Summer Rundown

Our life has been busy!   I'll try to do a quick rundown of things that have happened in our lives the last few months:

-We went to Alaska in May!  It was so so fun, and we got to experience a late winter, which wounds weird to be excited about, but it was amazing.  Clara loved seeing snow and I loved wearing sweaters.  We all loved spending time with family.  Jordan worked over 300 hours in May while we were in Alaska, so I was super grateful to be there, and not stuck at home alone with two small kids in Phoenix while Jordan worked insane (INSANE!) hours.  In early June, Jordan and his parents surprised me when they flew Jordan up to visit for the weekend and then fly home with me and the kid's.  It was so cool to be in Alaska with Jordan.

Snowing, in May, in Alaska

It was a cold morning in Alaska, so we cuddled

-After getting back from Alaska, I had two weeks before turning around and flying to Missouri for a couple of weeks with Jordan's sisters.  It was two weeks of recuperating and... we bought a minivan.  Jordan and I have been discussing getting a second car for ages, and we finally just bit the bullet and did it!  It's a 2006 Toyota Sienna, and we L-O-V-E it.  It has totally changed my life.  We were a one car family for a long time, and it was starting to wear on me.  Have a second car (especially one with so much room) has given me an immense amount of freedom, and the kids and I gleefully go from one fun activity to the next in this baby.

I love the color.  I love this van.

Lucy playing in the pool in Phoenix

-At the end of June, the kids and I boarded a plane once again and headed off to Missouri.  Missouri is amazing.  Jordan's sisters live literally right next door to each other, and the kids basically wander the farm between the two houses.  I love being able to give Clara so much space and freedom, and so so so many playmates.  I love being able to talk to family whenever I want.  Jordan joined us for reunion about 2 weeks after the kids and I got there, and then he stayed for a week and a half.

Clara and cousin Katy

-Jordan and I had our 5 year anniversary while we were in Missouri!  The day of our anniversary, the Hull family reunion had planned an awesome trip to a Missouri lake where we rented two boats.  Jordan and I aren't particularly picky about our anniversary, we don't' feel like we need to do something special every single year (ok, confession: about half our anniversaries I'm usually in Alaska by myself), so we just had a great time on the boat with family.  That being said, to commemorate 5 years of marriage, we jumped off of the top of the boat together, and got this picture:
-

The couple that breaks rules and jumps off the tops of boats together, stays together.  That's a thing, right?

-Our last day there, we went to this little carnival that had rides perfectly sized for toddlers.  Really, it looked like all the rides were miniature, including a miniature Ferris wheel.  It was so fun, Clara loved it.

At a toddler carnival in Missouri.  Yes, a toddler carnival.

-When we finally got back to Phoenix at the end of July, we just had August and September left of summer, so we went to splash pads!  We ended up trying one all the over in Fountain Hills (about a 30 minute drive from our house) that was less busy and had super cool water features.

Clara thinks she's being super brave getting her hair wet.  You can imagine how difficult bath time is.

And there you have it.  A basic rundown of our summer!

Long Distance (Part III)

Much of our early relationship was spent in "long distance" mode.  Which sometimes seems so ironic to me because we grew up near each other, our parents (still, to this day) live 10 minutes apart from one another, and there were so many years where we were so close... but not together.  The most annoying was the very early days of our budding romance, right after we decided we were "together."  We had tip-toed around each other all summer, not sure what the other was feeling.  It wasn't until 5 days (FIVE DAYS!) before I had to fly back to Texas for college that we got our crap together and figured out that we loved each other.  And we had five days to enjoy it before the long periods of separation began.

Jordan stayed in Fairbanks to work and prepare for his mission.  I went back for my sophomore year at Stephen F. Austin in Nacogdoches, TX.  And here's the crazy thing: I think the fact that our early years were spent in separation made the whole experience that much more romantic.  There were declarations of love, written down for me to go and read latter.  There were long. drawn out phone conversations that lasted until 4 am, even though I had class at 8.  There were those thrilling moments when we were finally reunited, if only briefly, and they were out-of-this-world exciting.

