12 hours

Since Thursday, Scott and I spent 12 hours on the road. First we drove two hours to Preston Idaho for Thanksgiving with his family and then back home Thursday evening (Scott had work on Friday) and then we drove to Alton for Scott's Uncle Ed's funeral. It was a lot of family time and a lot of time on the road but it was worth it.

Thanksgiving was lovely. We drove to Doug and Heather's on Wednesday evening. Patrick decided to wake up at 3 in the morning and was awake for about an hour. Scott woke up with me to help out and we wound up downstairs in their great room as Patch crawled and explored, happy as a little clam. He was particularly fascinated by Atlas, the dog. Finally, we got Patch back to bed and we all slept until about 6:30 when we woke to get ready for tree hunting. I LOVE TREE HUNTING! I'd never had a real Christmas tree until Scott and I got married. The tree history:

2011: My first tree hunt. We drove with Doug and he played this really silly recording of old random Christmas songs. It was fun to get to know Doug better and tell stories on the drive with him.

It was a little more sparse than the fake tree we had growing up but, it smelled amazing and it was a blast to hike through the snow to find it.

2012: Scott and I JUST moved back to Utah and into our apartment in Taylorsville. We were a bit strapped for cash at that time and missed the family tree hunt because we did Thanksgiving with my side of the family but, Scott surprised me and went out to get us a tree the day before Christmas. It was tiny and sat up on a coffee table in our little apartment. It lifted my spirits to have a lovely little tree!

2013: Our first Christmas in our first home. I'm not certain that I captured a full photo of this lovely tree but I did string up popcorn and captured a tiny segment of that tree. I ran all around town trying to find red wooden beads. I wanted it to look like strings of popcorn and strings of berries. I settled on these beads from Target. We'll see if I keep using them.

2014: I was great with child expecting Patrick. I felt like the virgin Mary all Christmas which was cool and imagined myself riding around town on an ass...I mean donkey. We did Thanksgiving with my family again and missed the tree hunt so this one was purchased at a tree lot down the road. I think we paid $80 for it which, at the time seemed obnoxious but, when you figure the price of fuel to get to Preston and add in the cost of the permit...you're almost at $80 but the experience of hunting down and hauling your own tree?...priceless ;)

 We were expecting my parents to arrive at any moment when this photo was taken. The house was in perfect order and presents were wrapped under the tree. That sled was our gift to my mom from an antique shop up the road.

Can you see the image on the TV screen? It's a video of a fire crackling. hehe. mmm so cozy. And there I am sleeping...again. I guess I really like napping next to the Christmas tree.

As for 2015's tree...that will have to wait until later...you know...after we get it decorated and such.

Abundance

When I pray, I often thank God for the abundance in which we live. We have so much. So so much.

I could go on about that but, for now I'll share good news. I'm thankful for this news and that is....

I had a huge loan book today. This means that I'm dangerously close to winning a trip to Florida that will be all inclusive and paid for by the bank. I've been working so hard to get to this point. I'm focused. I'm determined. I'm working smart and I'm working hard.

We changed our schedule recently so, Scott brings Patrick to his nanny, Kathie, at 7 am. I begin working from home at that time. This gives me a couple of hours to do administrative stuff that I find myself pushing off usually. I work my tush off during the day so that I can leave the office and get Patch by 3 pm and just enjoy the rest of the day either running errands or playing at home. We've been doing this for a week and it's working rather well.

I have moments of "wow, I love doing this whole working thing and mommy thing" and there are some times where I'm completely overwhelmed thinking "how can I possibly do both? How can I be the mom and the wife that I want to be and still be the banker I want to be?" Somehow, right now, I feel that I've found a balance.

Patrick has a bit of a cold so these last few nights have been rough. I've been waking up with him more frequently. It's bitter sweet. It's a treasure to cuddle with him but when he gets agitated and has a hard time falling asleep it can be frustrating. I guess this is motherhood.

Tomorrow, I will begin the live fit challenge again. I will focus on clean eating and hitting the gym every day. I will not log onto Facebook and waste time there. I will dedicate myself to continue etching this pattern of success into my work life. I will make my time there as valuable as possible. I will then be free to enjoy home time. It will be worth it.

