Labor Day

Our final, final trip before my five years of summer break came to an end.

Panguitch, of course.

After talking to Mark's family and mine, it sounded like everyone had other plans.  So we called a bunch of friends, and found some that were as last-minute as we were and had nothing to do.

So my good friend from high school, Brittany (Chadwick) Bennion, brought her husband and two adorable kids with us to Panguitch.

I haven't had sleepovers with her since high school; it was so fun to plan one 10 years later!

The day we were taking off, we discovered that Mark's brother Adam would be coming with his wife, his sister Sarah would be coming with her husband, and Mama Gunn herself would be around as well.

"Great," said Brittany when I told her, "we love meeting new people!"  I've always known that about Britt, but I was hoping John wouldn't feel awkward.

He didn't.

We had a blast.

Good food, gorgeous walks, four wheeling rides, mountain biking trails, and late night games ... a classically wonderful Panguitch weekend.

Baseball happened, of course.

Elsa (Isla) and Ana (Belle) ran around freezing everybody.  This game stressed Mac out; he did not like his family to be frozen.

Baseball distracted him; he made sure every adult had a chance to pitch to him.  

Isla froze people when he wasn't looking.

Me and baby brother killed it out there.

And little sister is showing she's got the makings of the next Jenny Finch.

Plus she's adorable.

And then, though all the world had to return to work, Mark did not.  The man was a genius when he scheduled Tuesdays off in his office; because Monday holidays mean extra long weekends.  When nobody else is around.

So we had Panguitch to ourselves.

And we went fishing.

Mac caught his first fish without any help.

This is a very big deal; because although he has reeled in, bagged, and gutted many a fish, he has never actually cast out and pulled in a fish on his very own tiny fishing pole.  It has been an important difference, in his mind.

But Tuesday, September 2nd was the day.

I took a lot of pictures.

Baby brother came too.

This tiny little fish was SO TASTY.

Atta boy Mac.  And thanks for letting us all have bites, he was one tasty tiny trout.

5 Year Summer Break

Ever since I have had Mac, I have had that unique combination of being a stay-at-home mom ... forever chained to my job with freedom to do as I please.

Without money in Califonria, that meant frequent walks to parks and friends' houses, carpooling to the beach, and strolling through Target.  When Mark started working down there, we added season passes to Disneyland, then Knott's Berry Farm; trips to the children's museum and little into-to-sports classes for Mac.

Then as we moved to Utah, it's been family event after family event.  I feel like I have saved loads of money by eating at all our relatives' homes instead of my own, but made up for it in all the gas I've guzzled as we've zipped up and down the state of Utah.

But I've loved it.

Now, however, Mac is gearing up for his first full year of preschool.  I asked around all winter long, and found one that has an incredible teacher, is reasonably priced, and very close to home.  It's a transitional kindergarten, so it's four days a week for three hours each day.

That's 12 hours every week without Mac.  12 hours I have to commit my life to.  It's thrilling and terrifying ... I'd be so sad to see my baby off ... except that he is very ready.  He needs friends, he needs new experiences ... I think he's going to love preschool.

So just before it started, we planned two final trips.

One to my mom's for a week.

We just had to; Dad's blackberries were on, and were in desperate need of somebody to thin them out a bit.

We are really good at that.

"Wook, Mom.  I Batman."

"Nananananananananana Batman Belle!"

Mac and I spent a solid hour organizing all the legos pieces.  And then we created a tractor.  It was incredible.

Mac watched Paw Patrol and American Ninja Warrior on the DVR every single day, and when the t.v. was off, he busied himself making his own Ninja Warrior courses.

Going to my mom's is fabulous.  With all the women around, I can play with my kids and choose to be helpful.  If I do dishes, it's not cause I have to.  It's cause I'm helping.  If I fold laundry, it's because I'm nice, not cause it's my responsibility.

So weird that now I'm going to have to work around school schedules to do this sort of thing.

But Mama is only an hour away now ... child's play next the 13 I used to drive from L.A.

California Friends!

A surprise benefit of this move to Utah has been our proximity to the mother of one of my closest California friends.

She's from the area we moved to; just around the corner from our apartment complex, in fact.  But she married a Californian, and after chiropractic school they bought a practice down there and are doing incredibly well.

Well enough ... that she flies back to visit her mama.

And me.

Mac was thrilled to have his best-buddy-Sethala come visit; he asked for sleepovers and wanted to hang out every day.

Kinda made my mama heart really really sad.

(We have to find a house with friends around.)

So we played nearly every day they were here, competing with her poor family for their short time in Salt Lake.

We even had them over for Sunday dinner, just like back in California ... ah!  I miss friends!

