This weekend was awesome, but also very sad.

Friday, Randy and I went up to Kaysville for some family time. We played with cousins and our niece and nephew until they had to go to bed. Then we played games with the adults and laughed like crazy!

Saturday was busy and full of fun! We celebrated our niece Candace’s 2nd birthday before they left to California. It was SO fun to see her open a ton of presents and be so excited about her “Elsa cake.” When asked, she would tell us that it was “Elsa’s birthday” and that it was also her birthday. We watched the BYU game and soaked in the time we had left.

That night, Randy and I went over to his parents house to hang out. But first, we had to say goodbye.

We were both in TEARS. We absolutely loved having Candace, Thomas, my brother Ben and his wife Kim in Utah for the summer. They are off to California where my brother starts work at a law firm in September. We are going to miss them like CRAZY but we are so excited for the adventure they have ahead. California is closer than Boston so that’s a plus!

Saturday night we went and got gelato with Randy’s family which was SO good and so fun!

Sunday, we got to listen to my sister sing in church which was a blast, she is extremely talented and I love watching her perform!

Then it was home to our church, and then a very relaxed afternoon, which we desperately needed.

All in all, it’s been a great summer and it’s sad to see it go. But I love fall, I love September and I’m getting super excited for Christmas already!

Last Wednesday, we dropped off Randy’s brother at the MTC so he could serve a 2 year mission in Tokyo, Japan. Sam and I always joked and teased each other, I often told him he was the little brother I never wanted, but it was so sad to say goodbye! Sending off missionaries is hard, it gave me so many flashbacks to saying goodbye to Randy, but I’m so excited for Sam and I know he’s going to kill it!

Wednesday night after we dropped Sam off we had family pictures with my family, which was a blast! Amber Bird is absolutely amazing and I can’t wait to see how they turn out!

Friday night we had friends over for curry and games which is always super fun. Saturday we went to Kaysville (like always) to do laundry and visit with family. That night was the ROCKET SUMMER concert, which is the concert that Randy looks forward to all year. We stopped and had dinner at Manoli’s (it was on a list of the best restaurants in every state as Utah’s best restaurant. It was good, but not the best restaurant. Not even close in my opinion.)

Then it was off to the concert where we ran into old friends, sang our guts out, and had the absolute best time. It’s so awesome to go to a concert where you know the music will be clean, the singer will be amazing, and the people will be awesome. What a fun time! Can’t wait until he comes back to Utah!

Sunday we had all our current and past Sunday School kids over for games and treats and it was SO much fun! We love all those munchkins and have been so lucky to teach Sunday School for almost two years. They are just the sweetest kids and I feel so blessed to get to be with them every Sunday!

Yesterday Randy started class and is OFFICIALLY in the Accounting Program at the U! I am so insanely proud and excited for all the adventures he has ahead.

That’s my major update on all things happening, we’re so happy and lucky and I’m ready for fall! Bring on the pumpkin spice.

Happy Tuesday!

This summer has been one of seeing friends and catching up, with weddings and reunions, we’ve had the chance to see quite a few people.

Many of us are on the cusp of a new adventure, grad school and kids, etc. While we’ve been talking to these friends, a phrase came up a few times that made me stop and think.

“It’ll be the best thing for you and your marriage to do….X, Y or Z.”

Now, let me clarify. These comments came from darling, well-meaning friends. Some of them had been told this by other friends or family and were merely repeating it.

But it got me thinking.

Do I give this kind of advice too liberally?

For me, and my situation, falling in love in high school was the best thing for me. Not serving a mission was the best thing for me. Getting engaged quickly, and married young was the best thing for me. Graduating college in 3 years was the best thing for me. Getting a job and earning money right away, instead of staying for my Master’s Degree was the best thing for me, and my marriage.

But those don’t apply to everyone.

