It's high time I update this blog thing. haha So much has happened in just the last month my head is still spinning. I'll get to that later, maybe even in another post. We have had a pretty fun summer though, and I wanted to write about it.

Because I had Jonah in April, my maternity leave covered May and June and so me and the two kiddos were able to do some fun stuff once I was feeling up to it and felt Jonah was "old" enough to be out and about. To keep myself from going completely insane, I tried to get out about every other day- even if it was just to the grocery store or for a ride or something. However, about a month, or maybe a little more than that, before I went back to work I was invited by a church friend to go to the playdates a group of ladies from church do every Wednesday. This proved to be very beneficial for not only Ben, who was getting super bored at this point at home with me and the baby, but for me as well. I have somewhat been a little introverted when it comes to friends or people I know at church. We have a good group of friends, but they happen to be in other wards (or congregations for those who don’t speak Mormon) and so I just haven’t made a huge effort to get to know people. Plus I’m a little shy believe it or not and maybe and just afraid of rejection? I don’t know… anyway, the play group not only helped me get acquainted to people I already knew I liked but to meet a few other women that I didn’t know. And it was fun to see all the things we could do for either free or really cheap. We went to a park near railroads tracks, so that every time a train went by the kids could run up and watch it. And just down the street from there is a free little splash park, much like the one at Centennial Park. So free and free= awesome. We went to another park at the DeKalb Peachtree Airport, a smaller airport here in the Atlanta area. The kids get to watch the planes take off, and again- it was free! We brought lunch and ate under the little covered table area and the kids played on the playground there. We went to the Splashpark near our house which is only $1 to get in… and all three places Ben had A BLAST. Jonah did pretty well too! We had a few other playdates with friends on the side which was really nice. We went with Kaela and Aubrey K. to a place called Catch Air, basically an indoor playground with tons of bounce house type equipment. Ben keeps asking if we can go back, which I hope to soon. Ben also learned to love and appreciate cold sandwiches and Lunchables during our summer together.  We typically feed him warm food, and he actually eats warm lunches at school too. And I figured that since he’ll be going to elementary school next year (EEEK!) he needs to have cold lunches a lot. Still not keen on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches though, which is so weird to me. Who doesn’t love a PB&J with a cold glass of milk? Apparently my child.

The week before I had to go back to work was our typical summer vacation week. Ryan takes off the week of his birthday every year, and luckily that was the week I was supposed to return to work- but instead I used a week of vacation and we spent the week as a family hanging out together. We went to the pool, we ran errands, we played in the rain, we filled up the little pool we have and the boys played in it, celebrated Ryan's birthday... It was just fun to do whatever, whenever. Ben and I had a date and we got to go to the Atlanta Center for Puppetry Arts one of the days that week. We went and saw the Pirate Princess which is basically the Little Mermaid story… only closer to the real version of it. He LOVED it. LO-VE-D it. It was really fun! They have a “museum” of puppets there we got to look at. And because he was dressed up like a pirate (I think one of the only kids there that was!) he got a coupon for a free cupcake, which we still need to get him. Anyway, I think he really enjoyed the alone time with mommy. Ryan and Jonah hung out at home.

We also were able to drop the boys off at Ryan's parents for an evening, and were spoiled thanks to a vendor working with Ryan's company. We had tickets to the SunTrust suite at the Braves game which included free food and drinks, as much of it as you want, valet parking and two awesome seats behind home plate. We were almost on TV, but we were like two people shy of it! It was definitely a lot of fun. Ryan had what we think was the flu unfortunately, but we still enjoyed each others company. I love my man and spending time with him alone. Ben is starting to get jealous of us spending time alone with one another, he thinks we should love him first instead of each other. One day he'll understand!  This summer we have also got to visit with my sister Delinda, our friends from the Northpoint Singles ward, which incidentally, a lot of us all had kids around the same time as each other, and also our friends the Christensen's. We try to see the Christensen's once a year, or at least have been blessed to have been able to. They moved from AZ to PA and got to stop in town to visit and we had a great, short, visit with them. We wish it could've been longer. We always find ourselves saying "I wish they lived closer, we would hang out with them all the time".
Going back to work this time was pretty difficult. Not maybe as difficult as it was last time with Ben, but for about a month before (I know, pretty pathetic) I was pretty down and out. Spending the summer with Ben and being the stay at home mom I really desire to do was so much "fun"... hard at times, but I loved being with my two boys. I miss them a lot every day. I just hope that one day they realize that we both want what's best for them and even though it's not my first choice to be working- we have a lot of reasons for it and feel it's what we need to do for our family. With that said, I decided to not be too mopey about it. I still have my days, but I have to make the best of our situation and so while I was out on Maternity leave I was presented with a new position opportunity at my work that I applied for and eventually got the job! I've been back to work since June 25th and it's been a bit of a crazy (almost) 2 months. I am excited for this new position, it's just hard for me to go from knowing my other job SO well to training on something new and not really knowing what to do next or how or what's the right way, etc. The lady that was doing the job before me quit while I was out on Maternity leave, so I don't have anyone training me. I'll get through it though. There are definitely some perks to this new position, although it's a lot more demanding and at times will be more time consuming- it was definitely a blessing. A pay raise and the ability to have the option to work from home occasionally will help out tremendously. Anyway... that's the update for our summer so far. It's almost over, and we will be ending it with a trip to Destin, FL to visit the beach! Yay! We have been waiting just about ALL year for this!

Cool Baby...

Swimming! Jonah enjoys (warm) water!

Lots of playing in the rain!