PA in July

I never posted about our annual trip to the farm last summer.  Garrett made a fun video, so I'll just post that.

Wisconsin life

Olivia likes to perch herself on random Costco shelves and ask me to take her picture... Costco is a weekly grocery trip around here (probably to Garrett's dismay... I can't get out of there without at least a few splurges, which are at least $10 each generally).  Although, this morning I only spent $22 there, I wonder if my credit card company will call me to ask if I'm okay or if maybe I had a heart attack right after I started checking out and had to leave early... ?

On Monday, Tues, Weds, and Fri mornings at 5:30, you will find me at the gym.  We found an athletic club that we LOVE and, for various reasons, I'm there about 10x a week (yes really).  I started taking a body pump class, which is why I'm there so early on MWF, and on Tuesday mornings I take a spin class at 5:30.  Besides those 4 classes I take, the girls have spin class (Abbie), running class (Ellie), dodgeball (A & E), and boot camp (A & E).  Olivia also has a yoga class 1-2x a week, depending on how many times we feel like showing up.  All these classes are just show up - no extra money, just included in the kids' $10/month membership fee.  It's so great.  I knew we would need something to get us through the winter, and I didn't want to do dance.  This is perfect because there's a variety, and we can show up (or not) whenever we want to.  I usually just do the elliptical when the girls are in their classes, or I try to find a class that sounds interesting (so far I've started doing body step during their boot camp class, but I'm hoping to try out some new classes soon).  Seriously, there are SOO many classes there.  For example, today there are 51 classes to choose from, starting at 5 a.m. and going through 7:30pm.  Les Mils classes, yoga classes, pilates, booty barre, zoomba, TRX, weight training, different variations of spin classes (the one I take incorporates upper body weights for parts of it).  I LOVE it. Did I mention that yet?  I'm already sad that I will have to leave it behind when we move.

 Abbie getting ready for her spin class:

Most of the pictures in my phone are of Olivia because she's with me all day!  I love spending my days with this little girl.  She's so awesome.

It started getting chilly at the bus stop in the mornings!

More evenings around the fire pit - this time roasting marshmallows.  This must have been a while ago since it's still light out

Fall started creeping in!  October was beautiful!!  Fall was VERY mild here this year, everyone kept talking about it.  So, it's been perfect for us Florida folks! Ha.

Olivia wanted to take a picture with Daddy before he left for a job interview.  After taking this, I remembered that I have a picture almost exactly like this from when Garrett was about to leave for a fellowship interview 2 years ago.  This interview pictured was from when we went to Texas.  Before he left, Olivia said "Dad, I wish I could turn into a lip gloss and go in your pocket, and then fly down to Texas with you.  Then I would turn into Olivia and I could play with JB [cousin]." (for the record: a job contract has been signed as of 2 days ago, but no it's not TX.  I will have to do a post about that soon).

I took a bunch of trips to various consignment shops looking for winter gear for the girls.  I'm not too concerned about getting anything super nice since we will only be here for 1 winter, but I do want something warm.  Here is Ellie trying on some snow pants.  As I was helping her put them on, she was SO confused.  "What ARE these???  What am I, a FARMER??" Hahaha.

Abbie, right before her book club meeting at the nearby public library.  They meet once a month and they get fed dinner.  You guys.... Madison is awesome.

Hanging out in the back yard:

Back when we first started going to the gym, I took an afternoon spin class while the girls were in their dodgeball "class".  Garrett joined me one afternoon!  It was really fun (he usually goes to the gym after the girls go to bed).  I since switched to the 5:30am spin class because I like that instructor more (and I like the incorporation of the upper body weights).

Olivia at Costco.  I love all the huge, random things they have there.  Seriously.. who buys these?!

Like I said... Fall was very mild here!  We live at the end of a dead end street, but at the end of our road there's a gate that can be opened for big trucks or whatever.  It opens up to a big parking lot of a church that's on a more major road.  The girls like to ride their bikes in the parking lot.

Family pic:

The American Girl factory is just 10 minutes from our house!  I took Olivia there one morning on our way to Costco.  Sadly they don't do tours or anything, but their lobby is awesome and we hung out in there for a while!  I still need to take the older girls one of these days.

