A Things-Have-Been-Going-Really-Well Blog Post

So I've wanted to write this post for a couple of months now, but I have been afraid it would come off as bragging.  But I have written about the challenging times our family has faced, and I feel I would be ungrateful (and a little bit of a liar) if I didn't mention when things seem to be going really well for us.  It's times like these that I actually start to almost worry, because things are TOO good.  I start to realize my time is at hand for a big trial and I make it a point to say extra prayers of gratitude, hoping maybe being super, extra grateful will mean difficult times will never come our way.  Of course, that's not how it works, and life has an ebb of flow of good times and more difficult times, and I just want to be sure I'm on record of appreciating when life is really great.

Jordan has been doing extremely well at work.  He recently took his career to the next level and is a certified ASA, which basically means he's a credentialed actuary.  He still has a couple more exams and some classes to take before he's a fully credentialed FSA, but we've been working towards the ASA for a long time, and it's very satisfying to have reached it.  He put in long hours of study (in addition to long hours at work) and just really worked his tail off, and I couldn't be prouder of him.  In terms of his career, we are in a very advantageous position.  If we wanted, we could get  a different job fairly easily.  His skills are highly marketable and we have excellent job security.  He has also made a great impression on his currently boss and they have made it clear that they value the good work Jordan does.  Even though Phoenix isn't my favorite place in the whole world, we find that we are comfortable staying a few more years.

Speaking of Phoenix, we are feeling more and more comfortable here.  I still don't love the heat or the landscape, but there are a whole bunch of different reasons to love it here.  I love all the things there are to do with little kids.  Having a second vehicle and Lucy dropping her morning nap have finally created great conditions for us to explore all the cool stuff for kids. I also feel like I'm making good friends and it's starting to feel more like home.

The kids ARE a challenge.  As my father in law said, they are at ages where they are "sucking vortexes of need." Ha.  I'm actually really happy he said it, because it makes me feel less crazy.  There's a reason I hit burnout!  Anyway, I have two toddlers and they are a lot of work.  But they are a lot of fun.  Clara is talking so well and keeps us well informed with what's going on.  Lucy is starting to talk, and she's so cute I could die.  They play reasonably well together and they seem to really like each other.  Every day is a new challenge, but it's kind of exciting.

When life is going well, I really feel it's important to acknowledge it and appreciate it.  I feel like I've been tasting the sweetness of life, and I really am beyond grateful.

A Grownup Vacation

Jordan and I went to Mexico last week, and it was amazing.  The trip itself was fun and beautiful and relaxing, all really important components to an excellent vacation.  We took a 7 day cruise out of Long Beach (we chose this specific cruise because it ports out of Long Beach and we can just drive over there from Phoenix), with two days in Puerto Vallarta and one day in Cabo.  We decided to get a room with a balcony and it was worth every single extra penny.  We would open our balcony at night and listen to the ocean, or we'd go out there and watch for whales as the sun set.

It was a really nice mix of "doing" and "not doing."  We went to the family friendly comedy shows, the love and marriage game, and a couple of other shows that were entertaining (especially from the perspective of a couple of people who do not really go to shows very often), or we'd sit in our room and read or watch TV.  We were both nervous not to be able to log onto the internet for the whole week (because the internet costs a freakin' arm and a leg!), but it was really a relief.  Jordan couldn't check into work.

Our big excursion was to go whale watching and snorkeling in Puerto Vallarta.  It was so so cool.  We did see a whale, and we watched a baby whale jump up and breach over and over and over again.  The baby whale (who was probably playing) jumped out of the water again and again for at least 15 minutes, and was still going when we left the scene.  The mother whale would come up for air close by, keeping close tabs on the little one.  It was so amazing.  We saw tons of fish while snorkeling, although we didn't stay in the water as long as we would have wanted.  After that, we were able to kayak a bit and see some cool birds.

While our vacation was really spectacular, what has been most amazing to me is how much better I feel now that I'm home.  I knew I was starting to wear thin and that my levels of patience were dropping dramatically, but I didn't realize how taking a week long break would really just totally rejuvenate me.  I have now learned my lesson.  Sometimes mom's need breaks, and that's ok.  Jordan and I aren't going to be able to take week long vacations every single year, but we might be able to go away for a weekend annually.

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:
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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