Yesterday Holly called me to tell me that she left Jordan and they're separated and she's seriously considering divorce. She's staying in Mesa for now. That had just moved to Boston.
And also yesterday, my mom told us that my Uncle Grant isn't doing well. He has cancer in his throat and a bad infection. And now he's in a coma. He told his family that his mom is waiting for him. He could go any time now.
Our new ward us mostly retired people. It's been a rough adjustment from having so many good friends in my ward to having zero and not knowing anybody. Last Sunday I had William with me during Relief Society. He was the only toddler running around or making noise. At one point he pulled a stack of metal chairs down. Thankfully they didn't land on him. Later, he fell while running toward the door and cut his lip on the vent in the door. So again he started crying. I ended up leaving and just crying. I couldn't handle it. I felt so alone and like everyone was judging me. The lady who taught the lesson came and found me after and told me she didn't mind one but that William was making such a scene. She was really nice and I just cried.
It's been hard not having so many friends right next door. I take William to the park on days when it's warm enough, but we go by ourselves. I met a girl a couple weeks ago but she works during the day so she can't really meet us at the park until later in the day. Even then, she has only come once. Anyway, it's been a little lonely. I've done stuff with friends and it's been good, but I feel like I don't have some really close friends I can open up to or talk to and relate to as much as the friends I left in Mesa.
We may not be able to qualify for a house since Austin hasn't had a steady income for so long. One way we can get qualified is if we put down 30% for the house, which is a lot! At least $60,000. We'll see what happens. We've also been trying to figure out when to start trying to have another baby. We thought we would start soon, but it hasn't felt right. I feel like we need to wait until we have figured out our housing situation and get a little more settled. And I think a lot of it is so I can be emotionally ready. I don't know if I could handle it yet. I get so exhausted chasing William around and I don't feel like I have much of a support system yet to be able to have another baby at the moment. Mostly being pregnant and sick would be ROUGH right now
We went down to AZ on the weekend of the 8th and I ran my half marathon with Brenda. We ran the first 10 miles together and then she fell back. I ran it in 1:49:33. Brenda was a couple minutes behind me. I didn't beat my previous time, but I still did pretty good. I had an average pace of 8:40. My last race I did 1:42 with a 7:50 pace. Once I realized I wouldn't beat my time, I just wanted to try and go under 1:50 and I barely did it!
Brenda and I got sick with food poisoning 4ight after our race. It was miserable! Reagan's baptism was that afternoon, so I felt so bad for Brenda! On the Sunday evening after there was a special devotional for the Phoenix valley with President Nelson and President Oaks with their wives. It was neat to be there for it! We watched it through broadcast. They had it live in the Glendale Stadium.
William is growing up so fast! He says a few words if we ask him to say them. Sometimes he'll say them on his own. He says cheese on his own, which is so cute! He also says juice and apple. He also will sometimes make an elephant noise while lifting up his arm like a trunk, which is so cute! He's been waking up in the middle of the night lately, and it's been so rough! Last night I was up with him until 3:00 am! I got 4 hours of sleep.
I've been spending a lot of time with friends and cousins in Utah. On Saturday night, Austin hung out with his cousin Mike, so I went and hung out with my friend Sydney. I've been watching The Bachelor with my cousins Kamakea and Rachel, which has been fun!
Today I helped Sharon learn how to do some things on her iPad and then helped her post a blanket for sale on KSL. She wants me to teach her how to do it and let her do it. It's kind of hard because it would be easier for me to just post it online for her. But she wants to learn how to do it. Since she has a hard time with speaking and moving, it makes it pretty slow. But I'm gonna try to be patient. It will take time and lots of patience. It will definitely try me and help me learn to slow down.
Austin and I have been talking about when we'll start trying to have another baby. We decided that I'll just use the rest of the birth control I have (5 more weeks) and then I will just stop using it and we'll go from there. It seems so soon but I do want to have more kids and have them not too far apart. William is almost 15 months now. The thought of being pregnant again is daunting but also exciting. It's hard to plan a pregnancy around life since so much is going on this summer. Summer is a hard time to be pregnant because that's when all the fun stuff happens! But with how we timed things with William, it looks like I'll be pregnant during the summer a lot haha. I may end up being sick during both the Hayden and King reunions, which sounds awful. But I don't want to put of trying too long because it could take awhile and there really is no ideal time to get pregnant.
We moved to Utah on Thursday. My neighbors (Tori Goodman, Mallory Brady, Courtney Westbrook, and Olivia Connolly) helped so much with cleaning!! I miss them all so much already!!! We watched The Bachelor together on Wednesday nights and had so much fun together. William and I would play with the 3 girls (Lucy G., Brynn B., And Everly W.) basically every day. It's sad not having them right next door anymore.
Austin's parents flew down to help us pack our truck, clean, and drive up to Utah. It was SO much help! We couldn't have done it without them! We are living in my Aunt Sharon and Uncle Ron's basement. It's bigger than our apartment. I thought William was going to have a hard time adjusting, but he's done really well! He loves having all the room to run around inside.
Today William said (or tried to say): fish, strawberry, and one other thing that I can't remember and hopefully I'll remember later. But it's so cute watching him try to talk! He's growing up so fast! He's a smart boy and so sweet!
Brenda and I are training to run the Phoenix Half Marathon on February 9th. I've definitely come a long way! I'm not where I used to be before having a baby, but I've definitely seen a lot of improvement with my endurance and strength. My feet have been having some pain for the last few days though, and I don't love that. I think I have what Amy has where my bone just above my arch protrudes out more than normal and causes pain. I need to be better at trying to do preventative stuff to help it not get inflamed and painful. Austin's brother Derek gave me some tips. I need to just do them now.
