A Busy-Back-to-Normal Week

Last Monday my parents came into town to stay for a week. We are so grateful for everything they did- cooking, cleaning, and coming to support Eliza for her baby blessing. The first couple of days they were here we stayed home and got thing done around the home- not to mention a few needed naps for me. Then on Wednesday my parents, me, and Eliza went to walk around the gardens, greenhouse, and orchard up at BYU-I. I had seen the gardens before which carried bittersweet memories- mostly because 90 percent of the time I spent in them was walking to class at 6:45am in the middle of winter or in the summer with a broken foot that the we had trouble diagnosing- but had never seen the other areas. I got the feeling I picked the wrong major because everything was so beautiful. The idea of playing with flowers and dirt all day is a nice one, but I'm sure that's only 2 percent of it.

After that we drove around some neighborhoods looking at houses for fun and ended the day with Thai.

On Thursday night we grilled up some meat on an open fire and invited some friends over. All the food- pork, chicken, steak, root beer floats and s'mores- was amazing and it was nice to get a chance to talk with everyone. I don't think Eliza minded it one bit either...

On Friday Charly and I got our first real "date" since Eliza was born. We weren't gone long- just a quick meal at Gator Jacks and the long way home to stop and see the temple.

Saturday we- Heather and Dean, Shae, my dad, Charly, and I- went biking. We rode Hawley and Buckskin Morgan ridge. I nursed and changed Elize in between runs and having my mom there to watch her made it all work out perfectly (THANKS MOM!). I loved Hawley Gulch and it felt so good to finally do something that I would normally do pre-baby...but I'm not going to lie, Buckskin pretty much kicked my trash. Postpartum healing+not having worked out in almost a year didn't do me any favors and I don't have a great track record with that trail to begin with. Character building though, right??

Then Sunday Eliza had her blessing. Charly blessed her with my dad, his dad, Kevin, and Joe in the circle and afterwards we had everyone over at the clubhouse to eat food and celebrate pretty much the greatest thing that has ever happened to us. We loved the chance to see all our friends and have everyone support us who were there physically and in spirit.

Other than that we spent most of our nights playing card games and relaxing.

We are sad to see my parents go back home today but know that they will be back again another time. Also, my mom made these:

for the first time, and they were so good she made them again!