A curious thing happened for us that I think foreshadowed the fact that we were going to make it, despite being mired in long-distance.  Rather than drifting apart, we drifted together.  When I first went to Texas, we'd email daily, and talk every 3 or 4 days on the phone.  Then Jordan came to visit me at school in November.  After that, we talked on the phone daily, and emailed several times a day.  When I returned to school after spending Christmas with Jordan (where we literally spent every waking second together), we proceeded to talk on the phone nearly every break we had in the day, and then we were too busy talking on the phone to send emails more than once a day.

Looking back, I can see how the long distance deepened our relationship.  Built on more than mutual attraction, more than convinence, more than even friendship, the very foundation of our romantic relationship was built upon sincere commitment, a very real desire we had to be together.  That sense of commitment, due to the nature of long distance relationships, has solidified in our marriage.  We feel deeply loyal to each other because we had years of practice of being loyal to each other.

Hiking in Denali (Part II)

The first time Jordan and I went hiking in Denali, I was completely infatuated with him and desperately trying to get him to like me.  I was headed into my Junior year of high school, and Jordan was headed for BYU in just a few days.  I was sad at the prospect of him leaving college, but even sadder at the thought that he wouldn't even miss me.  Over the course of the summer, we had become email buddies, exchanging letter once every few days, talking about a variety of topics, although love was never one of them (I wasn't brazen enough to just come out and tell him "I'm totally in love with you!"), and, oh yeah, he had a girl friend.  But before he headed to BYU, I somehow convinced him to go hiking in Denali with me.  Frankly, the fact that he even agreed to drive 2 hours to a hiking location with me days before leaving for college demonstrates the value of our friendship to him, although I was too caught up in the fact that he didn't love me to appreciate it.

This is a fantastic picture of where we went hiking.  We started by climbing that rock formation there at the bottom of the picture (the hike I always went on), and then Jordan said, "why don't we climb this next one!" that mountain to the right of the picture.  I, ever the eager-pleaser, agreed, and it about killed me and my way out of shape butt.  Jordan spent the entire time using his new, cool GPS he won in a mathematics competition in school, and I spent the whole time wishing he was as into me as he was into the GPS. But alas, we climbed, we had fun, we went back down as friends.  Jordan left a couple of days later, and we spent the next few years writing emails back and forth, as friends.

Almost exactly three years later, we decided to go hiking again.  Things were different.  We had spent the last three years as friends, emailing regularly about our lives.  We were both single and working in Fairbanks for the summer, and neither of us knew what that meant.  I had been telling myself for months now that I didn't have feelings for Jordan anymore.  And honestly, I still don't know what Jordan was thinking for the majority of that summer.  Anyway, 5 days before I was to head back to Texas for college, I told Jordan I wanted to go hiking in Denali.  He agreed.  After climbing the first rock formation, I realized we had forgotten a flashlight and Jordan volunteered to run back to the car before we conquered the second peak. As he ran down, I told him, "Don't get hurt!" and he replied, "Anything for you!" and all I could think of was the Princess Bride and how when Wesley says "As you wish" he really means "I love you" and oh my goodness, Jordan loves me! He came back, we hiked up to the second  peak, and as we sat there in punctuated conversation, looking at the spectacular view, everything came spilling all out. We loved each other.  We wanted to be together.  There were a lot of things said, half I can't remember because it was such an insane, heady experience, but I walked away knowing we were going to be married, that this was indeed the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.  

One more time, nearly 3 years later, we found ourselves hiking once again. We didn't climb with secret crushes, but with our relationship well established and consistent.  I was finished with college and working in Fairbanks, and Jordan had returned from his mission in Mongolia just 3 months earlier.  We had spent every single day together (something, that up to that point, we had never been able to do).  It was May 31, 2008, and although Jordan didn't know, it was exactly 10 years since my father had died.  We followed the same path: up the first peak, and then up the second.  There at the top, we tried to find the exact spot where we had started our relationship almost 3 years earlier.  Instead of silence and anticipation, there was easy conversation and laughter.  And then he got on one knee and asked me to marry him.  We stayed on top of that mountain, talking about our futures and where we would go and what we wanted our lives to be like.  

