Hello Salt Lake City

I can't believe it has only been 7 days since my last post. It seriously feels like its been a month. 

Landon: 

HE LOVES HIS PROGRAM SOOOOO MUCH. I never knew what a blessing it would to be apart of a program you absolutely love, but I'm starting to see how wonderful it will be for him here at the U. He had a million positive things to say about the program every single night. He loves the leadership and he loves his co-residents. I feel like I know them all and i've never even met them. I'm happy he gets to be apart of such a wonderful program (University of Utah Department of Anesthesia) 

The U gives him full access to public transportation. So he will be taking the Trax to and from work every day. We are both stoked about that. He will study on his commute time. We will save on gas. 

The next three weeks he will be splitting his work time between the OR, simulations, hands on training tools, lectures, studying. And then, in three weeks, apparently he'll be ready to be in an operating room alone, putting someone to sleep for surgery. Whoa. (Don't worry, supervision is right outside the door, but still). 

He's overwhelmed. He's stressed. He's excited. He's anxious. He's amazing. I'm excited for him to finally start learning what he will be doing the rest of his life. 

Happy. 

PS: Date night was Rubios, Jamba Juice, and The Utah State Capitol. Thanks babe. Salt Lake City is a pretty cool city by the way! 

Becca: 

 I've been consumed with moving in and trying to make this old, dirty, dark apartment, into a light, happy, peaceful, spirit filled apartment. And that takes SO MUCH WORK! We are getting there. We got couches and I hate them. So we are returning them and hoping my next pick with be the winners. I can't figure out how to make our floors clean enough to walk barefoot in. We all constantly have black feet and its annoying. However, I really think we will love it here. It still has so much more work, especially the back yard  space. I love how close it is to everything. I love how cute and homey its starting to feel. I love our neighbors. There are two girls in our complex that are babysitting age. So last night after our date, Abril literally walked out our backdoor  into the indoor common space, took less than 20 steps, to her backdoor. YES! And plus, her little sister is 5 and came and played while she babysat. Its just going to be awesome. 

I also ran a half marathon on Saturday. I PR'd which was surprising because I haven't had time to train the last few weeks. That plus the elevation, plus only have water the whole 13 miles, made for a pretty tough race. But i'm happy about it. 

Church is good. I feel overwhelmed about it. Feeling at home in church has so much to do with knowing people and loving people and feeling loved. That just takes time. We will get there. 

Jaxson: 

Jax ran in a race on Saturday too. The last 2 months he has logged 25 miles and then yesterday he ran 1.2 miles to complete the kids marathon. It was K-6. There were 40+ kids who ran. Jax was one of the youngest by far. He took 5th!!!!!!!!! He killed it. We were so excited and proud of how hard he worked. He didn't stop running and i'll be honest, he's a fast little dude. 

He has already made some friends in our complex. Its so fun that he has people he can play with while i'm cooking dinner. Christopher is 7 and is the complex in front of us. Andrea is 4 and is in the same complex and we share the indoor common space together. We also played with another boy named Ethan who is 3. I got really emotional on Thursday when we got a text from Christopher's mom that asked if her boys could play with my boys. I didn't realize the weight of worrying if Jax would have friends these next three years had on me til that moment. I cried when I told Landon that Jaxson won't be lonely here. I'm an emotional person, okay! 

Motherhood worrying is taking on a whole new lever for me lately. I worry if i'm teaching him enough about working hard. About being grateful. About good manners. About the gospel. About interacting with adults. About serving. About controlling emotions. I worry if he knows how much I love him. I wonder if he see's how much I do for him. I worry if he'll be okay in his new school. I wonder if i've taught him enough to be away from home for 7 hours a day. I feel like i'm entering a phase of motherhood that requires so much more spiritual sensitivity than i've ever been required to have. Thats terrifying to me. Seriously I don't feel ready for this phase! I mean, I don't even have couches yet. I don't have things put together, I haven't fully grasped what this whole residency life is going to feel like, and my feet are constantly black. One third of Jaxys life in our home is done. I can't talk about this anymore. [blubbering mess over here :)]

 This morning
Jax: Mom I'm a scientist.

Me: Oh really?

Jax: Yeah i'm a really good scientist 

Dad: Jaxson do you know i'm a scientist too? 

Jax: You are? 

Dad: Yes i'm a scientist of medicine. 

Jax: COOL! We are both scientists. MOM! I'm a scientist, dads a scientist and you are... you are a scientist of cleaning up. 

Dad: What was that? (trying to come to my defense)

Jax: Ohhhhh yeaaahh.... You clean up after scientist.

Me: [Hand washing the boys dishes..... he's got a point]

Motherhood. 

Tyler: 

YOU GUYS HE IS SAYING LOTS OF WORDS!!!!!! On Friday I bought the boys new shoes. While we were trying on the shoes Ty pointed to a pair of pink sandals on the ground near us and said, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! gur shoos" and then he pointed to the shoes I just put on him, "Boi shoos boi shoos" and then he kept pointing to the shoes on his feet and said, "meee shoos. mee shoos." 

I called Landon immediately. He didn't answer. But I was like OH MY GOSH!!!!!! HE CAN TALK!

Tonight he said "Jax" and "Ty" multiple times. I asked him how old he is and he said "two". And then a wave of emotions rushed through me as I realized, just like I realized when we were shoe shopping, his talkless days are over and I NEVER, EVER, EVER have to go back there again. 

I love you ty ty! 

He is seriously in such a cute phase right now. I just want to eat him. He is happy, he can be reasoned with. He is adorable. He is fiercely independent and incredibly stubborn... which I guess I had coming... ahem... sorry mom! He LOVES jax and wants to do everything he does. He is passionate and particular and loving and pushes boundaries but is obedient and we are obsessed with everything about him besides that tiny...EAR PIERCING scream he still hasn't dropped. All in good time! 

