Twenty-eight and One

Twenty-eight

On my birthday, we went out to lunch at Cafe Rio and I devoured an entire helping of pork nachos. See my happy/I'm so full you're going to have to roll me outta here face?After we dropped Elliott off at school, we drove to Ikea. I told Brian that morning, "Can we go to Ikea today? Ikea makes me so happy!" We were even able to drop Lily off at the Ikea child watch! She's been potty trained for a long time but she's finally tall enough to go play! So Brian and I had a walking-around-Ikea date for an hour! It was awesome!

And it's fun to house-dream! I really love the white and gray with a bit of yellow kitchen/living area!

Brian loved the warm cherry colored cabinets.

The rest of my birthday went downhill after that as Brian had to work that night. But the next night we went out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Yummmmmm.

One

We have been here an entire year already! It has gone by so fast! Brian loves his new job and I love playing in OTS and Elliott loves kindergarten and Lily loves life. Life's not perfect of course, but we appreciate all the good that living here brings for our family. We love looking at the beautiful mountains everyday....everyday the inversion doesn't cover them up, that is. Brian loves riding his bike here...which he has been able to do an unbelievable amount this winter, as it's been quite mild. In a couple of weeks, we should hear that Brian's job wants him to stay forever, aka, tenure. We've never stayed anywhere long enough to get tenure before and we are hopeful everything is going to go great in that meeting in a couple weeks. The other option is fired, and that would be a huge bummer! Ah the musician's life.... but we are thinking of retiring our moving boxes and settling in a little bit if given the opportunity. Hard to imagine us not moving every year, eh? Yeah, it's hard for me to imagine too but it feels right to stay for a while. Brian has taken 29 auditions over the past 8 years and he's about ready to hang up his lucky audition pants for a bit.

Last month I called one of my oldest (not old but old as in we've been friends for approximately 16 years) friends on his birthday. I was telling him that Brian was leaving soon to take an audition in Dallas (He didn't end up winning, and actually no one did) which we were hopeful for as we'd love to be closer to our families and raise our kids in Texas. My friend said to me, "Madelyn, it's okay to not raise your kids in Texas." And I suppose my head knows that's true but my heart might need a few more years....despite the fact that I haven't lived in Texas for more than a year in the past 10 years, it will always be home to me. I do know that we are in SLC because it's the right time and place for our family to be now. And I am SO grateful it's such a good place.

This weekend I played my heart out in Brahms' 4th symphony with the Orchestra at Temple Square to a packed Tabernacle with an apostle in attendance each night and I thought, "How lucky am I?!"

A 3 year old's perspective after her Mom's arrival home from a
Music and the Spoken Word taping. =)