Catching up

Since June of 2013?
I was in the following productions, back to back:
Carousel, Bonnie and Clyde, Cinderella, Altos-a Mafia Murder Mystery, Shrek, I was supposed to be in Company (more on that in a minute) and Heritage Singers at This is the Place Park (TITP).

So what happened with Company, well, in June of 2014 we found out we were expecting. The character I was set to play, Kathy, is one of the girlfriends of the main character and being 6 months pregnant wasn't going to make too much sense ;) So, I bowed out of that show and began nesting. But then I couldn't help myself and simply had to audition for Heritage Singers. Scott and I spent the Christmas season 2014 caroling through the streets of TITP dressed in period costume (coincidentally, those costumes were used in the filming of the Work and the Glory films).

January 2015 rolled around and I focused on making final preparations for baby Patrick's arrival and on February 1st we went into the hospital. I was fairly certain that I was in labor and that they would not have to send us home. I was right. I went in 5 cm dilated and we welcomed Patch at almost 8 PM.

Here we are, almost 10 months later. I'll reflect on some highlights:

In May, Scott and I decided to be crazy and do a Salty Dinner Theater show together-Sherlock Holmes. I was just coming off of maternity leave and heading back to work...oh and we had a newborn. With the help of family and friends, there was someone to look after Patch during each of our performances. Well, we had him with us at a few of them but, he didn't move much or make too much noise at that point so, he was easy to cart along.

Here he is at one of the rehearsals:

In June we went on a road trip to Montana to perform a charity show for Salty Dinner Theater, a revival of Cinderella. A couple of weeks after that, we took a trip to Park City with some friends and stayed in a lovely town house over the weekend. Great fun! The day we returned from that trip, Bonnie, Stephanie, and I did a fancy breakfast with Andrea to celebrate her birthday and we presented her with a book that we made of memories from when Katie and Kenna were just little tiny girls; a time that Andrea does not remember well for it was a rough few years for her.

In July, we hit up Taylorsville days, Patrick started eating solids, we had the family camp (organized by us at Wolf Creek where the camp was in HORRIBLE shape and I demanded a refund...we got it), and Pioneer Day.

In August, Patrick took his first international trip for Uncle Brent's birthday to Mexico. What an adventure. It was a week of fun, delicious food, and relaxation on the beach. Melissa and I may have snuck onto the resort where the wedding party was staying. Two words: worth it.

On September 2nd, Uncle Brent's birthday, Patch began crawling. We managed to keep it all together after he became mobile and Scott even threw me a super fun Fiesta birthday party. We were also able to use our Lagoon passes to attend Lagoon-a-Beach one day. Brent and Ana flew out to surprise me while we were at the Utah State Fair. They came to celebrate my birthday and see our home. It was such a treasure to have them here. I also began rehearsals for another Salty show in September. I was in The Salem Witch Trials. I brought Patrick to all of the rehearsals and we may or may not have rehearsed at a church.

In October, I was basically performing every single night. Every chance we got we used our Lagoon passes and hit up the park. I also arranged for someone else to cover my performance on the night of the Pumpkin Walk in Logan so that Scott and I could travel to his parent's home for our traditional apple harvest and Pumpkin Walk event. Around Halloween, I went to Scott's work's family Halloween event, Frightmares, Kate's performance of Beauty and the Beast, and we hung out at home on Halloween. We carved pumpkins, busted out the fog machine, played scary music, and had some friends over.

Since late August, I've been getting together weekly with some ladies in our ward for lunch on Fridays. It's a blast and we take turns getting together at someone's home and swap stories about our little babies. Patrick now seems so much older than the other babies because he's the only one that's mobile. Soon, this will not be the case.

Here we are in November. I cannot believe that Patrick is almost 10 months old. He is such a happy little man and we love him a whole lot. More on that later.

I suppose I'll post more pics later also.

Conversation of the Weekend

Scott is a brilliant man. Seriously. He is very intelligent. We debate often and his arguments are really difficult to battle. The man has mastered the art of debate reasoning. He is a word smith. I consider myself somewhat of a word smith with an enjoyable amount of wit. My best moments are those when I beat Scott to the punch when it comes to puns and such. Better yet, when I come up with original witty material and can get an audible laugh out of Scott, I feel super duper smart. Here's the most recent moment of wit:

Scott: When we go to Bali, I'd like to invest in some Gamelan instruments
Scott's sister: What would that entail?
Scott: Oh, you know, several thousand dollars worth of traditional instruments

Scott's BIL: Oh, sure, great, no big deal
Me: I'm ok with that, so long as you make a bunch of money on a tour with a group called M Night Gamelan

Get it?!

