Can't Believe

*Note this blog has turn into more of a journal and less about baby. Read at your own risk!*

That I'm almost to my third trimester. It has gone by so fast. But at the same time, really slow. Remind me to never again get pregnant right before a move. This little guy is a mover. He moves ALL THE TIME! Which is great, I love feeling them move. It's the part I miss the most when I'm not pregnant (but really, when am I not pregnant?).

Yesterday, we went to The Apple Store to see if Steve's computer could be fixed for free b/c of a faulty graphics card. No luck. It's the logic board and would cost $350 to get it fixed. Looks like we'll just wait until, well, I don't know when we'll be able to get it fixed. Oh well. Ok, so the point of this, you may ask. As we were driving down to SLC, we got to talking that even though we've been here for 4 1/2 years (yikes, I know) that Jake will probably be the only one of our children to have memories of our time in Utah. It's so weird to think that none of our kids have lived in the Northwest for any amount of real time. Jake was only 5 weeks old when we moved to Utah.

I know that I haven't been the kindest person when it comes to talking about living in Utah. It's the one place I said I would never live. And here I am. At least we don't live in Provo and going to BYU. Nothing bad about that, but I think I would go crazy with the Mormon culture and double standards. But Logan, well, it hasn't been that bad. And yes, the worst drives in the whole United States (confirmed by two truck drivers Steve did their taxes for) are in Utah. That's like my number two pet peeve. Anyways, I've learned that Mormon culture is not really at all the way of living the Gospel. In fact, it's probably the very opposite of truly living the Gospel. And yet, there are times when we get caught up in the whole cultural thing here and start becoming more trying to keep up with Brother and Sister Jones, then just trying to stay on track.

Our time in Utah has not been easy. We made a lot of bad choices, and are no paying for them. I think those were the lessons we were suppose to learn while here. Being dirt poor really puts things in a different light. I can't imagine learning these lesson so early in our marriage if we would have stayed in Auburn and Steve was still working at Lowe's (funny thing, he's in an interview right now to start working back at Lowe's. Funny huh?) that we would have learned how to manage our money, and in times of need, turn to the church for help. Swallowing your pride is a big one on that. And trust me, there is no pride in this house. Well, maybe on how awesome our kids are! I fear that we would have bought a house in Washington, and then learned the very hard way about money and the choices we make.

Ok, so I've gone on enough about this. And how did I get from this baby to our time in Utah? It's something that is always on my mind. This child represents the changes in our lives. From growing in to a better family and married couple, to moving to Portland and going back home, to our time spent here and the lessons we have learned. It's hard to think that this is really, seriously, our last Spring and part summer here. We are trying to use this time to focus on our family and becoming a better, strong family. Instead of school and just getting by. We want our last 3 months here (really, that is all that's left of our time here. Notice, I'm not saying until this baby comes, I think this move back home is trumping the birth of said child) to be fun and a time for us to learn and grow.

About 5 years ago we put this plan into effect. We would go back to school (well that changed and ended up just being Steve going back to school), graduate in an amazing field (at the time, Steve didn't know what he wanted to be yet, so he went for Marketing when he first enrolled at USU) that would let us have our 7 kids (yup, still want 7 kids. And accountants make a lot of money. We're not greedy, but need a lot of money to be able to afford all 7 kids) and to start our family. We knew it was time to start having kids. When we told our family our plans to move to Utah (why not stay here and go to school at UW, or Western, or Eastern, or WSU (evil place and would die before ever going to school there), well b/c it cost a lot more money to go to school in state in Washington then it does to got to school out of state in Utah) or that starting a family now wasn't the best idea. Needless to say, we didn't have a lot of support from family (only parents and a few siblings really supported us and understood what was being done. Nothing was decided without a lot of prayer and fasting, and going to the temple) so we moved to Logan, we hadn't been accepted in to USU yet when we moved here. And our plan changed, many times. It was first marketing, that quickly changed to accounting. Once we learned a little bit about it, our plans to move back to Washington changed to staying to SLC until we could transfer. Then we learned that Steve could intern in another place. But I got pregnant and figured it would be best to stay here in Utah (good thing too, b/c I spent a week in the hospital before I had Leo). So no internship. Then, finally, our plans were realized when Steve got a job at E&Y in Portland. Only, the timing was off. But that's ok. So that's how all this came about. It's really weird to be at the end of that 5 year plan. What we wanted has come forth. All that hard work, blood, sweat and tears (oh have there been tears) has finally come to realization. I find myself wondering what our next 5 year plan will be. I know that we'll be at E&Y in Portland for those 5 years, but what will our goal be? TBA I guess.