I’ve heard so many people say “Go away to go to school, it’ll be the best thing for your marriage.” Or, “Live outside the country if you can, it’ll be the best thing for your marriage.” Or, “Wait at least 3 years to have kids..” and even “Have kids right away…”

Hearing those kinds of comments have made me totally re-evaluate my life, which isn’t a bad thing. I’ve taken a look at where we are and where we’re headed and thought about what these people had to say. But every time, I’ve come back to what really will be best for me and my marriage, and gone with that. Sometimes it does follow the advice and suggestion of others, often it doesn’t.

For some people, getting married young is the best possible thing that could happen to them. For others, it’s not even a good thing. For some, living far away and having to rely on each other in that way is the best possible thing. For others, myself included, figuring out the family balance and learning to rely on each other in that way has been the best possible thing.

I guess the point is, it’s great to give advice from your perspective, to share your experiences. But blanket statements about certain things being “the very best you can do” mostly aren’t true. We don’t know what the best possible thing for another person or their family will be. Sometimes we have a hunch, and sometimes that hunch will be right. Sometimes you’ll be utterly correct. But sometimes, you won’t be.

So for me, I’m deciding to spend a little more time saying things like “Everyone’s different, for us being married young was great, though,” instead of “Getting married young is the best thing for you.”

Just some food for thought.

In all the crazy of summer I forgot to post that my grandpa David came to visit! It was wonderful to see him, he came from Denver to visit for Saturday and Sunday and it was such a blast to spend time with him. He got to meet Candace and Thomas, Liv’s husband Matt, and we spent a great weekend hanging out and laughing together. My dad made Lebanese food like tabouli and hummus and we ordered Chinese to celebrate Matt’s birthday! It was a wonderful weekend to be with family and a great addition to our summer.

*Be warned. These are scattered thoughts. Take this for what it’s worth, for how I meant it.

Let’s rewind back to last summer.

As the leaves started to turn in August, I spent Sunday nights sobbing about having to go back to work and do another week.

I spent hours after I got home from work taking tests called “Find Your Passion” and “What Is Your Dream Career?” and “What Should Your Hobby Be?”

I was so lost. A Huffington Post article called “On Being 23” left me in absolute pieces because I read it just a few weeks after my 23rd birthday, and nothing had ever resonated with me so much.

I couldn’t explain it to my friends. I couldn’t explain it to Randy. I couldn’t explain it to myself.

I didn’t feel like me. I was a stranger to myself. I was unmotivated, which if you know me, is something I’ve never dealt with. I felt bored, uneasy, unsure. I consider myself a fairly confident person, and I wasn’t. I am normally so organized, wanting to do a million things and have a million projects. And I couldn’t make myself do anything.

I wondered if I should completely switch my career, go back to school, if we should move, and a million other things.

I’ve tried to write this up a million times and while I was in the depths of feeling so unlike myself, I could barely type a sentence.

Even now, I can’t type this without sobbing.

I post this now, not because I want pity, sympathy, or to be “in-fashion” as a young adult who has gone through hard things.

I post it now to reflect on, to remember this crunchy and complicated part of my life. So that one day my children can read about it. And because writing about it is the best thing I know how to do.

**Hi, it’s six weeks after I wrote that first part of this post. It’s so terribly hard for me to write about this, and I’m unsure why. Normally words like this just flow out of me and fit comfortably on a page. But for some reason this story and this piece of crunchy and complicated take all of my strength to type.

Here’s the reality. Life is insanely hard sometimes, for no reason at all. I was doing everything right. I had everything I could have ever wanted. I had a husband who adored me and was always so wonderful to me, family who would drop anything to help me and made me laugh, I was excelling in career, I was attending church and fulfilling my callings, and I was still unhappy. More than unhappy, I was miserable.

I think sometimes we just have to go through hard things. And I think that time in my life was preparing me for something else. Because I was so sad when everything should have been great and wonderful. Everything was easy and rosy, just something was off with me. I had to figure out how to power through, how to find happiness. So when things aren’t always as easy or as rosy as they technically were during that time, I know that I can handle it.