We haven't been back since, mostly because our lives are so busy.  College, then a baby, then a job, then a move, then another baby and here we are.  But I love that it seems everything for us came back to a beautiful hike in one of the most beautiful places in the world.  And you know, hiking is so much like marriage.  Sometimes it's steep, and it's so hard and you don't know if you can keep going, and sometime the views are so breathtakingly beautiful you try to remember every detail of the moment so you can always go back there.  You spend most of the time helping each other.  When one wants to quit, the other is there to tell them to keep going, because it's all going to be worth it. And it has been worth it.  Every moment I have been with Jordan has been worth it.

It started as a friendship (Part 1)

(Over a year ago I wrote a couple of blog posts about my history/love story with Jordan.  They have been sitting in my posts section, unpublished, for various reasons... I was waiting until our 5 year anniversary, which has past... I was somewhat self-concious about them... etc.  But I think I should put them out there.  I think my husband is pretty amazing, and I think our story is kinda cool, but I'm not offended in the least if you totally skip these.)

One of my favorite things that I do about once a year is to go back and read the old emails Jordan and I wrote between each other the years before we got married.  And when I say "years of emails" I mean we seriously have about 5 years worth of emails and letters.  We started writing as he graduated high school into his first year of college, and as I went into my Junior year of high school.  I had a mad crush on him, and he had a steady girlfriend to whom he was pretty committed.  This, of course, did not stop me from trying to weasel my way into his life, by any means possible.  I eventually realized this meant I needed to be his friend, and I would be totally there to catch him when his relationship eventually failed (or so I hoped).

Looking back, I am more than a little ashamed of the selfish and pretty questionable ethics that prompted our friendship.  And it didn't work out at all like I thought it would, so that gives me a bit of peace of mind.

Anyway, these emails at the time were a bit of me trying to coax him into liking me.  But they have turned out to be far more valuable than that.  For instance, Jordan did NOT start emailing me to woo me, and therefore his emails are far more genuine and in many ways, fascinating glimpses into the head of a thoughtful 18 year old as his entire life is changing.  I am lucky he felt comfortable sharing many vulnerable aspects of his soul, probably because I wasn't the love of his life, but because I was his friend (and although he'll never admit it, I think he knew I adored him, and therefore could do very little wrong in my eyes.  A safe place for secrets).

That first year we began emailing each other (me in Alaska attending high school, Jordan at BYU), I was trying to please him in emails.  To sound smart, competent, and kind.  I wanted him to know I cared, but I also wanted him to think of me as an equal, not just some little high schooler.  I am highly embarrassed of these emails, to the point I can not read them.  I have tried.  It is humiliating.  I keep waiting for the time when I can look back and laugh, and clearly (even 11 years later) I have not reached that point.

That being said, I can not regret emailing him, because Jordan was going through something important.  He was really struggling with college.  Not with the academics or the new independence, but with the emotional aspect of being a nice guy in a sea of jerks. I am so grateful to have been able to be a part of it, even if in small part.  I have such a greater understanding of my husband now because he wrote me, he talked to me, honestly as a friend through some of his most difficult experiences.  I wasn't his only or even most important confidant, but I was there.

The Father of my Children

I have been trying to convince one of my friends that she's ready to become a a mom.  I've talked about how hard parenthood is, but how it comes with equal rewards.  I've talked about how you're never ready, and that's ok (it's better that way, even).  I've talked about how everything changes, but after you have a baby you find yourself not caring that you can't go to the movies on a whim.  But I find my most compelling argument for having a baby is to be able to witness your husband become a father.

Jordan and Clara December 2010

It's amazing.