Specifically, I miss friends with no family around ... it seems like everyone I've met around here has gobs of family on both sides within minutes.

But honestly, I do too.

So friends have taken a back-seat while we have been soaking up cousin time, and it is certainly worth it.  It's a trade we knew we were walking into.

Still ... I'm quite grateful to be so close to the Bias's family.  Lindy and Ryan have suffered and celebrated with Mark and I through student loans, exams, government aid, first-ever babies and crappy apartments.

It is so nice to know I can catch up with them in person from time to time as we all grow into competent, contributing citizens.

House Hunting

Well ... we must be grown-ups now.

We've started house hunting.

It is ... well.  It's intimidating.  We are talking about committing hundreds of thousands of dollars here; that's a terrifying number!

We aren't buying our dream home; we can't afford it yet.  But we are tired of throwing money away in rent, and definitely need room for our little family to grow.

So we are looking at houses.

We are basing everything around the location of Mark's office; I want him to be able to run home when he needs to, to be able to schedule an extra patient here or there, to sign up for a booth at a race or some other event in our own community, to be able to make it to t-ball games on Saturdays and on days he has to stay late, I want him to be able to jet home in minutes.  Plus if I'm doing a late-night cleaning or decorating stint, I don't want to have to drive miles and miles there and back.  I get too sleepy.

However ... Mark's office is in a very wealthy location.  That's great for business, terrible for home-buying.  If living at this apartment complex has taught us anything, it's that we need other kids around.  Mac and Belle need friends, Mark and I need friends, and I really need my two noisy, like-to-run-and-jump-and-do-healthy-normal-kid-things children to not stand out to the point that they're annoying.  It's just not fair.

I need a place where I won't be threatened with a call to the police.

So we've spent all summer looking at the west side of I-15.  Looking at town homes.  Looking in areas where there are loads of kids in small amounts of space.

We haven't found a single thing that we feel we can spends hundreds of thousands on and stay comfortably for 5-ish years.

So we hired a realtor.

And started looking at houses.

We feel like we're on HGTV.

We've looked from Riverton to Holladay and everything in between; we've been inside more 40 homes and town homes.  We put an offer in on a house that in and of itself was perfection, though the area was not.   We were one of ten offers .... and we lost.  I had mixed feelings about that.

So now, (I'm writing this in October), we've got an offer in on a house.  It feels like it's the perfect mix of all the things we're looking for.  Not gobs of kids, but enough for ours to make friends.  Not next to the office, but 12 minutes.  Not a giant, 3,000 sq ft home, but bigger than a town home and open enough for us to feel comfortable for at least five years.  The yard is not incredible, but it's a fenced-in grassy area that could fit a play place and maybe even a dog.  It's not brand new, but it's not a tiny, squished 70's home either.  It needs some updates, but most are cosmetic, not structural.

It feels kinda perfect for us at this point in our lives.

The only problem is that the owners are out of money and are just not negotiating with us at all.  We feel it's fair for them to get the house move-in ready with some minor repairs, and are waiting to hear back on what they will fix before they go. We don't want to move into a home feeling cheated ... so we're waiting on the appraisal to come through.  If the price we pay for the home is actually what it's worth, we don't mind fixing up things that need to be done.  If it's already over-priced?  Well ... then we'll have to keep looking and possibly bring this third baby home to our tiny apartment instead of a new spiffy house.  (Eek.)

We have until October 24th to back out.

Say some prayers for us, there's so much to think about!

Another Missionary

My sweet baby brother Trent finally got his mission call.

He's been working at Jared's Wild Rose Ranch, my uncle's fishing resort in Island Park all summer.  So we tuned in to the big reveal with Skype.

Aaaaaaaaaand ....

He's off to Oklahoma on November 5th!

We are so thrilled and so proud.  I just hope I don't have this baby the day he leaves ... and that Mac survives the next two years.

When Trent got his call, Mac said, "How about Trent does his mission at our house?"

Good idea buddy ... if only I had that kind of sway with the Big Man Upstairs.

First Father-Son Campout

Mark came home from church one day, thrilled about an activity.

There could only be one.

Father-Son campout.

My boys had never done one before, and Mark was ready to make it happen.

He raced home after work, swapped his car for the pre-packed car I had readied, and he and Mac ventured up the canyon to our stake-owned campsite.

There was only one other family from our ward up there (our primary and young men's program are poorly populated), but Mac was more than happy with the experience.

Belle and I painted toes, ate ice cream, and watched plenty of My Little Pony.

I think this will certainly have to become a yearly thing.

7 Year Anniversary

Can't believe I've had this sweet hunk of love for 7 whole years.

