Anno Domini

In the year of our Lord, 

Two thousand and fifteen:

 In the cold winter months, we spent a lot of time indoors. 

Sometimes we ventured out for a bit of sledding fun. 

 While indoors we did a lot of projects to keep entertained. This was a day we made rockets because biggest brother got to have a "science day" at school (2nd grade) and the other two were jealous. Landon was only 1/2 day at that point (kindergarten) and Charlie was home with me ALL. THE. TIME.  It was exhausting as a parent because this child is more hands-on than the other two have been and as such needed more constant supervision as a small child. I believe that was the winter we had to get x-rays done because we couldn't find the 3rd button battery to a toy and couldn't be sure Charlie hadn't swallowed it. So we played with a lot of cardboard boxes. 

That winter was hard because we all took turns getting sick and the kids missed a lot more days of school than normal due to illness. There were incidents of bullying on the way home from school and combined with boredom at school it was getting increasingly hard to send the kids to school. Everyone finished out the year strong but it was not without great effort.

Projects and outings helped take our minds off the stresses and so we spent a lot of time on projects when we felt well enough to do them. 

Made matching owl pajama pants because we could: 

 Found a great love for Cosmic Kids Yoga. 

Got the hearth replaced and it was a beautiful accent to our new gas insert. We replaced the wood-burning insert after a chimney fire in January (I think--though might have been 2014) 

Learned more about slowing down. Making deliberate choices about what to focus on. Saying yes and saying no. 

In February Charlie and I got to surprise my sister Christie, who was coming home from 18 months in Oklahoma. It was a fun adventure. It was a quick trip and our way home led us to "another plane, and another plane, and another plane..." Charlie loved the delays. I did not. But it was certainly memorable.

In March Sean and I went to Orem to see Pentatonix in concert. They were amazing. It was a fun trip. 

Knowing that we had little time left in the area we hiked Dry Wash up to the Ruins in May. It was a good little hike and I'm glad we did it before we left. 

Our group selfie skills have improved as the kids have learned to hold still (and are now taller) But back then this was as good as it got.

Around this time we made the decision to move back to Cedar City. It wasn't easy. I really wanted Blanding to work out. But my mental health was suffering in a remote location far from access to airports (to see family and friends) and resources. Even shoe shopping was a nightmare. There were other factors. My kids were falling through the cracks in school for various reasons and were getting bored. Having the only options be the school they were in (the only one in town) or homeschool (that wouldn't have worked for our family at the time...maybe ever-but certainly not then) was really frustrating. We knew Cedar City had a few more options and it was a town we were familiar and comfortable with.  

This was also around the time of our separate, yet entwined, faith journies. Not being an active participant in our local congregation, even for a small time, led to some really awkward social fallout. That's really a post for another day but I would be remiss if I didn't mention the impact it had on our family. Feeling ostracised in a community of 3000 was incredibly difficult. So many things combined to lead to our decision to move. It was/is heartbreaking. Three years later the sting is a little less but the grief for the dreams/plans we had is still there. 

So we packed up our house. Rented the biggest truck from Moab and trekked across the state.

We loaded up the truck on a Friday. It rained that night and the truck that previously could have gotten off our front lawn was now loaded down with everything we owned and stuck in the mud. My father in law managed to get a heavy backhoe (or something) from work and had enough gusto to pull us out. Otherwise, we likely would have just stayed put another day to let the mud dry out a bit. 

We got into the "just throw it anywhere" mode of unloading the truck right away. Once it was in the house it was easier to sort and get organized and cozy.

Stay tuned for the rest of the 2015 adventures...