Girls' night to see Wicked downtown.  It was good.  To be honest, I'm not so the girls (or I, for that matter) appreciated it fully because we weren't very familiar with the songs or the story line.  It was kind of a last minute decision to go, so we didn't have time to really listen ahead of time and get to know the songs.  I think we all would have enjoyed it more if it was more familiar.  It was fun though.  A really late night, though! (and a school night)

More fall leaves!!  I love Fall.

Olivia and I got to go on a field trip with Abbie to a pumpkin patch and corn maze.  It was a REALLY chilly day but it was fun!  (I know you are probably wondering what I think "really chilly" means... haha.  It was probably in the high 40s, but it was WINDY and overcast and wet -- not raining but almost.  So yes I think it was legitimately cold, the other moms were cold too.  We have had clear, sunny days in the high 30s that were much more enjoyable to be outside in... I'm not a total wimp)

We found all 10 check points in the corn maze!  This was my first corn maze too, and it was a lot of fun!  Abbie is holding a picture of the map... it was really hard!

Hula hooping at the school Halloween dance.

Even colder mornings at the bus stop!  That wind really is a killer some days.

Garrett had an interview where he would be staying with some family, so I loaded him up with some Wisconsin cheese to take to them!  I love trying all the different varieties.  We have since bought the morel & leek cheese 3 more times... it's so good!  And if you are wondering if you can get through security smoothly with 4 blocks of cheese in your backpack... no you cannot.  Haha.  I'm sure Garrett was cursing me the whole time.

More Fall leaves.... I really can't get enough.

A morning at the park with Olivia.  This was in November!!  Like I said, overall it's been a VERY mild Fall and early winter (two days ago -- Dec 12 -- it was 59 degrees out).

More huge stuff at Costco.  I feel like I see at least one person buy a bear every time I'm there!!  It's crazy!

Someone ordered two custom twin sized quilts.... that has kept me pretty busy over the last several weeks.

Haha.... yep it's getting colder.  Some mornings really are bitter.  Brrr!

I promise I will be better at blogging more.  I really don't want to forget this year here.

Living in WI

Basically, I love living here. I LOVE it.  As I experience things, I compare it to our experiences in other places and 9 times out of 10, it's better here.  Some examples:

It's so beautiful here.  Like, gorgeous.  The summer has been beautiful, and now that it's Fall the leaves are looking glorious.  I love being in a city that has so much to offer, but only having to drive 5 minutes from my house to see cornfields and red barns.  I love cornfields, and I LOVE barns/farms.  Sure, sometimes I go outside in the morning and it smells like manure, but it's a fair trade-off in my opinion. Haha.

People are really good drivers here.  It seems like every time we move, we would complain about how awful the drivers were -- it always seemed to be worse than the last place we lived.  However, the people here are just really good drivers!  No one has ever driven super close behind me, people always let me over when I need so switch lanes, no one speeds.  Seriously.  There are main roads that are 30mph (seriously), and people actually go 30 (some even go a little slower).  I rarely see people pulled over, and I never see cops hiding out waiting to catch someone speeding.  It's crazy.

Along those same lines.... the traffic here never seems to be that bad.  Of course, I don't drive downtown much, but over where we live it never seems to be bad.  It only takes Garrett about 10 minutes to get to the hospital or the other location he works, even at peak traffic times of the day.  It's certainly not as crazy as Gainesville, or Augusta, or Newport News. Or Utah Valley, for that matter.

Pumpkin patches, apple orchards, farms.... we are loving them.

The shopping here is great.  They have a lot of places that some of my friends in FL used to drive 1.5 - 2 hours for... Costco, Nordstrom Rack, Homegoods.  There's a Cheesecake Factory opening next month (I've never loved dinner there but I do love cheesecake!).  Small local shops, a fabric shop, more than one mall.  I love having so many options.  I've never been a huge shopper but I have enjoyed going to Nordstrom Rack and browsing around (and finding shoes for the kids for under $10 on sale).  Oh and there's a really great consignment shop about a quarter mile from my house.  I got some snowpants for the girls there, and I'm hoping that soon I will be able to find some boots for all of us there (they get them often, but not the sizes I need).

There are lots of fun playgrounds here.  My personal favorite is a little one that's very close to our house (we used to have lots of picnics there in the summer), and it's right on the lake.  I just never get tired of looking out over the lake! The girls love a different park across the street from there, which has 2 playgrounds that are much bigger (they were donated by American Girl so we call it the American Girl park).  There's also a splash pad there during the summer, which we went to once.

