6 months later...

After a 6 month absence-I'm back! I'm kickin'! and I've taken about a million selfies that I know everyone is begging to see! But real talk: one of my goals this year is to document life. Write more, take more photos, and reflect on it all.

We spent another long weekend in Carmel. This photo came from a random lady who I thought pulled up a little too close to our bench in her mini van and watched us for a solid 5 minutes. What. She offered to take our photo and all was forgiven.

I found my dream floors at the Legion of Honor in SF. After thousands of hours on Pinterest the search is over!

Thanksgiving photo 7/10 people not caught off guard is pretty good

Our only photo from New Years. Caleb looks like he just got tasered but it's really just him trying to take down my phone after I took about 6 unplanned photos. 

4th of july

For the past couple of years, it feels like we've been all over the place for 4th of July. Last year was Texas, before that I was a youth camp leader while Caleb was working in Arizona, and before that was California.

I was so excited to return back to our wonderful Provo and celebrate with family. We also got to celebrate my Grandma's 80th birthday and visit my sister who just started college. Lot's going on! We had a small family reunion and birthday party up Provo Canyon with lots of food and games. Caleb and I are semi-athletic! Come see us for badminton and a game of pickle.

One of my favorite things about Utah summer is the smell! It's so distinct-warm, soft, and reminds me of grass and the mountains. There are a couple of things that we still miss about being in Utah-mainly being close to family and our friends-but, we feel like we've started a new part of our lives in Palo Alto and I started missing our new "home" a bit towards the end of our trip.

We went to Stadium of Fire with my family to see Journey perform. There were so many fireworks that it started to rain debri!

take a swing

In a very odd turn of events, I found myself at Lowes at 9 o'clock at night sitting on a porch swing in my pajama shirt and mom pants. So exciting I know. BUT HEY-it was probably one of the most relaxing 30-45 minutes of my week! My sister and I decided it was the most useful thing we  would ever buy. It could rock us in our old age, it could rock babies to sleep, we could drink lemonade on it, watch the sunset with our husbands, become expert people watchers, and even get our exercise in with the whole using our legs to rock back and forth. In the end, we left without the porch swing....but I secretly plan to return and seriously sit there and just people watch...LOWES CUSTOMERS ARE SO INTERESTING!
It's the little things.

recently

Recently I...

• graduated from college? How did that happen? 

• found out how young I look (?) at a work graduation party when someone congratulated me on graduating from high school...

• fan-girled over Caleb's last show at the Velour and tried really really hard to fit in. Me: Love the bass in this song! Hipster: There is no bass in this song.

• discovered Brookside's fake chocolate covered blueberries and haven't felt the same since (from both eating them and realizing that they aren't really blueberries covered in chocolate)
• took a trip down to Arizona and realized that if Palo Alto doesn't work out, then we have a future in orchard picking

• spent literally 2 hours weighing the ethical consequences of instagraming a Yellowstone hiking trip that I skipped out on and how to twist that it's Caleb and I instead Caleb and his Dad in this photo (captions ranged from a pun about developing broad shoulders and pathetic reasons for wearing men's khaki pants)

Bam.Done.

Sweet Sweet Overload

For the past couples of days I'm ashamed to say how many sweets I've eaten (which should be a good indicator of how overboard I went since trace amounts of sugar and cookie dough can be found in my blood stream) and how many times I've promised myself I would stop. I'm addicted! If anyone is curious there's still about a half of an angel cake, a life supply of oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough and some crumbs from the cake bites I finished off left in the kitchen. Another attempt at healthy eating is about to start!

This weekend was also a sweet overload because of Valentines and a visit from my little sister. I love having all of my ladies together and doing things that Caleb rightfully should not have to do. 

Eva's Bakery in SLC has heavenly Mac and Cheese though I am biased that my own recipe is better…the ambiance here is perfect for a girl-date and makes you feel so sophisticated (?) even though this is your third lunch in one day...

My always up for a solo-pic-pro

Getting "affectionate" and so lady-like at Afternoon Tea

This place will stuff-you-silly on tiny bite sized food! I think it was supposed to take about 2.5 hours to have tea, but we zoomed through in under an hour. We were sitting there and wondering, "Wait, those ladies came in way before us and are still on the first course, should we have paced ourselves…whatever."

Caleb's pink Valentines breakfast. Once again he blew me out of the water for any special occasion with all of his surprises. I always think that I'm ahead of the game and then he comes out of nowhere!