Ok, so not my most witty moment. Not that creative but STILL it made Scott laugh. I'm still trying to impress him 2 years and 10 months later.

Family Home Cleavning

We live in a 742 square foot apartment. This is not a lot of space. It is, however, when you consider that my brother and sister-in-law (SIL) lived on a boat for several years...with two kids (whaaaa?!). I know, it's awesome. So, back to our 742 square feet. Having even 1 dish in the sink makes the kitchen look filthy so, Scott and I began having a weekly "family home cleaning". In the LDS church, it's common practice to gather your family for a weekly spiritual lesson and bonding session where there are games played and treats shared, maybe some songs sung (Grammar Nazi family, did I use that word correctly? Sing, sang, sung right??) Anyway, this event is usually called family home evening. Scott and I are really good at holding regular family home cleaning/evening otherwise known as "family home cleavning". I coined the term one night and the rest is history.

This is what happens when you neglect family home cleavning too many weeks in a row.

Off I go to take care of this mess.

Almost 4 months now...

It's been almost 4 months since I wrote last. Here's the deal, getting myself to the clubhouse where there was free wifi was just annoying. And now, we have the internet. I know, I know, in my last post I got all preachy about living with less. In the last 6 months we've learned how necessary the internet really is in today's world. Internet access is almost as necessary as having a car. I kid you not. Here is a short list of the times Scott and I wished we had internet access:
*When searching for the cheapest and closest dry cleaning business
*When writing a talk for church on Sunday based on a general conference talk
*To look up recipes (I use this one a LOT)
*To view bank account information/ evaluate the budget
*To catch up on television shows...ok, not necessary, but still...
*When finding out the local library's hours of operation
*Paying bills
*When you have symptoms of something and you're not sure what you have (Scott got Shingles in April and neither of us had ever seen Shingles before)
*To communicate with family overseas
*Making travel plans to see family overseas (I went so far as to bring my computer to Starbucks during my lunch break at work so I could look up pricing on airfare and Scott and I went to the library twice to purchase tickets)
*To watch the super bowl

Although this list is not all inclusive, I think you get the point.

So, I will update you on the last 4 months via pictures :)

Our neighbor's car was parked, motionless, for several weeks during the dead of winter. The result was this AWESOME drooping blanket of snow.

Scott and I discovered that roller skating is totally cool, not just on retro night (pictured above) but every night.

I began baking bread from natural yeast. My sis-in-law invited me to attend a class with her and it was AMAZING.  Scott grinds the wheat by hand, I make and knead the dough, and sometimes it turns out like a brick...like this one. After all, the natural yeast is a living, breathing (yes, breathing) organism. It grows, I feed it, it "eats" the wheat, more bubbles form and it expands and I bake with it. I am a domestic goddess.

My parental units came to visit. We went to Park City during the Sundance Film Festival. We didn't see any movies or celebrities. (My mother-in-law is also pictured here on the back right) Park City is a lovely place and the festival is an excellent time to people watch.

We didn't have cable or internet during the Super Bowl so we went to watch it at our apartment complex's exercise facility :) Desperate times call for desperate measures and the 49ers were playing.

We purchased a Kirby Vacuum in February and Dinah does not care for it. The first time I turned it on, she jumped on the couch and hid behind the cushions. So pathetic and so adorable.

Scott decided that it would be really fun to host a family party at our place for Chinese New Year. We managed to cram a decent portion of the Moore family into our 742 sq. foot apartment. Scott's nieces even made a dragon head and we had a parade outside.

Everyone made lanterns and wrote their hopes for the new year on them which is apparently a tradition. :)

I also happened to have some silk robes that I made all the ladies wear. Here Andrea is with hers and her two beautiful girls (the dragon head makers)

Here is an image of said dragon. They made this bad boy all by themselves....so creative.

For Valentine's Day, Scott made me breakfast in bed. Good man.

We went to Lava Hot Springs with Scott's family. Bonnie and Steve got us a weekend there at this cool old school house, turned church, turned community center, turned vacation rental. Audrey is pictured here drawing on the HUGE chalk board in the gymnasium.