I can remember the moment that I saw Jordan become a dad.  Clara had been born, but was having some trouble breathing, so they took her away to the NICU.  Jordan followed for a bit, but then caught up with me.  It was 2:30am and we were waiting to hold her.  We had been up for almost 24 hours, but couldn't sleep until she was with us.  When they finally walked into the room with her at 3am, they handed her to Jordan and he said in the most tender voice I had ever heard, "Oh Amanda, she's so cute!"  There's been no going back for him since.

Jordan holding Clara for the first time.  Look at that picture!  That's pure adoration right there...

He loves loves loves spending time with his girls.  Honestly, there's nothing he'd rather do than run around playing hide and seek with Clara, or helping Lucy to figure out how to crawl on her knees, or kicking a ball around with Clara, or carefully spoon-feeding Lucy her dinner.  While I find myself often eager to pass the kids off on him when he comes home, he never seems to tire (or complain).  I would chalk it all up to the fact that I spend unlimited amounts of time with the children while his parenting hours are much shorter, except he's ALWAYS been like this.  Since the beginning, when we were both at home all hours, and Clara was a tiny baby.  He just really loves spending time with his kids, and he's a fun, attentive and purposeful father.  And both of his daughters truly adore him for it.

Jordan holding Lucy for the first time.

It's so meaningful to me (possibly the most meaningful part of parenthood) to watch my daughters love their dad as much as I loved and adored my dad.  I see them learn and play with their daddy and I am reminded of my own childhood.  I am so lucky his is my husband that the perfect father of my children.  I am so happy that he and I are in this parenting thing together, I can't imagine doing it without him.  Happy Father's Day, Jordan.

Jordan with both his girls

Lucy in 2013 (so far)

Not to be forgotten, Lucy is growing like crazy!  She's going to be six months old on Tuesday, and I can hardly believe it.  In many ways, I feel like Lucy and I are finally starting to hit a good groove together.  I'm meeting her needs, and she's starting to sleep on a consistent schedule... (that's all I ask!  Sleeping on a consistent schedule!)

It's so interesting to me to look at the differences between Clara and Lucy.  For instance, Clara has always been a bit slower to pick up on talking and language.  She didn't babble much as a young baby, and has remained a quiet toddler.  Lucy.  Oh my goodness, Lucy is a talker.  She's just crazy social.  While Clara was content to play by herself quietly, Lucy wants to be engaged.  It's great that she's a second kid, because Clara is great at engaging with her and getting her to play (making the demands on mom easier... yay!).

On the other hand, Clara made up for her lack of interest in talking by moving.  That girl was an early sitter, an early (and vigorous) crawler, and was running at 11 months.  Lucy doesn't seem as interested.  She's about six months old, and although we practice daily, she doesn't sit up on her own yet.  I'm not worried, but I find the contrast between my two girls (one a mover and quiet, the other a talker and content to be still) fascinating.

Oh, and I cannot tell you how excited I am that they really seem to like each other!  It's amazing!  I'm sure things are going to get more contentious as Lucy gets a bit more willful, but for now, it's so perfect.  Clara loves having an audience, and Lucy loves being an audience.  Lucy doesn't care if Clara takes her toy, and Clara loves to take her toys (sigh....).

I adore Lucy's dark hair and long, dark eyelashes.  I'm sure this is mostly my mother's bias, but I can't get over what a pretty baby she is.  I mean, it's ridiculous.  That skin, those cheeks, that DIMPLE, those big eyes with beautiful dark eyelashes.  Ridiculous.

While Lucy is turning 6 months old this week, we're still just barely venturing into solid foods.  Honestly, I'm lazy.  Even after goign to a baby food making party (and now I have TONS of homemade baby food!  Yay!) I'm still slow about actually pulling out the food and heating it up and spooning it in for Lucy.  And she hasn't taken too kindly to anything I've given her.  She's interested, definitely.  She's always grabbing at my food when I'm eating, and she's fasinated to watch us eat at dinner, but if I try to spoon anything for her, she makes the funniest faces, and then refuses to open her mouth.  I'm sorta waiting until she can sit up on her own, and then I think I'm just going to give her basic finger foods, I don't think she likes the spoon to mouth thing.