I read the Magnolia story toward the end of this weird funk, and it spoke volumes to me. Joanna talks about Thriving not just Surviving. That’s become sort of a thing for me now. I had to figure out how to thrive, not just survive my everyday.

I made some career changes, I spent more time finding and doing things that I like, I checked out of social media so I couldn’t compare myself to other people, and I leaned on Randy to help me figure it out.

And I prayed harder than I ever have. And no, it wasn’t instantly that things got better or that I was myself again, but I was sure that I wasn’t in this alone.

Sometimes life is just hard. As Amy Poehler puts it “Life is crunchy and complicated, and all the more delicious. “

Today, I’m happy. I’m excited to go to work, I’m excited to spend time with friends and family.

I’m looking for reasons why I needed to go through a hard thing like that, and I’ve found hints here and there that show me why.

I guess the whole point in this, is that a few things helped me figure it out. Chocolate ice cream, reading books and articles that made me feel like I wasn’t crazy, time with family, having a pity party some nights.

But the two most important things were Randy, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This hard point in my life made me absolutely certain of Jesus Christ, of His reality and of His knowledge of me personally. I kept going to church, I kept reading, I kept praying. And He was there.

He’s the reason we can get through anything.

I’m getting so bad at updating every weekend!

Randy finished his finals and has a couple weeks off before fall semester starts, he did GREAT in his classes and I am so insanely proud!

I’m loving my new job and am chugging through audio books during my commute! I just finished Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, and it was AMAZING. Highly recommend.

On Friday, Randy and I went to dinner with some of our really good friends to celebrate the boys being done with school! They’ve had several classes together so it’s always fun to see them.

Friday night I also made some treats for Sam’s farewell on Sunday!

Saturday we headed to Kaysville/Farmington for family time, baking time, and so much niece and nephew time! We just love getting to spend time with those cuties.

Sunday was Sam’s farewell. He did such an amazing job and it was so fun to spend the day with family. Sam leaves in just a few days and Randy and I are going to miss him so much! Sam is basically the little brother I never wanted 😉 But in all seriousness we are going to miss him like crazy! He’s going to do amazing things in Tokyo and we’re so excited to see!

Happy Thursday all!

Randy and I had an absolutely INSANE last weekend. Friday morning we woke up to our fire sprinkler dripping, with water all over our apartment. I really can’t get into, but let’s just say it was a HUGE mess and we’re still trying to get it all cleaned up and figured out.

That was just a day after Randy’s car got hit in the parking lot at school. Someone CRUNCHED the hood and front of the car, and then drove away. It seriously made me lose a little bit of faith in humanity that someone could wreck our car that much, and then drive away. Leave a note people!

To cap it all off, after I’d tried to clean up our apartment a little bit on Friday, I went in for my last day of work at DrivingSales. It’s hard to leave familiar things, but it was time for me to take another step in my career. My 10 months at DrivingSales were challenging and taught me a lot about myself. I will miss so many of the people I had the chance to work with there!

I started on Tuesday at a large software company called Micro Focus, and so far I’m having the time of my life here! I’m doing a lot of writing and web integration, and so far it’s been a dream.

Friday night we headed right to Kaysville after a long day of me finishing up at DrivingSales, and us figuring out our apartment situation.

Luckily for us, we had a really fun Saturday planned! We went with my sister-in-law and her family to Willard Bay to go jet-skiing all day. It was a perfect way to take our mind off of all the drama! Randy was stellar at knee-boarding and got up on the wakeboard. I got up on the knee-board and we both had a blast playing with our niece and nephew, and driving the wave-runners around.

Saturday night we went to a wedding of one of our good high school friends, and had a blast seeing old friends.

Our Sunday was quiet as we headed back to Kaysville for more family time, and gearing up for Randy’s finals week, and my first week at a new job!

We’ve had some hard things try and knock us down, but I’m so grateful for Randy who shows me how to see the good in everything, and who keeps me laughing. I don’t know what I would do without him, or my family, who always help me relax and know that everything will be OK!