A Sisterly Visit

My sister Jessica and my niece Ellie also came to visit us at the beginning of the month.  It was the first time Jess had been here since we met up here and then went to Vegas a year and a half ago.  So it was the first time she'd been able to see our 'hood and SLC for an extended period of time.

Ellie and Helena were best of friends during the visit, although Helena wasn't as keen on being bossed around by Ellie as she was the last time Ellie was here.  They played pretend, watched movies, and had a grand old time.  We took the kids to Thanksgiving Point one day to see some farm animals, to play at splash park, the discovery place, on a hike in the mountains, and out to a fancy dinner of sushi for the grown-ups and fried shrimp/fish for the kidlets.

It was really nice to have my sister in town to help with Harper a bit (the first night she was here he had a personal best sleeping record) and to show her SLC a bit more.  Ellie had never been hiking before, and kept asking us beforehand what it was.  When we told her we were going to go walk around in the mountains she still wasn't sure why it was called hiking and not just walking.  She thought that was pretty neat, though.  We didn't see any animals, but the waterfall was well worth the trek.  At one point Jess climbed up the side of it to see the top, Ellie was crying since here mom was so high up and I was thinking that Justin (her husband) was going to kill me if she fell.  But all was good ,(I promise it's not that dangerous!).

Jess and I also went out to dinner downtown all by ourselves one night.  Ash watched all thee kids by himself and was very 'over it' by the time we got home. :)  He did good, though.  Jess and I couldn't remember the last time we had a nice meal with just the two of us.

Our anniversary was during her stay, too, and she watched the kids while we went out to dinner and had a couples massage.  That was really awesome.

Oh, we also developed an addiction to Red Mango's key lime frozen yogurt topped with graham cracker crumbs.  I think we had it three times.  It's so good.  Holy cow.  If you live by a Red Mango, go get one right now. ;)  It will change your life.

Anyway, they were her for a week and it was great to have quality time with both of them.  One of the things I do love about living a little far away is the quality time with family. :)  It was very busy quality time, but really really fun.

Me &Jess

Hiking to our destination.  They didn't run for long!

Ellie in front of Donut Falls.

Helena let Jess carry her for a little while, but wasn't keen on the picture taking.

Helena feeding Ash with chopsticks.

Jess & Ellie at our fancy sushi dinner.

-Emily :)

Three Ashfords in the House!

I'm so late in blogging about this, but Ashford's Dad came to visit us a month ago or so for a long weekend.  Ash took a day off work and they went fly fishing...a Galbreath family tradition.  They had a great time, but didn't catch anything.  We still weren't in the mode of doing too much, but we had a lot of fun catching up, cooking at home, and playing with the kids.  I did a horrible job of taking pictures that weekend, too, as this is the only one I have.  No 3 generation pics, no pics of Grandpa Ash and Helena.  Man, I suck.  Well, more reason to visit again sooner!  :)  Thanks for visiting Grandpa Ash! :)

-Emily :)

Quoting Helena

Helena is always cracking us up. And I know she's probably most funny to us, but I just have to share some things she's said lately that are pretty hilarious.

-- While taking a walk with Ellie and Jessica while they were here her hair was blowing in her face and she said, exasperated, "I want to be a boy with my hair!!"

--My sister babysat all three kids while we went out for our anniversary during her visit. In the middle of trying to go put Ellie and Helena to bed, they both had to go #2. Ellie had used Helena's toilet and not flushed all the way, which freaked Helena out so much she had to go into our bathroom. But then she had a change of heart, telling my sister that she wanted to go poopy in her bathroom after all so that "her and Ellie's poopies could have a party."

--One day she started belting out "who let the frogs out!!!" to the tune of 'who let the dogs out'. They must listen to that song at school?!? No idea.

-- Helena likes to find money and put it in her piggy bank. I always tell her she has to save her money for college. She has no idea what college is and one day Ash told her she was going to grow up and be a Jayhawk. Well, she knows what a Jayhawk is, in an animal type of way....and immediately starts crying "No...I don't want to be a Jayhawk." We say, "But mommy and daddy are Jayhawks?!?" Hard to explain ourselves out of that one.

Helena enjoying a popsicle in the backyard.

-- Along the same saving money lines, yesterday she said, "I'm going to save this money so I can buy more ham at the store." She also said, "Daddy has to go to work tomorrow so we can buy more ham." I guess the college line isn't sticking. And, really, we don't talk about ham that much, I swear.

-Emily :)

Yep, I'm a Quitter

I haven't quit very many things in my life just because I wanted to and not because some circumstance made it so I had to. The only thing I can recall is high school cheerleading my freshman year. After that, I'm drawing a blank. I'm sure Aimeeliz or my sister could come up with some others since they often remember my childhood/life better than I do. :)

That being said, last week I quit my job. Because I wanted to. And to be honest, it felt really good. It was a very agonizing decision for me, as I have always liked working in general and I've always worried that if I stayed home I would somehow fall into a deep, hermit-like depression. But my job in Utah hasn't really been everything I wanted it to be for many reasons, and it makes it that much harder to go back to now that I have a lot more to do at home. I am going to miss some of the good friends I've made at work, but hopefully they'll still hang with me even though they won't see me every day.

Obviously, with Harper in the mix now, it's just too hard for both of us to have demanding jobs outside of the house. Ash works 50+ hours a week and it's never going to get better despite my constant nagging. He works hard for our family, and I really appreciate that. My 45-minute-on-a-good-day commute plus the possibility of shuttling two kids to two different daycares just seems impossible right now. And if not impossible, definitely stressful and probably not good for any of us.

So, I'm officially a SAHM (or Shit Ass Ho Motherfucker as Dooce says) with benefits. Those benefits are that I am still working on contract sporadically with my former job...from home mostly. Helena's still going to go to montessori school a few days a week and Harper will chill with me.

I'm looking forward to wearing more workout clothes instead of dress clothes and possibly not showering every day. And hopefully I'll be a better mom now that I have a lot of stress off of my back.

Anyway, I'm lucky to have this option as a lot of people don't right now. I honestly never thought I would. Bring on the mom's clubs and playdates! Woo Hoo! As Ash put it, I'm working for us now.

-Emily :)

Whew!

I've got a list of 18 blogs to write and hopefully I'll get to them someday. :) Still don't really have my shit together, if you know what I mean! Needless to say between having 2 sets of visitors, quitting my job, and keeping up with the normal amount of things, blogging has gone to the wayside.

To tide all six of you who read my blog over, here's a most recent pic of Harper showing off his new skill:

Yay for smiling!

-Emily :)