September 22 - 24 I took a mini-vacation to Utah in order to be there for my college roommate's wedding. Elise and I roomed together for our freshman and junior years of college, and we were close friends. We have stayed in touch over the years, and I was so excited for her chance to start her forever family.
This trip was a much-needed break. For the previous 4 weekends, I had been on my own on kid-duty since Matt was out helping with hurricane clean up at every opportunity. I look forward to the weekends so much to have a break from my day-in and day-out responsibilities with the kids. Not having my husband's help for 4 weekends in a row was so tough. One of the things I fell in love with about Matt is his absolute love and desire to serve, so I knew what I was getting into when I married him. Those weekends I tried not to complain too much recognizing that his service was very needed (even though most other husbands just served Saturday OR Sunday and not both, which I felt was adequate!).
By the end of that month though, I was ready to get away for some "me" time. In order to save a significant chunk of money, I had a 7 hour layover on the way there and a 3 hour layover on the way home. I spent the time catching up with a friend on the phone and preparing for my next Relief Society lesson.
Lindsey picked me up from the airport Friday night at 8:30pm and graciously hosted me that night and all of Saturday. We chatted that night with Derrick and spent time Saturday playing a game together, running errands, making lunch together, watching a movie, and watching the Women's session. It was fun to spend time with her and see her cute kids. Derrick was very kind to take the kids most of the afternoon so Lindsey and I could hang out together.
Saturday morning Lindsey dropped me off at the Provo City Center Temple for the sealing. I was so excited to see this new temple, and especially to be in a temple now that the Houston one is out of commission due to flooding. The temple was huge and quite stunning inside. The sealing was beautiful, and I was glad I was there to support Elise.
Elise, her new husband, Matt, and her twins
Teddy and me in front of the temple
Lindsey and me with her cute new haircut
Elise and me later that night at her reception
After the Women's session, Lindsey drove me up to Salt Lake where we visited with Grandma for a little bit. Then Lindsey went home, and I spent time catching up with Ali. She generously spent time looking at Family Search with me and giving me some tips for greater success. After Sacrament meeting the next morning, Ali drove me to the airport for my flight home.
It was a quick weekend trip, and Matt held up the fort very well by himself at home.
I do have to record how stressful it was leading up to this vacation. I am the Volunteer Coordinator on the PTO at Caleb's intermediate school this year. I wish I wouldn't have let myself get talked into this! I love the opportunity to be involved in the community, but I imagined myself being more involved in the schools and PTO when I didn't have young kids at home. Before my parents left on their mission, my mom would come every other Wednesday to give me the opportunity to go volunteer in the library at the elementary school, which was perfect for my stage in life. Attending PTO meetings and making frequent trips to the school is a lot trickier with two kids in tow, trying to make sure they don't touch anything or get in the way while I'm doing my work. One of my responsibilities as volunteer coordinator is making sure there is a room parent for each of the 56 teachers in the school. Many parents only wanted to volunteer as room parent if they had a partner to work with. So I am overseeing 90 room parents. The Monday after I got back from my weekend trip, I conducted a room parent meeting about their responsibilities and gave each a folder with papers they will need throughout the year. It was a lot of work assembling those 90 folders! I had to have them all ready before leaving on my vacation and got less than 5 hours of sleep the two nights prior to my trip. Now that that meeting is out of the way, my responsibility isn't so time-consuming. For about 6 weeks though in August/September, I averaged 5 - 7 hours a week doing work for PTO--organizing all the volunteer forms that parents turned in, inputting the data into spreadsheets, coordinating with teachers if a parent hadn't volunteered for their class, creating/collecting Teacher Favorites Lists, and prepping for the room parent meeting. It was SO much work. Most of our Friday night date nights consisted of me holed up in our study room putting in the time to stay on top of my PTO work. Matt wasn't happy about it. Between teaching preschool, piano lessons, my church responsibilities, and PTO, I knew I had taken on too much and was swimming in water over my head. I just kept telling myself I only had to make it through September and then my responsibilities wouldn't be so time-consuming any more!!!
Another difficult thing about the trip was that I decided to do a whole30 challenge with friends. I felt like I had a sugar addiction where I craved a sugar fix after most meals. I heard that whole30 will change your relationship with food. A close friend that has done it a few times talked about how she had never run faster than while doing whole30. These promises intrigued me, and I jumped on board when 4 other friends said they were going to do it. We postponed starting due to the hurricane and officially started on September 11th. The whole30 eating plan involves giving up all sugar (no sweeteners whatsoever), and cutting out dairy and grains. I'll do a separate post about my experience, but needless to say, it has been very difficult. It was even harder doing it while traveling. I was grateful that Lindsey was willing to put up with my shenanigans in how she cooked for me.
