Boring Can Be Totally Okay

Visiting Family

We are finally done making plans after saying we should stop traveling places! Now we just go places we have to and let other people come to us, like Nana and Grandpa who visited from Montana this weekend. I hate that they only got one half day to see our family because of having to leave late after work and the situation made it so they didn't stay long on Sunday. Either way we had a great time at Wild Adventure Corn Maze (which I highly suggest to anyone in the area!). Claire made it almost through the toddler maze but started going in circles and getting distracted by the straw and wanting to hand it to us. We went through their smaller and medium sized maze and had her ride along for the journey but she got to touch some of the corn.

Claire

Speaking of her...like I basically always do, she is growing so smart and has learned how to give kisses....kind of. She will come to you and present her open mouth to you when you say "Kisses" then she laughs and goes about her playing. I love it so much. She also loves opening and turning pages of books and cards like the birthday card she got a while ago. She will be a great reader one day and I will enjoy reading things with her. We try to keep her warm during the football games we go to but didn't have gloves so she wore mine and they were way big!

Getting Swoll

Altogether I would say we had a nice week and I was able to go running for the first real time since my half marathon! Let me tell you though, don't take 2 months off and get pregnant then think you can still run 5 miles. I was sore the next day and I'm feeling it even now! Maybe I will stick to the weights I've been doing and walk the dogs nice and slow so I don't hurt myself again. I have enjoyed our new gym and having Chris help me learn how to workout while pregnant is fun even if we still can't go together since we have Claire to watch.

Obstacles

In our attempt to try and get back to some sort of normalcy in our lives after all the traveling in August, we have had a perfectly normal past two weeks! The weekends are a different story, but at least we are relaxing during the week and help out around the house. I have been working in the morning, earning money by teaching for VIPKid for about 3 hours, while Chris takes care of Claire if she wakes up. We are joining forces to get Claire into a routine of eating good meals and playing interactively so she can grow big and strong. Her hair is definitely growing and can now fit into two piggy tails which she likes to pull out as fast as possible. I hope to get her used to them enough that she leaves them in though because she is just the cutest!

Scout Camp

We have also spent time helping family with different activities as well as cooking dinners and cleaning around the house. Last weekend there was a scout camp we helped build and run a Obstacle Course for that was a lot of fun for us and the scouts! We have several of the leaders say they were impressed by how elaborate the course was and some of them even wanted to run it themselves to see if they could beat the fastest time. I enjoyed coming up with two obstacles that seemed to be hits and was the score and time keeper while Chris was the army Sargent that yelled at the boys to "Hurry up!" This was the 3rd time we have helped at this scout camp and might end up being the last depending on what school Chris is going to next year.

Lava Hot Springs

We planned this trip to be a get away for Chris and I when we were really missing each other in August and as a sort of birthday to us. It was the longest we ever spent away from Claire and we honestly didn't know what to do with ourselves half the time! It is amazing how much Claire has taken over our thoughts and time that we had to start watching TV to pass the time. I can't even remember how we spent our time before Claire and hopefully that is a good sign we love our girl. We had a hot tub in our hotel room at an awesome resort that had mineral pools right out in the yard that we got to enjoy too. Mostly we thought we would enjoy a get away but we did end up missing Claire and was happy when we got home to a smiley baby girl.

Claire

Who would want to read this post without an update on the cutest 1 year old alive?!? Well technically she is 13 months now but that's annoying to say...instead I say she turned 1 a little bit ago and it works because she is still small. She is STILL wearing some 3-6 month cloths because the 6-9 month cloths look long on her, but she is cruising around like a speedster and trying to run now that she has the walking part down. She likes to do whatever we do so we give her a keyboard that is turned off while Chris is on the computer so she feels involved. I thought it was adorable! She also is like other kids and enjoys playing with boxes instead of the toys that come from them...

Life Back to Normal

Now that we have been home for a full week, things are getting back to normal and we are settling back into a new habit of working out, spending time with family, and enjoying our time together. Having been apart for so long, we really appreciate spending time in each other's company even if we are simply doing other things. It is one of my favorite things about our relationship because it means we won't get bored of each other. Our hobbies might not be the same, but we can always just sit next to each other on the couch next to each other while I read a book and he plays a game.

