We have a house! Bryce put down a deposit on a rental in Salt Lake City this weekend and we’ll move in on the 4th of July. I can’t wait to see it in person. We’ll be in Sugarhouse in Salt Lake, which is a few miles south of the U. It’s a cute little bungalow with lots of space (2200 sq ft!): 2 bedrooms, a recently renovated kitchen, a fenced back yard (yay for Francis!), a garage and they’re finishing the basement. Here’s a link to the advertisement.
Also, from following some SLC folks on Twitter, I’ve found a great guide to Salt Lake with top restaurants, hang outs, and events. I’m really stoked since the tour books look pretty paltry on the city.
I head out of southern California early tomorrow morning. My mother-in-law is graciously helping me manage the two boys on a plane and flying back the same day. We may be a bit sparse the next few days as we move in!
(If you’d like our new contact details and didn’t get them, please leave a comment below and I’ll email them to you).
Posted by Ashley on June 24th, 2009. Tags: RUF, Utah
If you’re wondering what we’ve been up to, it’s been quite a lot. Bryce has jetted away for RUF training in Atlanta and our denomination’s yearly meeting (PCA’s General Assembly) in Orlando. He was not a fan of the humidity and reportedly has said that’s what he thinks hell must be like. He had a lovely time with Jonathan, Sam, and the Strains as well as the Wheatleys from New Song, in Salt Lake.
It’s come time for us to move and we are still without a place to live. So Bryce is packing up our car and he and our beagle will be hitting the open road together on Friday morning to make the 12-hour trek to Salt Lake City. I hope he takes some pictures with our dog at the big thermometer and at the stateline rollercoaster outside of Las Vegas. I’m really hoping he’ll tweet the whole thing and take pics sort of like the traveling gnome pictures from the movie “Amelie”. (If you’re on Twitter, follow him at @bahales).
But back to the point. I’ll fly out to Salt Lake with our boys once Bryce finds a place to live. I’m hoping it’ll just be a few days later because we have a little toddler boy who will really miss his daddy. Please be thinking of us as we prepare to move and quickly find a place to live. We’ll let you know how things go once we’re on the other side.
Today is our 7th anniversary. I just looked through some wedding photos from 2002 and we look older. We must be looking quite distinguished now as we approach 30.
We’re still in the throws of moving and frankly neither of us does amazingly well with transitions. We get stressed. We fight. This past year was an entire year of transitions: a new job for Bryce, new place to live, a baby transitioning to toddlerhood, a wife learning how to be a stay-at-home mama, another pregnancy and another baby, all while trying to figure out “what’s next”. We have had some beautiful moments this past year of marriage. We have had people love us even as they knew we’d leave in a year’s time. We’ve had amazing moments of grace as people brought us food and took care of Ezra so we could have some time to rest with Porter after he was born. My VBAC was another few hours of grace as we welcomed Porter into the world with ease and without medication.
But we’ve had some dark moments where we have just been mean to one another. I’m writing all this here partly for accountability and so — in case you didn’t know — a pastor and his family don’t have it all together at all. Life is hard. I have found though that the gospel of grace in Jesus is true. As much as I doubt God at times, as much as I want to prove I’m right, to cling to self-satisfaction, something moves me beyond those moments. There have been times where we’d both probably have called this marriage thing quits. It’s hard and at times, it’s not fun. But it is more and more about how we can come together as two sinful people and learn to give grace to one another. That’s what this marriage is all about.
And I’m excited to see what the next chapter in our lives holds. God is good, especially through the darkness. Today I am so thankful for my husband who loves me, challenges me, and helps me to see God more clearly.
So we have been waiting the last several weeks to hear about renting a duplex we liked a few blocks from the University. The price and location was great; he said dogs weren’t a problem. We finally found out today that they are sticking with their “no pets” policy. This means we have no place to live and we’re due to move out of my parents’ at the end of the month to an unknown location presently.
In good news, we did sell Bryce’s car. One car still to sell and to one to buy (we’re replacing my Scion xB with an older snow-worthy car and so we won’t have any car payments) and now, one place to find to live.
Back to blogging with some more substantial thoughts at, Et Elle, et al, or the blog formerly known as Intellectuelle.
