There’s No Place Like Home

I’m back! I took pretty much the entire summer off of blogging. Mainly because I started getting overwhelmed. I took on more hours at work because I was saving up for our Europe trip and so I was working double time. I barely had time to do laundry, which isn’t saying much because even if I had nothing on my schedule all week, I would still not have time for laundry.

As our trip got closer, I got more stressed with everything piling up on my to do list and realized I could really simplify by knocking some non-essentials off of my to do list. But it’s Fall and I’m home now and trying to get back into routine. And I missed this.

Unfortunately, we have woken up at 3am the past two days since being home. And to top that, we are also totally sick. I have a sore throat and now Noah does too. Despite the lack of sleep and feeling under the weather, I’ve been pretty productive and have unpacked, grocery shopped and even fed my sourdough starter.

This Summer in review:

We took a trip to Oahu with our friends Noah and Elise. It was my first time in Hawaii and it did not disappoint!

I hosted our ward girls camp in Wallsburg. That was a lot of work but the girls had an amazing time so it was all worth it.

I taught about a million pilates classes a week.

We went to the annual Chadderdon family reunion in Lava Hot Springs.

Noah took me to the Bluebird Cafe concert up in Sundance. My only request for my 25th birthday!

We packed our backpacks (yes, backpacks) and hopped on a plane to Europe! We spent the entire month of September knocking things off of our bucket lists. We started in France (Chantilly, Etretat, and Paris), then we went to Lake Brienz, Switzerland for a week, followed by Italy (Tivoli, Rome, Amalfi Coast), and ended in Greece (Crete and Athens) before heading back to Paris to go to Paris Disneyland for two days. It was a once in a lifetime and something I dreamed of doing before having kids. We experienced some really amazing things but also went through some hard things together that I may write about later. I feel like we are more in love, stronger than ever, and so aligned. I feel so grateful for the opportunity, but also that I got to experience it with my best friend! We make a really great team.

This was 1 of about 2000 pictures I took. Maybe I’ll upload more later, but for now they are all on the highlights of my Instagram.

And now we are HOME. Traveling always makes me grateful for home. I love our lives here and I love where we live. It really feels like home. Utah welcomed us with vivid red, orange, and yellow mountains and crisp Autumn air. Fall in Utah is special. I’m so excited to get back into my routine. To take our last Vespa ride of the season up in the mountains, go to a pumpkin patch, bake sourdough bread, warm hearty soups, and pumpkin chocolate chips cookies. I’m excited to decorate my house for Halloween and to be uplifted and inspired by the messages in General Conference this weekend. I’m excited for fires in my fireplace and to work out in my yard prepping my garden for Spring. I’m just so happy to be home. There is nothing quite like it.

Now what to do about this jet lag…