She is such a happy baby who loves to interact and play, and we sure do love her.

Clara in 2013 (so far)

Clara has really hit that hilarious toddler phase.  As cliche as it sounds, she really does make us laugh every day.  More than that, she amazes me every day.  Here are some fun things she's been doing and saying:

1. She loves her princesses.  Like, wow.  LOVES her princesses.  Her love of princesses came out of nowhere.  We don't own a princess movie.  We don't read princess books.  But somehow, she saw the figurines and knew exactly what they were, and she plays with them every.single.day.  And I love it.  I love that she's found something she loves.

2. She loves wearing "princess dresses."  She asks to wear a princess dress every day.  She gets so excited on Sunday, because it means she can wear her prettiest dresses.

3. Clara loves nursery, and every morning she asks if she can go.  The reason we survive Sacrament Meeting is that we can say, "In a few minutes you can go to Nursery!  So be quiet so you can go!"  Works like a charm.

4. She has seriously surprised me with how quickly she picks up music.  I know some people are surprised saying, "But you're a musician!  Of course your kid is musical!"  But I really didn't  feel that way, because I'm not a naturally talented musician (meaning I don't pick up songs and melodies by ear easily).  Clara, on the other hand, picks up melodies quickly and remembers them for days.  And she learns so many songs through nursery that I have never, ever sung for her.  It's so amazing.  But my favorite thing is when I sing her a song, and she cuddles in and says, "I like that song, Mommy." *melt*

5. Clara adores Lucy.  She loves to make Lucy smile and laugh.  When they have been playing together, and Lucy gets a bit overwhelmed and needs me to pick her up, Clara get's upset and says, "Lucy lay down!" and pats the place where she was, right next to her.

6. Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is her favorite show.  She asks for Daniel Tiger every morning.  She named her stuffed bear "Tiggy" after Daniel Tiger's stuffed tiger, Tiggy.  Cute, right?

7. She is so so so sneaky.  If I'm not careful with her pacifier, my phone, or any delicious food, she can get her stool and get it on almost any surface.  It's my life very complicated.

busy season has hit...

.... and honestly, I'm not sure if I'm ready!  Things get crazy for Jordan at work every year between March and the first few weeks of June.  He often works 10 hours a day, and there will be many days where he works 14-16.  It's not my idea of a good time.  Frankly, it's not Jordan's idea of a good time, either.  We just have to push through, and know the majority of the year, he works a relatively easy schedule.

To ease this time for both of us, I decided to go to Alaska for the entire month of May and into the first  week of June.  That way Jordan can work 14 hour days and not feel guilty, and I am not stuck at the house by myself with kids for days on end.  Also, my family hasn't met Lucy yet (except Robin!), and I know they are just dying to see her.  And finally, if I'm going to get on a plane with my 2 little kids, the trip better be totally worth my time!  The great news is that on my way there, my sister Robin and my beloved aunt Renee (with her new baby) will be with me for my flight up.  All I have to do is survive my trip back alone with two kids.  I can pretend that's never going to happen, right?

We've started to add some really great things to our house to make it a home.  The biggest thing is our new, amazing, beautiful piano.  I love it.  Oh, how I have missed having a piano.  It makes me feel connected to the world I used t be apart of.  It makes me excited to teach my kids music, and to play the primary songs so they know every single one.

I've started to teach a couple of voice lessons.  My first student is this great gal I managed to recruit off of craigslist, and she's pretty much a perfect voice student.  Practices, doesn't want to sound like Kesha, comes to me with perfect questions that lead into great voice lessons... really, amazing.  Really, the only drawback is that she's really nervous and won't sing in front of me!  We finally discovered a system that I think works for us: she records herself singing at home and sends it to me.  It's been fun to be problem solving and thinking about singing again.

Jordan's in mourning that BYU football is over.  BYU Basketball doesn't really cover it, especially on this down year.  He's also disappointed the Jimmer is way under-utilized for the Sacramento Kings.  Free Jimmer!

The weeks are going by so quickly.  Soon, busy season will be over and we can function as a normal family unit again.  Yay!