I hope to blog about balancing being a PhD candidate, wife and mom as well as what I learn about life in Salt Lake City. Plus other topics like going green, cloth diapering, academics and other such fun, thought-provoking chatter.
I’m posting about this for accountability and for info. Any mamas have some good tips on how to lose the baby weight?
I got pregnant with Porter when I still had about 10 pounds to lose to get to my pre-pregnancy weight. With both pregnancies I gained about 25-30 lbs (high end of normal), which is quite a lot for my 5′2″ frame. Thankfully the weight is nearly off already with this one because 1) I’m chasing after a toddler and so don’t have time to leisurely snack or rest and 2) I’m nursing both a toddler and an infant and so get at least 500 extra calories a day to consume. In fact I’m just about back to my pre-pregnancy weight which means I have that 10 pounds to go still (or 15 in an ideal world).
Most of the excess weight is concentrated in my stomach, hips and upper thighs. Please tell me my hip circumference will shrink again because my shorts are still too tight. I’m thinking that really I need to 1) limit my portion sizes and 2) actually exercise. I plan to swim this month when I have access to a pool and childcare while staying with my folks. Not sure what I’ll do in SLC.
I apologize for my lack of posting of late. Things have been hectic!
Memorial Day weekend we flew (all 4 of us) to Salt Lake City to look for a place to live. We had each had about 4 hours of sleep that night as we had to clean our house for those house-sitting and pack for a family of four. We woke up the kiddos early to jump a plane and made it with 2 suitcases, 2 car seats, 1 stroller, 1 Ergo carrier, 1 Moby wrap, 1 diaper bag, 1 briefcase and 2 kids onto the plane. I’m still thanking God for a compassionate TSA worker who waved us into the 10-minute-1st-class waiting line for security rather than the 45+ minute line for all the rest of us. Both kids did well on the flights. Naps and getting out of the car every 30 minutes while we drove around the city were an entirely different story. I spent most of the weekend either on my iPhone finding out how to get from here to there or sandwiched between 2 car seats while trying to breastfeed an infant so he wouldn’t get hysterical. We very much enjoyed the gracious hospitality of the Wheatleys, the pastor and fam of New Song Pres, and Ezra loved chasing their animals and asking for the girls of the house to pick him up. Church at New Song was wonderful. The service seemed a lovely mix of formal liturgy but executed in a laid-back Western (as opposed to New England Eastern, Southern, etc.) style that fit us. Ezra loved the nursery and the picnic afterwards and we loved meeting so many people; we already feel at home.
We got a call Saturday that the PODS we were to have dropped in our driveway which would allow us to pack up all our possessions didn’t fit so they would drop off one and then the other later in the week. This meant that though we were exhausted Sunday night when we got home that we had to stay up and get everything pretty much packed up out of our San Diego house before Tuesday afternoon, when the packers (who would pack up our kitchen, breakables and move furniture) would arrive. The whole week was really a blur. Packing, cleaning, trying to prevent total hysterical meltdowns because the toddler’s world was uprooted was pretty nuts. We stayed in Orange County with my parents and drove back and forth to get it all done.
Sunday we drove down for our last service at Harbor Pres Mira Mesa and had a lovely farewell bbq that afternoon. We then made it back to OC where Bryce promptly left for RUF training in Atlanta. He comes back tomorrow and we have a family very eager to welcome Daddy back!
Now we’re at my folks’ through June and will be moving out to Salt Lake for July 1. We’re fundraising this month and I’m going to try to get some concentrated work done on my PhD as well. Below are some pictures if your interested in seeing some of what we’ve been up to.
Posted by Ashley on April 18th, 2009. Tags: car, for sale
Since we’re moving to Salt Lake City in a few months’ time, we figured we’d start purging our possessions, including Bryce’s car. If you’re interested in an impeccably kept 2008 Scion TC, check it out:
It only has 11,500 miles on it. This has been a great car and I don’t really want to sell it, but I’m moving out of state and don’t need the car. It is in excellent mechanical condition, has had regular oil changes and no mechanical troubles at all. There are a few minor cosmetic blemishes in the paint, but nothing major. The interior is in mint condition. AM/FM stereo with single CD. It has a Sirius satellite radio receiver installed, all you need to do is call Sirius to activate the account. 5 speed manual transmission. Double moonroof. Power windows and door locks. AC works great.