Phew! Sorry. Our life right now. So much change. I feel like my whole world is changing. And it is. Landon will be crazy busy the next three years. Jax is heading off to school forever. I'll be a mom to one child again for most of the day. New city. New ward. New apartment. New life. I kind of want to crawl under a blanket and just hide for a while. 

Yet alas. My feet are black, and any blanket I touch will instantly become dirty. So hard wood floors with no couches it is.

We will figure this life out. And we will love it. 

I think Landon looks so good in this hat.

Even though our back space is shared and not fenced, slightly ghetto and has a spooky shed, i'm going to LOVE it! I love the balcony so much. 

We have been to over 12 furniture stores. UGH!!! 

We met Copelin!!! He's adorable and we love him to pieces already. 

Sad Lame Picnic on the 4th of July! Landon luckily had that day off! 

I bet he jumped off this diving board legitimately 50 times. He was so happy! 

Friends! 

My sister Jacuzzi sliced her finer on a can. So so bad! UGH!!! I'm so happy Gary has her. She is wonderful. And I know this adds a whole new level of stress as she starts her first job out of residency, but if anyone can be a one handed doctor, its her! 

First day in scrubs and the OR. I LOVE SCRUBS and what it does to my laundry basket ;). 

Our backyard.  

Boo couches! 

This guy beat me! #goals 

Aleisha was a girl on my floor my freshman year! She had a baby three months ago and did this race. WHAAAT!!! She was my hero my freshman year. I looked up to her sooo much. And even though I haven't seen her in 8 years she was my hero again today! Love her

Our church building is legit. 

We made lots of cookies for neighbors. And then we ALL had melt downs and ended up not taking them. Maybe i'll just eat them instead. I did just run 13 miles yesterday soooo... 

Dear Spokane

Dear Spokane, 

I can't believe our year with you is done. I haven't had time to really think about that until now. This last year was the hardest of my life. It didn't help that you happened to have your worst winter in 130 years. I can't just blame the weather though. Depression is very real and it hit me like a truck and there were some really hard moments. I'm sad I didn't get to know you as much as I wanted due to that. 

I will be forever grateful for you Spokane. I'm a different person because of the experiences I had this year. I've changed as a person more this year than any other. My love for others is stronger, my gratitude for life is deeper and my testimony in and love for my Savior has intensified. I had some extremely spiritual experiences with my Savior this year and i'll never forget them. 

 Spokane, you were a pivotal year for me personally. I needed you. Thank you!!!! 

Some of the things I really loved about you were how many parks you had. The Palouse. How green you are. How close you are to some majorly cool cities (Couer d'Alene, Leavenworth, Seattle, Vancouver, Lewiston, Glacier). The culture in general is amazing. I love your LDS temple, it is just like Louisville Kentucky's temple, so I felt at home there all year. We don't need to talk about your winter, but we actually do, because it was awful. Don't do that again Spokane. I have good friends still living there that don't need that again!  

Much like Indiana, my favorite thing about you were the people you housed. We met so many wonderful people. I learned from so many people. Between the Palouse ward/Spokane Stake and our little Resident Wives group, I felt love and support and friendship. I'm changed because of the people I met this year and there are some I know will be life long friends. 

Our week was absolutely insane. I can't even believe we did all that we did. We flew in Sunday night from AZ. Woke up Monday morning and drove 5 hours to Montana and stayed with the amazing Taylor family. Gosh I learned so much from them in less than two days. Richard, Deanne, Ashely and Brooke are really special people. Glacier National Park was on Tuesday. We drove home Wednesday morning. Picked up the truck. Loaded the truck so fast we decided to leave Wednesday night. We drove 5 hours to Butte Montana and stayed the night. Then another 7 hours on Thursday. We got to my parents Thursday night and put the boys down. Then loaded up all of my brother Scotty's stuff and moved it all into his apartment thursday night (while he and Jen were still on their honeymoon). Friday morning we woke up early. Got to our apartment. Felt slightly discouraged about how old it is, and the yard is so ghetto. But then we bought paint. And our parents came and helped us paint and clean all day. Then we moved all of our stuff in. We unpacked most everything Friday night. Saturday morning we ran errands, found a washer and dryer, came back and continued unpacking. Installed a new fan. Hooked up our washer and dryer. LOST OUR PENSKE TRUCK KEY!!!! And spent 2 hours looking for it, including jumping into the dumpster. We couldn't find it. Keys are expensive. Moving on. We went and got some food for Sunday and a few other things.  Moving is expensive. Grandma and Grandpa brought the boys back up, they watched them all day Saturday. Thank you by the way. We had pizza. Built some shelves. Put the boys down and spent at least an hour comforting Jaxson. Change is hard. Finished unpacking. Then we dropped off the Penske truck Sunday morning. Went to church, in the COOLEST church building ever. Remembered how hard and vulnerable it is to start over again. Went and saw Landon's work. Went and walked around the Salt Lake Temple. Talked to our neighbors who are wonderful put the boys down and now Landon is trying to figure out where he needs to go tomorrow. 

And thats just a summary. 

Whew. 

Lots of emotion over here. 

Exhausted and Anxious. 

Grateful. 

This is it. 

This is what we've spent the last 8 years working towards. 

That last paragraph is a pretty good indication of how my mind is running right now... non stop.

We got this. 

Good night!  

Impromptu 5 mile hike

Picture from last week

Gosh I love this girl. If I didn't have her and her cute family this year.... honestly, I just don't think I would have made it. Once you move to gilbert next year we will see you ALL the time. 

I love Michelle so much. She's had a life a hard life and she works harder than anyone I know! Never has excuses. Just works!