In the last week, Claire has learned to walk on her own and is now cruising around the house non stop. She doesn't even crawl anymore at all and it all seemed to happen so fast! She wants to go everywhere we try to stop her from going just because she thinks she can now and we have to be hyper aware where she goes. She loves bath time and tries to go to the tub if we leave the bathroom door open. I wish she could eat with utensils but she still prefers using her hands and she definitely likes feeding herself. We've now had two Sundays at our new ward and she is terrorizing her way around the place. There aren't as many other kids to play with but she still finds things to play with in other bags and I hope it doesn't distract too many people.


We have joined a new gym together and are trying to get into a good schedule of going together if someone watches Claire for us in the evenings. It is harder than expected though and I don't know how long we will get to go together, so we will enjoy it while it lasts. I'm back to my regular schedule of teaching for VIPKID every morning as well which is wonderful to be doing normal classes again. Chris hopes to get a job working in the ER at the hospital to get experience and so we can save more money during the time he has off school. We hope he gets the job but if not I'll probably go do subbing again so we aren't wasting our time that we are in Blackfoot.

Two Weeks of Missouri

Plane ride

Claire's first time on a plane! She did very well for the first flight that was only and hour and was VERY early (5am) because she slept straight through and the flight wasn't full so I had a whole row to myself. I got pampered and didn't even have to try, but the next 2 hour flight was a little more what I expected from my over active 1 year old. She wanted to move and didn't like being confined to my lap, she played with the people next to us, even if they didn't want to be messed with, and she screamed in complaint sometimes. We had a 5 hour layover in Denver which was mostly keeping her away from the escalator and letting her get all the crawling and wiggling out before the next flight. She met a cute puppy who likes to lick her face while we were there too and she LOVED him even through she ran when it tried to climb on her.

Chicago

The first adventure my bestest friend and I went on was a trip to Chicago! I don't like to mention unhappy babies, but I'll say that the last hour of the 5 hour drive there was not very fun.We were so relieved to get to the hotel we simply relaxed and watched a movie after we put our kiddos to sleep! On the first full day of being there we walked quite a far distance to get to Millennium Park and played with different statues around the city and the park. We learned about a free trolley system that was only two blocks away from our hotel after we had walked all the way back and planned a better way of getting around the rest of the trip because we got to go to the Navy Pier and ride their big Ferris Wheel. We got the cart to ourselves and Claire had fun roaming around the dirty floor...yay.

The second day started off rough with sleeping in too long due to being overworked the previous days and another case of crying babies. We still got to see the Skydeck and see my brave baby girl not be scared one bit from the height! If you haven't noticed yet the adorable outfits from the pictures...LOOK AGAIN! My very amazing and talented friend made them easily just a day and a half before we went to Chicago! We got a lot of attention because we were so well matched too and I don't doubt many people thought we were a couple, but we both love matching our own families and couldn't help match here together.

Photo Shoot

Claire turned 1 year old before I left for Missouri and since I was running around in Montana and trying to be prepared for our first flight together her birthday wasn't all that special. She actually had a bum of a birthday with getting shots from the doctor after driving for 6 hours! But I made up for that by letter her eat this huge cupcake and play in her mess all she wanted as I worried and fretted about her getting dirty behind the camera. My super awesome and cool best friend took these pictures as she destroyed her cake and cleaned up in the tub outside.

Relaxing

As fun as it is to do adventurous things and take tons of pictures, sometimes it is nice to relax and enjoy the company of a fantastic friend. We got to watch movies together, sew some fun outfits, eat yummy food, and catch up on all the things we have missed. The funnest part was watching our little kids play with each other and learn from each other as they hung out every day for 2 weeks. I thoroughly enjoyed the relaxing part of my vacation because I took time off working and worrying about life to really focus on Claire. Making myself take this time off to get enough sleep and rest my overworked body during this time, made me ready to start up working out and helping around the house now that I'm home.

Homecoming

The flights home were similar to the other flights to Missouri and Claire was able to sleep some of the way, but was wiggly and wanted to move when she couldn't. We sat next to a really nice lady on our 2 hour flight and Claire had fun making faces and playing with her, and even let her hold her for a minute while I was getting her snacks out. Chris, who had been at training at Camp Williams, Utah while I was off 1,000 miles away, came to pick us up at the airport! It was one of his last days of training and he was able to leave base to come save us and we stayed there together at the base hotel for the two nights he had left. Claire and I went to see him graduate his training and we very happy to reunited after 3 weeks we spent all his free time cuddling and being together. Now we plan to get back to normal life as soon as possible and hopefully not have to be separated again for a good long time!