Our Month of May

Good afternoon on this hot and sticky day in June. I am excited for the warm days of summer, but it is already so HOT! It just gives us an excuse to play in the water as much as we can I guess. I am so excited for summer this year, which is actually a little unusual for me. If you know me at all then you know that I really hate being hot. Like I become a sweaty rage monster. But despite the promise of the heat, I am truly excited for summer this year because I feel like my little family is in this sweet spot and I intent to take full advantage of it. Gavin is now old enough to really enjoy the things that we take him to. He is easy to take places and is actually fully aware of what is happening around him, which makes outings all the more fun for us as his parents. Also, we still only have one child, which is challenging enough for me, but I realize is not as challenging as say having more than one child. Also, I'm not pregnant or nursing, we didn't just move, we aren't as broke as we were this time last year or anything like that. Gavin sleeps well at night, takes great naps, but our whole day isn't necessarily ruined if he misses a nap. Do you see what I mean? We are in this great sweet spot where I realize that our life is in a pretty good place right now and will probably not be this uncomplicated for a while, so we have a lot planned to make the most of it. Even though I am not teaching and we have no one in school, I still somehow feel this relief when school is out and it is officially summer you know? Also to be fair, I was doing some subbing this school year, so I could somewhat relate to the yearning for the school year to be over.

This past month was a lot less stressful than April was. I think once we got back from Moab and Sam had finished his big project at work, things settled down a little bit. We started off the first week of May with the annual Law Day 5k Run up at the University of Utah that we do with the Millers every year. We actually were not able to do it last year, so it was fun to be able to do it again. Gavin happily rode in the stroller and we actually ran the last mile! Woo hoo for us. The course is actually really hard. It immediately starts uphill by the U's stadium and is uphill for pretty much the first mile, and so for an out of shape couple like ourselves, we were just proud that we ran at all.

One of our favorite things to do is go to the Zoo and we are so lucky to have been gifted a zoo membership from my parents again this year. I kind of randomly noticed in an email about some extended hour nights they were having so we thought we would take advantage of it and try it out. Usually the zoo closes at 6 pm in the summer and 5 pm in the winter, but it was open until I think 9 pm that night. If you ever get a chance to go to this, I highly recommend it. It was like a whole different place. It was basically empty, the animals that are usually just laying around were so active, it was nice and cool there, it was basically awesome and so worth the hour drive for us. Before the zoo we made a whole night of it and ate at one of my high school favorites, Litza's Pizza. The whole night was so fun.

Of course we celebrated Mother's Day in May. We had somewhat of a low key day and after church went to Sam's parents to eat dinner. Sam and his dad took care of us and made a delicious dinner in which I didn't have to do one thing to help. It was a nice day and Sam got me some nice gifts. One thing I noticed though was that because Sam was trying to be so helpful all day I kind of felt like I was alone all day. He was busy prepping dinner or doing dishes and I was kind of just on my own. Next year I want to remember that I would rather spend time with him as well, and he can just do the dishes the next day ;)

I think it is funny how many people complain about the weather in Utah, I always feel like maybe they have never lived outside of Utah... Everyone always complains that we don't get a very long Spring and Fall, but I felt like with having such a mild winter and then such a beautiful Spring that I have zero complaints. We have fully been taking advantage of playing outside and going to the park on the nice sunny days.

Once of my New Year's Resolutions is to go on at least 6 hikes as a family. I realize that sounds like not very many, but really unless it is something you already do a lot as a family, you don't realize that a lot of time can go by without doing the things you really want to do, if that makes sense. Well we want to hike more as a family because Gavin loves it and so do we. We already did two hikes in Moab and we got to cross off another when we did the Green Pond loop trail up at Snowbasin. Technically we didn't do the whole thing because we got such a late start and then it started raining on us. We decided to turn around so Gavin could get a nap and so we weren't soaking wet. We are definitely going to go back up in the next few weeks and try to do the whole thing. The wildflowers were so beautiful and the trees were so lush and green. It was amazing! Gavin loved it. He rode up in the carrier but then walked the entire way down and of course stopped every other minute to look for bugs or to throw rocks into the creek.

Gavin put on this hat and these socks as gloves and said he was ready for the hike! Ha ha, he is so weird. Of course all winter we couldn't get him to wear a hat or keep his gloves on, but in 70 degree weather he has no problem! He wore this hat the entire hike, which was maybe good because of the rain.

In and effort to appreciate the things we have around us and Ogden in general, we decided to get a pass to the Ogden Dinosaur Park. We have already been twice and I love it. I was able to take Gavin myself the first time and it was so fun. He loved the big dinosaurs and of course all the sand they have to play in. We will definitely be back, especially when it cools down after summer. I'm glad we were able to get in a couple of visits before it got too hot.

One of my favorite parts of May is Memorial Day. Yes I love that Sam gets a day off of work, but more so I love going to the cemetery with my Mom. Ever since I was little I always remember going to clean and put flowers on the graves of my Mom's family members at cemeteries in Salt Lake and it has always been special to me. It was even more special to me this year because now my Grandma is buried there. We had a BBQ with Sam's family, which is always so fun for Gavin to play with his Prusse cousins, but I actually snuck away early to get my mom. We met my sister and her family and visited the graves. It has been a very different year without my Grandma. Her passing just felt kind of like the end of an Era. With the selling of their house and my Grandpa moving into an apartment, things just aren't the same. I knew they wouldn't always be the way they had been, but having it actually come to pass has been hard on everyone, especially my Mom. It just makes me want to cherish the moments I have with family even more.

May, you have been good to us. We had lots of fun, time to relax, and we have had time to plan a lot of fun things for summer. Historically June is always a crazy month for us and this month is looking no different. So ready or not here comes summer!