How cool is this? And sitting in the hot springs in freezing cold weather was actually really refreshing. The hottest pool at the hot springs is well over 100 degrees F. Piping hot! I felt like we were stepping back in time to the days when public bath houses were super duper popular. Having spent some time in Bath England and admiring the engineering of the ancient Romans I was impressed that hot springs are still such an attraction today!

Baby Burke watching something through the window. Had to capture it.

I was lucky enough to spend some time with these lovely ladies at my dear friend Karlee Evan's birthday party. My mama put this quilt together for Karlee and her new baby. I'm wicked proud of her for getting back on that sewing machine. She is also a domestic goddess.

Scott and I scored free tickets to go to a home and garden show in Salt Lake. I was mocking these folks for buying a HUGE telescope style flag pole (see that huge thing that man is carrying? Well, thanks to the telescoping feature it's going to be like...twice as tall as that once he places it in his yard somewhere). Well, after I took this photo I realized the irony of me mocking this patriotic couple when I realized the condition of my side view mirror. It's been that way since about July of 2011. Yikes.

I had a law convention to attend in St. George for work. My MIL just so happened to be down there that weekend also for her spring break (she teaches college English classes) and we stayed with her dear friend Hilda (who also loves and represents Melaleuca). We had a grand time.

Random random random. Who sells this kind of inventory in one store?!

Mama came to visit for 10 days during her spring break. She thought it might be too long but we loved it.

She had a blast on my bike ;)

We all went rollerskating to celebrate my cousin's bday. His wife made an awesome baseball themed cake pop cake. yummers.

Scott locked his keys in the car like 3 times in two weeks so I purchased him this little retractable key chain holder and made him clip it on his pants :)

We hit up The Living Planet Aquarium with my Mama, FIL, MIL, and nieces. It was actually pretty awesome.

My mother is such a lovely person. So beautiful. So fun. So kind. Love you mama!

Scott and I were driving up to Logan for Easter dinner and saw this trike on the back of this car. SO funny to me.

Lens flare :) Scott LOVES swingsets and he loves his nieces even more.

We adventured down to Price where Scott's sister and BIL live now. It's one of those tiny tiny Utah towns but contrary to popular belief, there is actually tons to do there. Small towns are growing on me.

We celebrated Scott's and Rob's birthdays together. Lexi made an AMAZING rainbow colored cake in the shape of a giant cupcake and it was kind of awesome.

Scott and I took his nieces Kate and Kenna to the Japanese festival. There were some cool things there. Lots of people dressed up as anime characters and it was SO crowded. The best thing at the festival? This kid's hair do.

As you can see, I have become a bread master. Look at that beauty. Too bad I forgot the salt in this loaf. I learned the secret to making it rise more: kneading for longer and putting WAY more muscle into it.

Scott thought this would be really funny.

I made tamales from scratch for Cinco De Mayo. We had dinner with my cousin Scott and his family. These bad boys were super tasty!

Dinah loves her bed, finally. We've had that thing since she was just a tiny tiny pup and she never laid in it before. Guess she likes it now.

I told my SIL I wouldn't post this picture to Facebook and I'm keeping my promise. I couldn't resist posting it here. We went down to Sigurd Utah (another tiny town) where Scott's Grandpa lives. He turned 85 this year and we had a big family party for him. Before the party we headed out for some "bunny bopping" don't worry, I didn't kill any bunnies.

Kenna laying down in the flowers cuz I told her to.

At Scott's uncles house they have the most awesome backyard playground complete with tire horse swing.

You might not be able to see this but scott is with two of his nieces and all three of them are wearing Mexican hats. Scotts is itty bitty :) silly.

Scott spoiled me and got me this beautiful leather bag for Mother's Day/ for work cuz my current one is falling apart. This is a Saddleback Leather Company brand bag and their slogan is "Your kids will fight over it when you're dead". These things have a 100 year guarantee.

Remember how last post we were still getting all situated and moving things in and minimizing? Well, we've made some progress. Old books sold back, electronics sold off, and feelin good.

Some people think that just because you live in an apartment you can't grow a garden. Those people are wrong. We got creative with containers cuz it was way cheaper and let's face it, it was way more fun!

The herbs aren't doing amazingly BUT, everything else is doing smashingly and we're rather happy about it.


That's about it for the recent past. Life is really quite wonderful.