anyone would bother to list that - until now. Claire's room faces due west, and it gets SO HOT in there every afternoon. The poor girl wakes up drenched in sweat from every single afternoon nap. We keep her blinds closed constantly, and put her down in nothing but her diaper, but are there any special blinds that work well to block the heat? 

So yes. It's hot here. But we're surviving. And there are awesome pools and splash pads everywhere.

People here drive fast fast fast. The highway speed limit is 65, but it feels like the minimum speed is 80. Lane changes take approximately 0.03 seconds, which freaks me out. But people are still courteous drivers. They use their blinkers, and if they see a merge sign, they merge right away. None of this sneaking up the lane and then nosing over at the last second nonsense. 

Our city, Tempe, is such a mixed bag. There are definitely good parts of town and bad parts of town. I ran into a Walmart once to grab something with Claire, and within two minutes, I turned around and walked out. I legitimately did not feel like my daughter was safe in that place. It was terrible. (The next week, I saw four cop cars with their lights on surrounding the two entrances as I drove past. It mollified me and made me feel like I wasn't just being a paranoid white girl.) Now, if I have to go to Walmart for any reason, I happily drive five extra minutes to the good one in the really nice part of town.

I guess I never realized how much I missed living in a more diverse place. I just got called to Young Women's at church, and myself and one other leader were the only white people in the room on Sunday. It's awesome even to just walk the grocery store aisles or go to the pool and hear people talking in different languages. There's a huge foreign foods section in the grocery stores here that I can't wait to try out. The produce here is amazing too - cheap, fresh, and so good. We have the most delicious fresh fruit with every meal. It almost makes up for how truly terrible the water tastes here. ;)

Sam's MBA program is going really well. I tell ya, they really hit the ground running in that program! Even during orientation, he was wearing business casual or business professional every single day, and going in on weeekends, and pulling late nights, and doing huge group projects. What happened to name games and campus tours during orientation?! So we hardly ever see him, but he's really liking his program so far. I'm so darn proud of that kid.

Before I moved down here, I heard such great things about the blogging community. And I'm happy to report that it's all true. I've been so fortunate to make awesome blogging friends down here, and live in a place where everyone encourages others and shares their success, instead of hoarding and comparing their success with others. Not to mention, it's nice to live in a market that's not incredibly oversaturated with blogs like Utah is! (That being said, I really really miss my Utah blogging friends. And all my friends and family in Utah.)

*Speaking of the awesome blogging community down here, all these pictures were taken as part of a shoot-out with two of my new friends, Cathy and Stephanie. It was so fun to talk blogs and photography mentors and get lots of pretty pictures while I'm at it!

I guess the bottom line is that we feel like the middle of this crazy hot desert, a place where only insane people voluntarily move to, is right where we're supposed to be, and that we're doing exactly what we're supposed to be doing. It's been a long while since I felt like that (since my last day of being a full-time teacher, if I'm being honest), and it feels so good to feel so good about everything.

Yesterday, we were driving to church, and I saw a huge cactus in someone's yard. 

"Sam!" I said. "Did you see that? Look how big that cactus is!"

"Cool," said Sam. So much flare and charisma.

"No seriously, look in your rear view mirror! It's gigantic!"

He glanced in the mirror. "Oh yeah, that is cool."

"When you graduate and we buy a home here, let's put a huge cactus like that in our yard."

"Deal," he said. And then we kind of looked at each other. Did we really just go there? Did we really just casually assume that we love it so much we'll stay here forever?

Who knows where we'll be or what we'll be doing a few years from now. All we know is that right now, this is the place for us, and we couldn't be happier. Unless the water started tasting good. :)

a love letter to my old city

Before we left for Arizona, I planned this huge Goodbye Provo Date with Sam. It was going to be epic, with a progressive dinner at three of our favorite local places, and lots of walking around to all the spots that have become significant during our seven-year Provo venture.

And then the week before we moved arrived, and things got crazy. Between packing, a baby with HFM virus, and a mini family reunion, our Goodbye Provo Date never happened. The closest thing we got to it was on our last night there. Sam and I were driving to spend the night in Alpine with a sleeping baby in the backseat. We took the long way so we could reminisce about everything we love in this city. And, even better, the people we love in this city, and the people we became while living there.

What makes a place special to me is the experiences I have there, and these past seven years in Provo have been very eventful.

I first moved to Provo seven years ago as a bright-eyed, bushy tailed freshmhan. I moved into an old dorm with cinder block walls and five strangers. We spent the next few years pulling ridiculous pranks on cute boys, staying up late, borrowing each other's wardrobes, and generally becoming best friends.

Provo is where I got my degree. I sat in class in the McKay building for months, learning about best teaching practices, guided reading, and which professors I wanted to be like when I was a teacher myself. It's where I began my teaching career.

Provo is where I worked through my grief when my mom died. It's where I spent lots and lots of time crying in the frozen cemetery grounds, and scrubbing the headstone free of weeds and bugs in the spring. It's where I slowly healed and realized how many people loved me, and that it's okay to still wear bright colors and be loud and happy.

Provo is where I fell in love with a tall, dark, handsome man. I told him in no uncertain terms that I wanted to date for at least a year before I even thought about getting engaged or married. He nodded very seriously. Four months later, I had a ring on my finger.

Provo is where we became legal guardians to Jason. It's where we realized parenting a teenager isn't nearly so hard as you'd think, and also fifty times harder than anything we'd ever done. Its where we did parent teacher conferences and middle school band concerts and lots of ferrying his friends to the rec center in the summer.

Provo is where we became parents. We would lay on the bed when I was pregnant, watching our baby kick, not believing that this miracle was really ours. It's where we first carried Claire home from the hospital and up the two flights of stairs to our apartment. It's where she laughed her first belly laugh, took her first bite of real food, and toddled her first steps.

And now - we're moving on to our next great adventure. I guess this post is a love letter to Provo. Sometimes Provo gets a bad rap that I don't think it deserves. People think Provo is full of shade shirts and jello and narrow-mindedness. Maybe part of that is true. I have a few shade shirts myself, and if I ever remembered to pick up jello at the store Jason would make it right away and then check it every 20 minutes before slurping up the entire thing.

But honestly, what I remember most is a lot of people with open hearts and open minds and vastly different belief systems. It has much more diversity than it gets credit for. I honestly believe Utah Valley is the world's best-kept secret. The mountains are absolutely gorgeous, the cost of living is comparatively cheap, the outdoor entertainment is endless, the job market is great, and the people are so giving and open and accepting.

^^We really miss our family already!

I was halfway through typing out a huge list of the names of people who have influenced me here, but it was getting to be a ridiculously long list. Roommates, extended family, college friends, teacher friends, ward friends, neighborhood friends, blogging friends. After about 50 names I decided to give up the whole thing. I know I'd inadvertently leave someone out anyway. But, if you influenced my life in Provo, know that you were on the list. Even if you think you probably weren't on the list, you were. It's such a long list full of people trying their best. And you were what made it so awesome to live here.

All I can say is Provo, you're doing all right. All the heart emojis. The end.

PS I'm sorry to say the stereotype about Utah citizens being terrible drivers is true. It's very true.