I'm excited to run the half marathon! I've only ran one before and it was June 2015 in Utah Valley. It was a super fun race! I'm excited to do another one! I don't know if I'll be able to beat my time, but I'm excited to see what I can do!
We spent Christmas in York, Pennsylvania with Derek and Kori and their cute kids. It was so much fun! William didn't sleep great at night since he was in the same room as us and could see us. But he slept well for naps and was happy all day, so that was nice. We played games, watched movies, and just chatted a lot. Kori watched William on Friday so Austin and I could go to Gettysburg. We did an audio tour which was really cool. Then on Saturday we borrowed a 12 passenger van from a family in their ward and all went to Washington, D.C. for the day. I finally went to D.C.! I've always wanted to go since I was in 2nd grade. I didn't get to walk through the White House though, which is still on my list. We saw the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial as well as the WWII Monument. We also drove past the Capitol building. On our way home, we stopped at the Washington, D.C. temple lights. They were so pretty! The kids all slept in the car on the way to D.C. and on the way home which was really nice. We were able to have a good chat with Derek and Kori on the drive, making it a really fun trip!
When Derek finished his residency, he's going to have a 4-6 month period where he won't have a salary. They're trying to save money now for when that time comes. Kori seems pretty stressed about it. Austin and I talked about it on the trip and decided we wanted to help them a bit. We gave them a $2,000 check to go toward whatever they wanted/needed. They may use it to help with that 4-6 month time. Or they may use it to come to the reunion this summer to be able to see everyone. Whatever they decide to use it for, I'm glad we could help them in some small way. We've been very blessed financially and it only seems right to bless others with it. They were very grateful. It felt good to use some of the money for good. We put most of the money in the stock market and the stock market plummeted pretty badly so we took it out and lost a big chunk of money. It's nice to put the money toward helping someone rather than putting it in risky stocks.
For New Year's we went over to Brenda's house and played games with Carlie and Dallin and some of their friends Brenda's family was out of town so Carlie was house sitting. It was fun! I can't believe it's already a new year!
I made a couple new years resolutions. 1. Study diligently and prepare for each Sunday, using the new Come Follow Me Sunday School program. 2. Limit my social media usage each day.
So far I'm prepared for this coming Sunday. And I installed an app to limit the amount of time I can spend on Facebook and Instagram each day. It also tracks how much time I spend on my phone. I can't believe how much time I spend on my phone! Yesterday I spent 3 hours :l Today I've spent 2 hours and I'll be going to bed soon. Having the tracking app definitely helps me realize how much time I'm wasting and makes me want to try to limit that more.
The temple ceremonies have changed as of this new year. The initiatory, endowment, and sealing have changed. Today I went with Marissa to attend an endowment session. It was SO busy in the temple!!! We were there 45 minutes before the session started and we BARELY made it in time! And it just got busier as the day went on. We were going to try and do an initiatory before but the wait was an hour and a half! Everyone's trying to see what the changes are. The changes are minor but still significant. The session is now shorter which is nice. But it still captures and conveys the importance and the covenants made. I'm glad I was able to go with Marissa. I don't think she goes to the temple very often, based on some of the comments she made. She's a good friend and such a good person! I'm glad we've stayed in touch and stayed close through all the years. I've known her since we were in nursery! I haven't known life without her, which is a crazy thought! We grew up together in the same ward and we were always the only girls in our class from day one! Even though we're very different people, we've always stayed so close!
This morning I ran 8 miles with my friend Billie (Dytrt) Tingey. She and I ran in high school together. She's way faster than me! Brenda couldn't run today though so I asked Billie to go with me and she did. She's funny! She grew up in Lehi 2nd Ward, just a mile away from me.
This afternoon we went to downtown Gilbert for lunch and to donate through the Light the World Giving Vending Machine the church put there. It is such a cool idea! Local charities/groups participate and we can "buy" an item or service for people in need. We bought recusitation for an infant, a sewing machine, a cow, 1 month of food for a family, and 1 week of food for 2 seniors. We asked William which one he wanted to choose and he pointed to the 1 week of food for 2 seniors. It was super cute that he was very deliberate about his choice and didn't choose anything else. We joked that he was buying a week of food for his grandma and grandpa haha. He got all shy when we laughed about it. It was cute! I also bought $5 for water.
We went to the baptism for Ixtoc Garcia this afternoon. He was getting rebaptized. He had been excommunicated. It was very neat because his 16 year old son was able to baptize him. I'm sure 8 years ago he had baptized his son, and now his son was baptizing him. It was a special meeting. Ixtoc is such a nice guy!
William pooped in the bath tonight. It was so gross! It's the first time he's ever done it. There were lots of big logs of poo floating around. I got him out and Austin cleaned it all out. And William tried to make a run for it out the front door when he was naked while Austin took the poo out to the garbage bin. It was pretty funny. He thought it was a great game. He was laughing and squealing. He also danced in front of the mirror naked and he thought it was so funny.
William loves to dance. It's so cute! He also is very considerate and takes the rhyme seriously when it says, "Don't step on the crack or you'll break your mother's back!" Whenever he is walking and comes to a crack in the cement, he gets down and crawls over it and then gets back up to keep walking. It's so funny and cute! William currently loves eating scrambled eggs and rice Chex for breakfast. And he loves noodles and bananas and raspberries for lunch and snacks. It's so cute when he eats bananas.
Today William finally figured out how to drink from a straw! It was so cute! When he figured it out he smiled really big and kept drinking. He was so proud of himself.
