did ya miss me?!

I know, it's been four whole days.  What was I thinking letting the blog go silent for this long??!  So much can happen in four days!  And a lot kind of did...  Let's recap.

[Friday and Saturday were pretty busy for John.  He packed up the moving truck with help from some great friends, and then drove it all the way up to SLC, where he immediately unpacked it with help from some more great friends.]

Sunday was Ruthe's one-month-birthday!  She is such a little cutie.  I just can't get enough of her.  Even when she spits-up all over me and a clean outfit, and fills her diaper right back up two minutes after I change her.  I wish those things happened more often.  Leaving her at the hospital really hurts.  Especially on the days that she's awake when I have to leave.  I'm pretty sure she's going to retaliate as soon as she gets home.  I'm not sure how, but I can see it in her eyes that she's concocting a plan of attack.

After church on Sunday I headed out to the hospital to spend some snuggle time with Ruthe.  My parents and Yiaya came to see her, too.  I love having visitors there.  I know that they only really want to see the baby, but seeing how many people love her just as much as I do really means a lot.  And I know Ruthe can tell when there are other people visiting.  She's always much more alert and fun for other people... and kind of a show-off.  [OK, I was being generous.  I don't really think anyone loves that girl as much as I do.  Maybe John.  Maybe.]

My parents and I celebrated Ruthe's one month birthday by going to eat at Juan's Flaming Fajitas.  It's delicious.  And I recommend it to anyone who likes to see their dinner set on fire.

Bright and early Monday morning, John flew back to Vegas to spend a few more days at home before law school starts.  He told me his flight landed at 7am.  So I was pretty upset that he called at 6:45 telling me he was here and I needed to come get him.  I was still in bed.  Luckily our house is only about 10 minutes from the airport, so he only beat me to passenger pick-up by a few minutes.  We headed to the hospital after that to see Ruthe, who, again, is freaking adorable.

After our visit we headed home to do some "cleaning and packing" because we all know that I'm a mess, and John still needed to take some miscellaneous stuff up with him in his car later this week.  That turned into us taking a three-hour nap.  In separate beds.  Don't worry, we still love each other.  But the A/C wasn't working in our side of the house over the weekend so I moved into my old room for the nights John was away.  And since my pillow was still in there I went to retrieve it and never got back to our bedroom.  John stayed up long enough for my dad and the A/C-guy to see that nothing was wrong anymore [they think we're crazy and it doesn't really start blowing hot air at us in the middle of the night].

I went to lunch with my besties Steph and Nettie and we shopped around for a couple hours.  I got an awesome Star Wars shirt and a really cute hat for Ruthe.  It's impossible to go shopping and not buy her something...

On Tuesday I got a new haircut!!  Well, the cut is the same, but my lovely friend Rachel gave me a little bit of the ombre look.  I love it!  It only took me two years to decide that its something I like enough to do on my own hair.  Maybe next time I won't be such a slow poke to follow a hair-trend.  Think of all the funky hair days I could have avoided!

Wednesday was a nice day.  I went to see Ruthe in the morning.  And then had a bitter-sweet reunion with my DHS theatre family at a memorial service for our Mikey.  It's such a devastating thing when we lose someone too, too soon.  And I'm sorry that this was the first time in seven years that I've seen so many of my friends.  I hope that I can change the way I view all my relationships, and make a better effort to see everyone and reconnect on a regular basis.  [If you're reading this, I love you guys.  More than you think.]

John and I spent the rest of Wednesday just being together.  We'd had a rough week before, getting everything ready for the move, and we really needed to just be together.  It's going to be a hard couple of months with him up at school and Ruthe and I still working on her recovery in Las Vegas.  We're not looking forward to it.  But since this was our plan, and we've had some time to mentally prepare for it, we're hoping it all works out for the best.  We won't say no to any prayers, advice, or words of encouragement though!!

family photo - 8/14/13

John woke up and left for SLC this morning at 6am.  I was partially awake for his endearing goodbye.  It felt a little too much like the mornings he got up super early and left for work.  Except when I woke up I knew that he wouldn't be back tonight to snuggle and kiss me.  We did get to Skype before he went to bed tonight.  It was nice to see his face while we talked about our days.  But I really, really miss him already.

and the winner is...

The University of 

UTAH!!

That's right!  We made our decision - and it was tough! 

John was accepted at The Ohio State University, which was kind of our dream school.  For some strange reason we both just loved the idea of moving to Ohio.  And they have some programs that really interested him. 

But, he was also accepted at the University of Utah.  Which is another great school, even if it is ranked a little lower than OSU.  Don't get me wrong - we're not settling for less here.  Utah also has some programs that John is interested in.  And it's [obviously] a heck of a lot closer to family. 

We did maybe have to let the baby nugget have a little bit of a say in our decision, too.  Since her due date is the middle of July, and she'll be spending quite a bit of time in the hospital after her surgery, we had to think about how that would affect our family being together.  Law school generally starts toward the middle of August, and if we had chosen Ohio that would mean that John would have to leave me and the baby here for an indefinite amount of time before I could safely move across the country with her to join him.  Not an ideal situation.  And we're not saying that John will get to see us very frequently anyway, but a $50 tank of gas and 7-hour drive sounds a whole lot better than a $600 last-minute plane ticket and at least one layover.  

I might still be talking myself into this decision, just a little bit.  But we feel really good about going to Utah.  It's a great school.  We'll be surrounded by friends and fairly close to family.  And hey, the Salt Lake Temple isn't exactly a drawback!!

Now we just have to find somewhere to live...  anyone have an extra house in SLC they feel like giving us for the next three [or four] years?!!

No baby updates today.  Sorry.  She still transforms from a sloth to a ninja as soon as bedtime comes around, but she's starting to get a little cramped in there.  At least, that's what my ribs are telling me.  I get to take the dreaded glucose test next week, so that should be interesting.  I'm actually a little excited for it.  I mean, it's the one time in my life [except for any future pregnancies] that a doctor is going to tell me to drink straight sugar.  I'm pretty psyched.