Races and Utah

 July 2023

We started the month off right with a Fourth of July 5K and kids' run. All three of the boys did the kids' run around the square before the 5K started. Matthew and Michael were thrilled because they gave it their all and ended up taking 1st and 2nd place. They rode that high all month! It was so fun to see them sprinting down the final block just them and the lead bicycle. I mean, how fun to get to have that moment with your brother? Alex held his own as well and ran so hard all the way around. So proud of them! 

I had started out a little fast and decided to just hold it (I really had no idea how fast I'd be able to run because I hadn't really done any speed work in a while. I was able to hold it and keep my splits pretty even, but I was absolute dead at the end. Andrew and the kids were cheering for me at the finish, and I had nothing left to pick it up. But I survived! And it felt good once I had recovered a little. It was so fun to have the whole family supporting me, as I usually go to races by myself. 

Go Alex!!

26:42 No where near my fastest, but for where I was I felt great about it!

The first week of July, we headed to UT for a few fun things. We had signed our kids up for a Spartan race in Spring out in California. Due to the heavy rains, it kept getting postponed. We eventually just transferred them to a race outside Salt Lake City that pretty much lined up with the dates of my family reunion. It was fun to have a little vacation with just our family before we went and spent time with grandparents/cousins/etc. 

We swam at the hotel, cheered on the kids at the race, and had a celebratory dinner at Cheesecake Factory.

It was so fun to watch the kids crush their Spartan race! They worked so hard and looked pretty beat during it, but had the biggest, accomplished smiles at the end. I think they all had to push themselves a bit and felt proud of their effort 

After Salt Lake, we drove down to visit with Andrew's parents and brother for a couple days. Andrew's sister made the trip down from Idaho with her kids to visit with us for a bit before we went back up to SLC with my family. If I remember right, we even got to see our sister-in-law and nephews for one night right after they got home from her family reunion. Thanks to everyone for driving down and making the effort to see us, y'all!

We had lots of chill play time at the house enjoying barbies, Gram's toys, and the sandbox. We also went to 'the jump place' and did a western themed escape room with M's family. 

The next leg of the journey was driving back up to Salt Lake for my family reunion. Every single person was able to come. It was a miracle! We went to the aquarium, went hiking up cottonwood canyon, checked out the farmer's market (way too hot) and played looots of games at the house. Keller brought bottle bash which was super fun to play in the backyard. 

I required every family unit to participate in a variety show and the entries were phenomenal. Taylor Swift jokes, 3 bears performing a legal rap, pb&j sandwich making with one person's arms and the other's body...ahh it was all too good. We performed a self-choreographed dance with the costumes featured below. I think we won the shock factor category (and Andrew deserves a prize for best abs). 

Besides that, it was a lot of lovely chill time with cousins, siblings, in-laws, etc just being able to chat and catch up on each other's lives. I love love love seeing my kids be friends with my siblings' kids. It makes me so happy.

Hanging out with their fun aunts

Anna and David had a little time between when we needed to check out of the house and when they needed to be at the airport,  Andrew and I had already decided to stay in Salem for one more night instead of driving straight home, and Keller and Chantel were going to be at Chantel's parents' house for the night. We all got lunch and hung out at a park for a bit to keep the party going for as long as possible and squeeze out every once of spending time together as possible. I sure love getting to hang out with all my people. 

Before going home, we stopped at Scheel's for some reason and obviously let the kids ride the indoor ferris wheel. 

I don't have many pictures from the rest of the month. It looks like it was mostly unstructured hanging out at home. 

There was one more little epic event right at the end of the month. Obviously I'd been wanting to go to the Taylor Swift concert which was coming to Levi's Stadium at the end of July. However, as we all know, the only tickets available were absolutely insane prices. I couldn't justify spending that amount of money! As the weekend got closer, it became the only thing I was talking about. I was listening to the radio all day and then texting Andrew and my friends when it was time to call in and try to win tickets. I considered flying to LA because there were some higher up tickets that were ever so slightly cheaper than what was  available in Santa Clara. I almost bit the bullet and just bought over priced tickets so many times. The day of, my friend/my friend's daughter asked if I wanted to go with her and her hs friends to just hang out outside the stadium. Yes, yes I did very much. While she was driving around looking for parking and I was texting Andrew, he finally convinced me to just do the dang thing and I bought a ticket. As soon as we parked, I booked it to the stadium because I knew the opener would be finished soon and didn't want to miss a single second. I made it in time, the tickets showed up in my app right when I got to the entrance, and the show was so. dang. good. My seat was in the absolute perfect spot and it was a night I will never forget. I'm so glad I spent the stupid money and did something I was dying to do. I mean, what's money for anyway, right? 

I'll save you from all the blurry photos and videos, but this was the view from my seat and I could not have been happier. I even saw Taylor's mom walk in and go into the tent (on the left)

One last thing, this was the month when the talk of moving to Sweden very first started. Right before we left for Utah and just as Andrew accepted a job with a new company in Concord, a recruiter messaged him and asked if he might be interested in working for a new company in northern Sweden. We said sure tell us more about it, and Andrew had some very early morning interviews while we were at his parents' house. Things move slowly with the time change and even more slowly because it was summer and everyone is out of office for a month. That was all we knew for July, and it was really weird going into the new school year with the future starting to feel a little bit uncertain.