It's been awhile....

This summer has been crazy for us. Shortly after my last post, the kids and went to Washington to visit my family and to attend my cousin's wedding on June 27. The visit was great at first, the kids and my mom and I went up to our family's cabin on Lake Coeur d'Alene and spent an entire week there. The weather wasn't the best, we only got one beach day, but it was so nice and peaceful just to have some quiet time without having to do all the normal daily stuff. The kids were absolutely filthy the entire time, and since there's no bathtub at the cabin, just a shower, they got to take baths in the sink. They had a blast and got to have so much needed Mimi time. From the day my kids were born, my mother's heart has been broken because we didn't live close, so getting to spend an entire week uninterrupted with her only grandbabies was wonderful for her. We came back on Saturday to spend some time with my dad, since it was Father's Day weekend. Then we went back to my mom's on Sunday night. The week started off pretty normal, then suddenly, very early Wednesday morning, my mother passed away. The doctors still haven't told us what actually happened, her death report just says that she died of natural causes. We found out that she did have atherosclorosis, which is hardening of the arteries. There was no way to know, because she didn't have any symptoms, but apparently heart disease runs in my family, so that's great. We ended up staying in Washington for almost a month, Brandon flew in to be with us. Then we came back to Utah to pack up our house.

We decided to movefrom Lehi to Provo to be closer to campus, and because rent was too expensive. We figured it would be easier for one of us to take the kids away for awhile and the other would stay in Utah and pack up the house, so since I really, really needed a break, Brandon took the kids to Arizona for 10 days and I got to stay home alone and pack.

Since heart disease runs, in my family, I decided to go get my cholesterol checked and get some other tests done. Turns out my cholesterol is off the charts, so I also used the time that Brandon and the kids were gone to go on a major diet. I lost 15 lbs!

So now we're renting a 3 bedroom apartment, and as weird as it sounds, I like it better than our house in Lehi. It's a much better layout, the kids are at the other end of the apartment from our bedroom and the living room, so we can watch movies at night without worrying about waking them up. And there's a random door that we can close if their rooms are messy so we don't have to see the mess! I've been trying much harder since we've moved here to be a better mom and housewife. I've been trying to keep on top of picking up after the kids, and even trying to make healthier meals. We try to go on daily walks with our new neighbor. Our ward has a walking group, but we can't do it every day because the don't leave until 9 and they take anywhere from 2-3 hours. But we try to do it a couple of days a week.

Brandon and I are also trying to get up early and actually make and eat breakfast together, I don't love it, but I'm trying to get my workout done in the morning so that I can be done with it.

So that was our summer, and I'm going to try to post regularly on this thing, but you never know if it's actually going to happen.