The library is awesome.  It's big (compared to any other library we've been a member of), and they always have fun activities going on.  I take Olivia to story time 1-2 times a week, and the lady who does it is fantastic.  She reads books, sings songs, plays the guitar, and is just so engaging.  Abbie is part of a book club where they meet once per month and have dinner provided, and they discuss the book.  She also is taking a cross stitch class there once a week this month.  There are also a bunch of other activities we are planning to participate in there in the upcoming weeks and months.

We joined a gym that we LOVE.  Like, seriously LOVE.  I will have to do an entire post about it.

I LOVE the girls' school.  It's a million times better than the school they attended in Florida.  It's not overcrowded, they have 3 playgrounds and a huge field.  They have P.E. 2x per week, art once a week, and music once a week.  Abbie has already been on 2 field trips and her third is next week.  Ellie has been on one so far.  Their teachers are amazing, their principal is great.  I love it.  (But for the record I still don't love going to school lunch and eating in the cafeteria.  Not sure if that will ever change, haha.)

I love all the walking trails here. We've checked out a ton so far, and I've loved every single one.  I especially love the ones by Lake Mendota.

I love the variety of homes here.  In Florida, all the houses were in a style that I don't really love (stucco, mostly.  Or they all just looked the same).  Here, though, there's tons of variety and I love that.

The wildflowers!  I feel like there were wildflowers everywhere over the summer!  The last of them are finally dying out but I loved them soo much this summer.

I love living at the end of a dead end street.

I love having a finished basement.  It literally doubles the size of our house and it's awesome.

I love having a sewing room (the second bedroom upstairs).

I love my kitchen.  I love having a big island with a 5-burner gas stove.  I love the stainless steel appliances, even if they do have fingerprints on them most of the time.  I love having a dishwasher that I can set to go on a few hours late, after we are asleep.

I love our backyard with the fire pit and rope swing.

I love the cool nights and mornings.  The crispness in the air when I walk the girls to the school bus.

I love our neighbors.  They are all older (mostly retired) and very friendly.  Last week I got invited to a coffee shop with a few of the ladies in the neighborhood.  It was on a Saturday morning, and Garrett was out of town, but I went anyway because I hadn't met many of the ladies yet and I didn't want to turn down the invitation.  Thankfully, my threats to the kids as we drove over there worked, because they sat nicely at the table and let me visit for a bit.  One of the ladies bought huge cookies for the kids, which was so nice, and they were all just so welcoming and kind.  I hope to be able to go again sometime (hopefully when Garrett is home, though).

As a whole, the people here are very, very nice.  That midwestern kindness is a real thing, that's for sure.  People here are nicer than even Georgia, which had that Southern charm.

I really, really love it here.  To be honest, if there was a job here I would highly encourage Garrett to apply for it (actually, there IS a job opening at UW, and there's a good chance he would get it, but he doesn't want to do academics unfortunately).

Of course, we haven't experienced a winter here yet, which could change my mind entirely.  Maybe a few months from now, I will take all of that back.  And laugh at my naive self.  But right now, in this moment, I could totally see myself staying here for another couple of years, even in this house.  I think I even know where I would want to move if we stayed here more long term (there's a neighborhood that Olivia and I go walking through often during the day, just near our house.  It's so pretty.).

Of course, it's not perfect.  The roads are terrible.  I spend way too much money at Costco (but that's my own fault of course, ha!).  We haven't found a sushi place as good as we had in Gainesville.  I still haven't quite figured out where to grocery shop, either.  In Florida, Target was the cheapest place to shop (because we only had Publix's everywhere), but I just found out recently that's it's NOT the cheapest place here (I'd been shopping there, besides Costco).  I tried out a place the other day called Woodmans, but it was kinda ghetto and I waited in line for probably 20 minutes, which was a drag and made me not want to go back.  Also I never know if I can trust store brands, especially at that place since it seemed weird, and the produce was hit or miss.  But, it was cheap, and I do LOVE cheap, and it had pretty much everything, so I might try the pick-up service next time so I don't have to go inside (you order everything online and it's ready when you go to the drive in).  They also just started a delivery service so I may try that out too, especially when it's freezing cold outside, haha.  There's also a grocery store that always has lots of samples around, and I love trying the cheeses and other local fares.  But, it's pretty pricey (the good places always are).  Hopefully I will figure out a grocery shopping routine soon.  I will have to give Woodmans another try pretty soon.  I need to start budgeting our groceries better.

