Texas Christmas

We had always planned to stay in Wisconsin for Christmas.  Garrett had the week off, and we were just going to relax and hang out.  However, after the Thanksgiving break I started thinking that maybe we should plan to go somewhere.... my kids got pretty bored pretty fast and they only had 2 days off for Thanksgiving.  I knew I wouldn't survive 2 weeks of them being home, stuck in the house.  We thought about driving down to TN to see Garrett's parents, but we just couldn't decide what to do.  Technically, it was a "Siebach" year for Christmas, although we have literally never abided by that schedule (we have almost always been a short drive to Garrett's family's house, so we usually just go there).  I hate to travel during the holiays... I don't like flying in general anymore, but the thought of flying during the holidays just made me sick.  However.... my sister Emma kept telling me we should come down to Houston, since my parents were there for a few months, and my sister Molly lives there too.  I told her that it was way too expensive to fly during the holidays, not to mention the hassle.  To prove it, I looked up some flights, totally expecting to tell her that they were $500 and out of the question.  But, they weren't.  They were $140, round trip (out of Chicago, blech, but still).  I knew right away that it was too good to pass up.  For the first time in 8 years, we would be spending Christmas with my family!  

Of course, for that price, the times weren't ideal.  Our flight left at 9:30pm and landed at midnight.  Thankfully it was direct, that makes such a difference.

Flying down there was pretty much as much of a hassle as I expected, though.  The security line was going extremely slowly; we were probably in the line for almost an hour.  People all around us were missing flights.  But of course, the TSA doesn't really care about anything so it didn't matter to them.  Eventually, the security line split into 4 separate lines, and you waited to go up to the security guard at the desk who would check your ID and ticket.  Well, when we finally got near the front of our security line, our security guard just got up and walked away.  After 10 minutes, no one had come back and our line was just stagnant, but meanwhile the other 3 lines around us were moving forward.  No one was even looking at our line or noticing that our guy had left.  It was so annoying!  Finally I convinced the guy in front of us to just go to another line's security guard when he was free, so he totally just ran up there when another person got through (the guy who was next in that line wasn't happy, but they had noticed our guy was gone for a long time so I didn't really care).  When I got to the front of the line, I called out to the security guard of the other line and said that our guy had been gone for 10 minutes.  He looked around stupidly, then got up and shuffled away as if he was looking around for him (now the line beside us was REALLY unhappy, but hey someone had to do something!!).  Finally he came back with another security guard.  This is why I hate flying.  Ugh.  And then, when we got to the gate, we got our seat assignments and NONE of us were sitting together, despite the fact that I had chosen our seats when I booked the tickets.  So that was another minor fiasco, but eventually they got our seats for us and, what do you know, they put us in the front row of the cabin (the seats that are normally extra $$), and we were all together.  So that worked out.  The flight went smoothly, we landed in Houston about 30 minutes early actually, but then we waited for 35 minutes for our luggage to come down the conveyer belt so... 

 But finally, we were there.  It was SO fun to be with my family for Christmas.  And of course it's always fun to play with other kids' toys:

Isn't my sister's house so cute?

Emma has been learning to write calligraphy and I tried my hand at it.  It's a lot harder than it looks!  But it was fun.

We decorated gingerbread houses:

And waited 90 minutes in line for the second best BBQ in America.  It was good!  And waiting in lines isn't bad when you're hanging out with people you love, and it's 80 degrees out!

My parents bought a house about 3 miles away from Emma's house, and they plan to live there for 3-4 months each winter.   Molly and her husband also live there year round so that it doesn't sit empty.  There's a shortcut path (literally over a river and through some woods!) that is only about a mile, so we did that with the kids several time.  We went "caroling" to grandma's house one morning.

Christmas Eve:

Olivia and grandpa:

New pj's

Waiting to come downstairs on Christmas morning:

Santa brought the girls each an American Girl doll.  They were SO excited!  I guess he figured that since they live only a few miles from the American Girl factory, it would be a good gift this year.  I am excited too because now it will be easy to buy them presents for the next couple of years... they just want outfits and accessories for their dolls! ;)  I remember getting my American Girl doll (Felicity) when I was little, and it is one of my favorite memories.  The girls each got the doll that looks like them - blonde and blue eyes.  Abbie's doll's hair is long, Olivia's is should length, and Ellie's doll has "light blonde" hair, so thankfully it's easy to tell them apart still.

Dance party in the living room:

The kids loved the strobe light, too:

Donuts for breakfast.  See JB holding up a dollar bill?  We told the kids that whoever slept in the longest each morning would get a dollar.  It worked like a charm... they started sleeping in until around 8 or so once we implemented that.

I didn't take a ton of pictures, but we mostly just hung out.  The kids played on the trampoline a lot, and basically just ran around the house and outside.  We took them to a movie one morning (Charlie Brown Christmas movie), played at playgrounds, watched movies, worked on projects.  I sang in sacrament meeting with my mom and sisters for their Christmas program ("In the Bleak Midwinter").  Garrett went with John to some house projects.  We walked back and forth from my mom's house a bunch of times.

We had SUCH a great time in Texas for Christmas, and I'm so happy we decided to do it despite my reservations and anxieties about flying during the holiday season.  I was really worried that Chicago would get snowed in, or that someone would get sick for our travels, or that a flight would be majorly delayed... but none of that happened and we made some wonderful memories.  

Garrett left the day after Christmas, he was on call the next week and had to get back.  The girls and I stayed until Wednesday, and flew into Madison where Garrett had left me my van the night before since he couldn't pick us up.  We had a 5:30 a.m. flight (!), which meant we had to leave Emma's house at 3 a.m.... not ideal but it actually wasn't too bad.  Huge thanks to Molly and Mom for driving us to the airport!  But hey, no traffic. 

Olivia turns 3

Olivia turned 3 in October. 

She got this little kitchen from us for her birthday.  She loves it.  I'll admit that I had a few regrets when I opened the box at 8pm the night before and realized what a project it would be to put it together!  Thankfully Garrett got home soon after I started and we had it done by 10:30 or 11.

She loves to climb onto ledges (like at Costco) and say "Mom, take a picture of me!"

We really enjoyed the mild fall here - I'm pretty sure this was taken in November.  We were at a little playground by the lake.

She is surprisingly pretty good at checkers - she understands the rules.  It won't be long before she's beating me, I think.

We love our little Olivia.  She is hilarious, good natured, and brings such a joy to our home!  She says the funniest things, too.... more so than either of the older girls ever did.  She is smart, a little bit sassy, and talks up a storm to anyone.  She loves going to the kids club at the gym, and complains when I pick her up "too early" (after an hour).  She will do anything for a treat, or for iPad time.  She loves to pretend she's a kitty.  She can write her name.  She loves to be the one to hand the receipt to the guy at the exit at Costco.  She loves to play around on the piano and sing.  Her favorite shows are Clifford, and Barbie, and Bo on the Go (all on Netflix).   We go to story time at the library every Tuesday and Thursday, which she loves, and she has yoga on Monday and Friday mornings. She still says her best friends are Kinley (from FL), Eli (from FL), and JB (cousin in TX).  She adores her older sisters.  She likes to be silly.  Whenever we play the board game "Trouble", she wants to be the red one because it's the "evilest".  

We love you, Olivia!!

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.