Another small update on baby business: we are preparing for our transfer that should take place at the end of March. I didn't realize that everything we've done before is kind of the easy part. Most of the shots or drugs I'll start taking in the next few weeks continue up until I'm "hopefully" 10 weeks pregnant! Testing and waiting on results has been crazy. My heart skips a beat every time my phone rings because it's usually from some doctor or lab giving me an update. Caleb and I have so many questions and we usually leave every conversation with new things and questions we haven't even considered. If there's anything I've learned in these past couple of weeks it's that natural conception and the birth of a healthy baby is a gift! There are so many different syndromes and chromosome deficiencies that are possible so I now look at every baby as a little wonder. Embryo testing has opened my eyes to what odds are really against you when trying to have a baby. Also, this guy at the pharmacy and I are now officially friends; he tells me what he thinks of my outfit choices and I listen to his stories about visiting Frankfurt in 2005. Whoop.

Sunshine

This weekend we took a short trip to Arizona and sucked up all the sunshine we could in three days. Although Utah is feeling pretty warm (for winter and people who don't understand what warm truly means) we wanted to visit Caleb's family. The trip included ...

• a pretty impressive haul from Last Chance and my first time stalking a woman for a pair of shoes. It was hard and at some point it became more about me winning the shoes from this random woman than actually wanting to buy the shoes. I failed, but I'm learning the thrills of bargain hunting. 

• a tour of a Frank Lloyd Wright home in Phoenix. I know this guy was a genius, but it was probably the last place I would ever want to live. The bathroom resembled a very small-awkward aluminum square and the entire home felt so illogical and raw. If you like triangles-this is your dream home. Caleb loved the Lego model!

• naps in Caleb's hammock that we realized is also a horrible place to take photos during the day because you are blinded by glorious sun. We are so photogenic. 

• a visit to the Phoenix Botanical Gardens which was more or less a desert-cactus walk. I love that Caleb wanted to take me here the first time I visited his home town because he thought it captured everything he loved about Arizona. Nothing says romance like cacti. I'm glad we went because it really did make me appreciate desert beauty and I felt like it was initiation into my small Arizonaian-hood. 

We landed in Utah Monday morning and I was instantly caught of guard by the coldness and all the stuff I forgot to do before we left. I'll pretty much spend this next week playing endless catch-up, but it was so worth it!

Progress

I think I've written about 3 different posts about everything that is going on and our current adventures. However, as soon as I sit down something happens that completely changes my feelings and makes my writing feel 100 years out-dated. In recent Barton news...

We finally had our IVF retrieval and the roller coaster of emotions that go along with it. I was at first nervous, relieved, a bit mad at myself, and then totally at peace with what will happen. Caleb get's the brunt of everything with many text messages and even more emojis. I feel like one of the greatest lessons that I've had to learn from all of this is to let go of my crazy need for control. There are just some things that I can't dictate or demand of myself (or anyone else for that matter) so I need to relax and enjoy the ride. That doesn't mean I won't stop freaking out, it just means that I've realized closure and peace are somewhere along the way. It's okay. Breath.

We took some couple-time during the week (so rare!) to get a treat and go to the BYU MOA. Nostalgia hit me hard! There was an exhibit on BYU and Provo architecture that made me realize that we live in a special place with a lot of ugly special buildings. I'll miss it!

I got some much needed girl time with my Mom this weekend. In the middle of a freak out after our retrieval, she swooped me up from work and we went to lunch and shopping. I don't think she realizes how much that meant to me! I wish I could insert a photo of me with a "Heart MOM" tattoo but I'm not that good at photoshop...and that's 100% cheesy-factor.
P.S. Salmon salad at 6th & Pine is yummy! Skip the apple pie for dessert, its only worth it if Ruby Snap is closed.

Grandma Kendrick's 80th birthday was this weekend so we spent that night up in Ogden. She is so cute and I love seeing Caleb's family dynamics. It cracks me up. Farr's Fresh (from the bit that I tasted) is also a suitable choice when skipping the apple pie (if you can take the drive).

He obviously can't wait to show me off...

California

Being home for at the Holidays presents a number of challenges. Do I wake up 1 hour later or 2 hours later than is sociably acceptable? Do I eat all the food in the pantry tonight or do I wait till the weekend? Should I put on anything else besides pajamas and stretchy pants? Wait, that one's easy. No.

We spent Christmas and New Years with my side of the family and I couldn't have asked for a better trip. The weather was so nice! Like go to the beach in shorts and a t-shirt nice! Like I got a sunburn nice! 

We also went to K1 racing together for family night. Needless to say, I was horrible horrible horrible and it made me want to go even slower than I usually do on the road. 

Going home when you're older and have moved out makes you take on a new perspective about your upbringing and family. I usually imagine "home" the way it was when I was 16 years old-obviously things change and it's a shock when your little sister goes to hang out with her friends and doesn't ask you for a ride. It's the same when it comes to activities you do as a family. Instead of Disneyland, it's go-kart racing. 

New Years Eve we headed over the the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach to spend some "educational" time with my nephew. Very smelly but a lot of fun! The drive was kind of killer (1 hour in a small car with 5 full-growns is a little interesting), but I'm glad we went a little ways from home to do something fun.