So anyway, long post I know, but that pretty much sums it up.  We love it here. A lot. I'm so happy that we are here.  We knew without a doubt that this was where the Lord wanted us to be for this year, and so far it's been fantastic.  Now here's hoping we can find some warm coats before the cold sets in...

Comparing locations

Since we are in the midst of Garrett's job interviews, I have been thinking a lot about things I value in the places we live.  We have always loved where we have lived, and it's always been for different reasons.  Mostly, though, it's been all about our friends and the relationships we have formed there.

We loved Provo because we were students, and we lived in the same house (tri-plex, essentially) as my sister and her husband, and as my brother and his wife (for a while).  So, we loved being students at BYU because of all that had to offer, and we loved living with/near family.  Endless fun.

We loved Georgia because we made some really great friends there, whom we are still very close to.  We got together with them often and I had a really strong support network during that time when Garrett studied non-stop.  Augusta itself isn't that special, but the friends we made there made it wonderful.  We also loved our ward.

We loved Virginia because some of our best friends from med school moved there with us.  Also, Garrett had an incredible schedule so we had lots of family time.  It was fun to live in a new place for a year and discover what the area has to offer. Garrett also caught a lot of delicious fish! Newport News as a place isn't great, though. In my opinion.

We loved Florida for many reasons too -- mostly our friends!!  I had 3 girlfriends there who I became very close to and we still have a group text going all the time (two of us moved away in June).  It was a great support network for me, especially when Garrett was working all the time and things were really stressful.  We also loved our house, our ward, our neighborhood.  We loved Disney, and the beach.  And besides those 3 close friends I had, we had tons of friends who we hung out with almost daily at the park, or neighbors who we went walking with almost every night after dinner.  It was awesome, and I'm sure that I will always look back at that time as being one of the highlights of our lives.

Wisconsin has been interesting.  Some good friends from Florida also moved here for a fellowship, but they don't live very close by so we don't see them as often as we would like. They aren't LDS so we don't see them at church regularly, either. So, it has been interesting trying to settle in.  No other kids live on our street, and we are the only ones in our ward (that I know of) whose kids go to the Madison school district, so our schedule is a bit "off" from everyone else's.  Also, we are some of the few who actually live in Madison, so we don't really live near anyone else in our ward.  However, I've been surprised with how fine I have been with all of that.  In Florida, we spent HOURS at the park with friends, nearly every day after school.  I thought I would really miss that.  Sometimes I do, but other times I'm just grateful for the time we have this year to be together, alone.  Frankly, I'm having a great time playing with the kids and checking out new playgrounds and trails - by ourselves.  We did get invited to someone's house in our ward for dinner once, and that was nice.  We will reciprocate soon, they are really nice and have a couple girls whose ages match up with ours.   But for the most part, I'm just really enjoying our time together as a family.  As for Madison itself (and Wisconsin in general)... I will have to write a post about my impressions soon, and how it compares to other places we have lived throughout our marriage.

Chicago

Some of our friends from Florida moved to Chicago for a radiology fellowship, so we took a day trip to see them in the big city.  It's about 2.5 hours from Madison, so not a bad drive at all.  The kids were thrilled to see all the tall buildings and, of course, the bean.  

Garrett wading in the lake:

Of course, we had to get some of Chicago's famous "Garrett Popcorn".  It was delicious.... and thankfully we can buy pretty much the same thing at Costco (and I do!).

Stopped at a playground for a bit:

In the late afternoon we ended up at our friends' apartment, where we ordered deep dish pizza and ate on the roof!  It was fun to enjoy the amazing views and eat one of Chicago's signature dishes:

We also spent more time at Millennium Park, had lunch and rode the carousal at Navy Pier, went to the American Girl store, and just did tons of walking!!  It was a great day.

I will admit that I was a little nervous to drive into Chicago - I hate traffic like that and always feel anxious in that situation.  However, it wasn't as bad as I was anticipating so that was good (of course, I wasn't driving so....that helped. Ha.).  Garrett's the same way (not anxious, but he hates big cities and traffic), but at the end of the day we agreed that it was totally worth it and not too awful.  I did get a little nervous after dinner when Garrett had to walk back to the parking garage to get our car (it was about half a mile away, but he was gone for about 45 mins).  Thankfully that was the only really crazy traffic we (he) encountered.  Hopefully we will get another chance to see our friends before the year is up! 