 I had a blast going through our engagement photos recently.

It's fun to remember the excitement of it all; those icy-blue eyes, that half smile that meant he was really excited and trying not to show it, late night talks and plenty of snuggling and kissing.  I liked how he looked at me.  I liked his scruffy face and how his shaggy hair curled at the ends.  I liked him because he was gorgeous and so much smarter than me ... and there was just that something else I couldn't put a finger on.

It felt right.

From the beginning, he felt like home to me.

 

 It was like he always liked me, whoever I became or whatever I did.  With Mark I had room to grow and room to be me.

And he expected the same in return.

I like that.

"Please stop kissing me in front of these camera people."

"Oh my word, if I have to smile for one more picture I'm going to break something.  Or someone."

From the day we met to the day we got married was just a couple weeks shy of a year.  I was a baby in so many ways; twenty years old, full of ideas and no way to make them happen.  But I knew that all those grand ideas of mine would be better with him, or not at all.

Best choice I ever made.

And now, seven years later, I have come to understand more and more of that "something I couldn't quite put my finger on".  He is hard working, persistant, caring, observant, truly humble, and completely dedicated to his family.  Seeing him become a father has made everything more.  More love, more frustration, more excitement and more fear.

We haven't been perfect, but it's sure been a good ride.  I've especially enjoyed learning about working-man-Mark; I've known student-Mark for so long ... this new version has been a lot of fun.

For example ... our anniversaries have been sweet and simple the past six years, which is nice ...

But I really liked year seven.

We went out to dinner and "Wicked".

So glad I married this guy.

He is my favorite thing.

A New Holiday for the Kiddos

My babies have never experienced Pioneer Day.

I love the holiday; it's like a Mormon extension of the 4th of July.  My hometown had fireworks and parades and cook offs, all the extra summer celebrating was a major bonus.

So I looked forward to my children experiencing their first Pioneer Day with great anticipation!  But we did not end up celebrating in a classic Thomas-family tradition ...

We did it the Gunn-style.

Which of course means baseball.

Some friends invited us to come watch the Bees play for Pioneer Day; they were having fireworks after the show.

We jumped right on board.

The kids rode a train, Mac and Mark kept score, and I got to talk with our one California friend who made the trek back to Utah as well.

And to top the night off ... we sat in center field to watch the fireworks; exactly where Mike Trout used to play.

Pioneer Day was celebrated on holy ground this year.

Gunn Family Dinners

One of the greatest things about moving to northern Utah has been all the Gunn cousins.

There's a lot of them.

12 live within 30 minutes of us.

So once a month-ish we've been doing Gunn family dinners.  They involve lots of wrestling, playing outside, squealing kids and from-scratch cooking.  

I need to bring my camera to the next one ... usually I'm so busy talking and eating I don't think about snapping many photos.

This was the main reason we had to move back to Utah.  There's a great quote (which of course, I can't find right now), that talks about how children need to be around people of all ages and genders and sizes, different in every way but tied together by blood.  There's just no way for a mother and father to make up for the loss of all those relationships on their own.

That was important to us.

And now we have it; access to our family.  It has been very very worth it!

Last Doula Client

I took my last doula client in July.

She was incredible.

It was the perfect birth to end on; I'm hoping to channel her birth prowess as I welcome my little guy into the world.

And you know, doing this doula thing has been fantastic.  It makes birth an everyday miracle; not something to be afraid of, you know, "the worst possible thing a woman can go through".  I hear that all the time, but it's just not true!  It's an incredibly intense, powerful experience to be sure ... but the suffering part of it all isn't natural; it's been conditioned in us.  Women have been having babies for centuries; we're made to do it!  And with today's technology, there's a million ways to have a baby; you can go all natural or take a nap and wake up to your new family.  Whatever makes it an incredible experience is different for every couple, and I love helping new little famillies figure out how to make that happen.

I wish everyone could be a doula before they have their own babies.  To teach a couple specific ways to support each other more effectively makes welcoming that new addition a bonding, inspiring moment ... one that can help them love each other and their baby more than ever.

It's like getting to play the ultimate cupid.

I've done 22 families over the last couple of years, and am now taking a bit of a break as I have my own and figure out managing THREE kids.  (Kinda nervous, won't lie!)

I just love this little side job.  Hope I can find ways to make it happen in a year-ish from now, but even if it takes me a while to feel ready to run off to another birth, this has helped me see giving life in such an incredible way, I'm so grateful for the perspective!

And if YOU want a little more positive perspective on the whole thing, go buy "The Gift of Giving Life"; it has been my favorite pregnancy book this time around.  :)