2012 in Review

Remembering 2012, here we go!

January: We were finishing up the process of buying our house!  I found out I was pregnant with Lucy halfway through the month, and the morning sickness started a couple of weeks later.

January fun

February: We got the keys to our house, but we had the whole month to move in.  I hate moving, so it was stressful, but Jordan did a good job of working lots of hours and doing all the packing.

This is how I remember feeling in February...

March: We officially live at our new house, and started going to our new ward.  Back in January before I found out I was pregnant, I had decided to go visit Kelly (Jordan's sister) in Connecticut.  The flight were horrible!  Clara was incredibly difficult, and my morning sickness is made much worse by planes and motion sickness.  But I had a BLAST in Connecticut   Jordan went to LA for the Healthcare Conference for his work while I was away and learned how to play golf!

Clara and Caroline in Hartford

April: Ok, I can't remember April much.  Getting hotter, getting more pregnant, Clara talking more.  The usual.  :)

One of the few pictures we took in April...

May: AMY AND HYRUM CAME TO VISIT AND IT WAS AWESOME!  Seriously, though, we had so much fun and I can't wait to do it again at some point in the future.  We played, went to the Musical Instrument Museum, made ice cream, and generally had a great time.  We also found out that we were having another little girl in May!  I was so so excited to have have two little girls.

Clara and Hyrum eating homemade ice cream

June: Tons of business.  First, my cousin Melissa and her husband Thomas stayed at our house for a couple of days.  We played games and talked a bunch, it was so fun!  After that, we headed to Utah for Jordan's family reunion (happening at the same time as the extended family Hull Reunion and the Thompson Reunion).  It was so fun, but WAY too short.  I had gotten used to spending weeks with Jordan's family, and I hated that this was over in 6 days (I couldn't stop crying at the end because I didn't want to say goodbye and I was pregnant).  After we got home, three days later I had to get on a plane with Clara and go spend 6 1/2 weeks in Alaska.  The day I was supposed to leave, I got very sick and I wasn't sure if I could make it, but I got on that dumb plane anyway and we made it to Fairbanks in one whole, very tired piece.  The next day was my dear friend Katelin's wedding, which I was both a bridesmaid and singing in the wedding, so that was lots of craziness.

Taking pictures for Daddy with Mom all dressed up for Katelin's wedding

July: I spent the WHOLE MONTH in Fairbanks!  We played with cousins and aunts and uncles and Grandmas and Grandpas and overall had a grand time.  I loved the cool weather while I was in my third trimester.  I managed to get the flu AGAIN while I was in Alaska, and I had to spend an afternoon in the hospital getting IV fluids and having some extremely painful contractions.

Dressed up as book charaters at a Library party at Alaskaland

August: I had so much fun in Alaska, I didn't want to leave.  I almost asked Jordan if I could extend my already lengthy trip (poor guy), but after I got home, I had to turn around AGAIN and fly to Utah for Kaitlyn and Eddie's wedding!  Alright, I won't lie, that trip was so hard.  It was hot, I was 33 weeks pregnant, I had to walk all over temple square and I was having contractions like crazy.  But the wedding was beautiful!  After we got home, that was it, no more traveling until the baby was born.

Clara and cousin Hannah helping Grandma Hull Cook

September: Lucy was born on the 19th!!!!  YAY!  I'm so glad she's here and apart of our family.  She's so beautiful and so sweet.

Brand new little Lucy!

October: Robin came to stay with us to help with the baby for a week, and then my MIL came for another weeks and she completely redid my house!  LOVE IT!  Clara was a very cute little owl for Halloween, and Lucy was a football.

Cute girls!

November: Pinetop and Eagar for Thanksgiving!  It was so nice getting out of Phoenix for a bit.

Hanging out in Pinetop with Mom

December: Christmas with just our little family, and it was so nice.  Really, we have been so blessed, and it's been wonderful to remember that this time of year.

Happy Sisters!

And here's to a new year with fun adventures and plenty of time with family!