Lately

Abbie posing with the American Girl dolls... We own two of them (I had Felicity growing up, and my sister gave me her Samantha recently).  The Molly doll we rented from the library (seriously! She came in a little mesh backpack with a Meet Molly book and a Molly movie. They have lots of awesome stuff to borrow.  Today I got a backpack with a microscope and some slides for the kids to look at).

Ellie had to pose with the dolls, too:

I was taking a nap on the couch a few weeks ago and woke up to this lovely sight - Olivia, face covered with sidewalk chalk, playing the recorder (more like just blasting it).  I have since hidden the recorder.

There is a free zoo here, so we checked that out a few days before school started.  It was a pretty nice zoo, as far as zoos go, especially considering it was free.  But it was also pretty crowded because.. well, it's free.   The girls were pretty excited about how close we got to the giraffes (and Ellie was pretty excited about that hat she borrowed from our friend who was with us).

But the MOST exciting thing, according to the girls that night at dinner, was the chipmunk that they saw in the monkey area.  Seriously.

Olivia at the zoo:

Garrett need a nutella s'more one night, but didn't want to do all the work of making a fire in the backyard:

Lunch at Costco one day.  I have no idea what Olivia is doing with her  face.... haha:

Sushi for our anniversary dinner date:

We are putting our fire pit to good use lately, especially as the weather cools down in the evenings.  Last night I told Garrett that a fire pit is a "must have" in the future!  This one was already here in the yard, but they are so easy to put in:

Abbie was so excited to find out that she has her very own locker this year at school. (Ellie has one too but I don't have a picture)

We had an assignment to clean part of the church building in August.  The girls were excited to vacuum:

We went for a walk after Church a few weeks ago and came across this little playground in the middle of the woods!  The girls were thrilled:

On our walk:

First day of school!  The girls were SO excited to start school, and it has been going great so far.

Walking home from the bus stop after the first day:

Olivia and I were heading out the door to run some errands, but her hair was in her face.  I quickly pinned a little flower hairpin in, to get her bangs out of her face.  She asked me to take her picture and as she posed, she said "Now the people will love me."  Hahaha.

A couple Saturdays ago we went to an awesome farm.  We picked apples and raspberries, went on a hayride, and then played for a couple hours in the play yard.  It was so much fun! And cheap!

Picking raspberries always reminds me of when we lived in NH when I was little.  We had some friends with tons of raspberry bushes and a bunch of families in the ward would always go pick them every year!  They are definitely one of my favorite fruits:

This little playhouse (in the play yard) had a train table inside:

There was also a huge teepee to play in, that huge pile of hay that the girls climbed all over, tires to climb on, goats to feed, kittens to play with, a little corn maze for the kids, and a TON more.  It was such a great day, and the weather was gorgeous.  The field on the hill is full of pumpkins, but we didn't pick any that day... we need an excuse to go back!

Abbie and I playing a game of checkers in the play yard:

Picking apples.  We picked mostly Macintosh and some yellow ones (I can't remember the name).  I picked a bag of Honeycrisp apples too, and then hid them for myself when we got home (they were more expensive, or else we would have gotten all Honeycrisp!). 

The girls found my old iPod and have been fighting over it ever since.  They sat down to dinner the other day like this, so we had to have a talk about no media at the table. They are so funny... Abbie is like a little teenager just sitting on the couch listening to music on there.  I asked her once, "what are you listening to?" and she said "Under the Sea".  Haha.  Not quite a teenager yet, thankfully.

Garrett just finished up a week of being on call.  He hates being on call, but thankfully it hasn't been too bad yet.  He had to work all weekend, which we knew would happen, so that was okay.  And thankfully the pager never went off in the middle of the night so that was really nice too.  He did get paged a few times, though:

Just chilling in the backyard on a Sunday afternoon.... Garrett's in his scrubs since he was home briefly between being at work, Abbie is pushing Ellie on the rope swing, and Olivia and I were just reading on a blanket.  We are loving the gorgeous weather here and soaking it all in before it gets too cold!