Cuba, Utah, San Diego, Idaho, and Minnesota in two weeks!

We have spent a lot of the recent month traveling, both together and separately. Nate spent a week in Cuba for work. That sounds pretty cool, so we'll leave that for a separate post.

While he was venturing in foreign lands, Elliott and I went to one of my best friend's weddings in San Diego on a whirlwind trip that involved flying to Utah one day, San Diego the next, back to Utah the next, and back home to Boston the next, whew! But it was so fun and so worth it! I met my friend on my first day of BYU freshman orientation, because we had almost all our classes together and lived across the hall from each other that year (David John 1200, woot-woot!). We ended up rooming together several more years and I am so happy to see her in love with a great guy. What made the event even better was that it was a reunion with our other friends from college as well. It was an epic trip. Since I was a bit terrified of wedding partying while single parenting, I decided that it'd be best to drop off Elliott for some quality G-ma/G-pa time, which he loved. So I stopped in Utah for a day before heading to CA which we spent at Hogle Zoo and then went up to Logan. It was great to see family and most especially to see my Grandma Maurene (my middle-namesake), what I knew would most likely be for the last time.

Just try to contain a 16 month old for 5 hours on your lap

with my little niece 

Visiting Grandma

   

Everything about the wedding was perfect and I got to hang with these beauties and stay up late having a girls night sleepover (with the baby too, even better! Don't worry, we've already been setting Elliott up with her on dates, because I don't know about him, but I'm smitten!) and chatting at Coronado beach with gelato. This was my first time EVER leaving Elliott alone without me or his dad overnight so I was kind of freaking out about it, and was terrified for my family, but it turned out he behaved like an angel for his Grandparents and Auntie. Not the same can be said about his behavior on our flights alone with me, unfortunately. I barely survived those and vowed to never ever do it again until he can have his own seat. What's more, when I arrived to Boston, my Uber got in a small car accident, and then I still had a week of single parenting to go before Nate got back. It was ROUGH.
        

What happens when I'm left alone with a child:

Nate left some pics of himself for us to find when he got home so Elliott wouldn't forget him. This was my favorite: "This is Us, not them" With a picture of him and Elliott together and then few shots of the TV show, "This is Us" which I had been binging :)

I'll give you one guess who that was

Morning activities.... no words

 

Mom, get outta bed, I've already got my bib on and I'm ready to eat

10:00 pm, after I caved and let him out of his crib and he played for a while

 
That week, I heard from my mom that my Grandma had passed away. I had ended up seeing her on one of her last days on this Earth, and had the chance to speak with her and tell her all she meant to me. I'll treasure that moment forever. My Grandma was an incredible women and left and incredible legacy here. Nate got home in time to fly back to Utah with me to attend her funeral in Idaho that weekend (because otherwise I would've had to break my vow not to fly alone already). On the way back Elliott could only sleep if he took two seats, an empty on next to us and mine...so I sat on Nate :)

I loved the chance to reminisce about my Grandma with all my siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins at the beautiful funeral. I also had the chance to visit all my other grandparents graves, since they are all buried in the same cemetery. I was lucky enough to know all of them, and cherish all they each taught me.

He is HEAVY

waiting for our flight

The described seat sharing situation

WORTH IT

Laura and Abby on Grandparent Price's grave

My bro Danny played "Danny Boy", one of my
grandmother's favorite songs , and his wife sang "Memories" from the musical "Cats"

      

Nate was a champ and stayed back at the church
during the burial so Elliott could sleep

 













Side Note: In the 1/2 day between the time that Nate arrived home and we flew back for the funeral, he had to take his grueling 3rd CFA exam. They have to arrive at 8 am and don't leave until 5 pm, with 6 hours of actually testing during that time. I'm so proud of him for all the studying he was able to squeeze in to our busy lives, even though it was not quite how much it probably should've been. So we've got our fingers crossed he's done with these tests, but we don't find out for a few months.

After all that, we got home and Nate flew to Minnesota the following day for a work conference. So another few days of single parenting before things got back to normal. But it's over, and he doesn't have any more work trips planned yet! To relax a bit after all that travel, we both took off Elliott's daycare Professional day to take a trip to Cape Ann and relax together. It was beautiful to spend time in Rockport, Gloucester, and Marblehead for a day.

 

At the Arnold Arboretum exploring before Dad returned

At an old quarry in Rockport that was soooo pretty

All of this was the quarry

    

Marblehead

Marblehead, it got rainy right as we arrived

During this time I finished up with my two programs I was working on this semester, IMPACT at MIT and a regulatory affairs night class. I learned a lot from both, but it is so nice to be home more in the evenings now. Except just as I was finishing my last session of IMPACT, I got called back into the Young Women's program in my ward, so my Wed. nights will be filled again, as well as all other free time I have :)  That's not my favorite part of this calling, but I do love working with the youth, so I'm excited! When we first got married I was YWP for 1.5 years, then moved to our ward here hoping to change things up, I got called as YW advisor for 1.5 years, then released to serve with the older women in Relief Society, which I loved, but now I'm back to where I belong, with the young and young at heart. Man, I've learned a lot since the first time I served 5 years ago though!

Some recent goodies from YW activites

Update on Elliott: He is climbing, learning more words, enjoys screaming loudly for fun, waking up at 5 am, banging on my door to wake me up, "cleaning" the floor with wipes and kleenexes, and swimming. We got him a shark outdoor pool (that has already killed a portion of our lawn) that he LOVES a lot. We just finished a round of swim lessons and he is very comfortable in the water. I just got him a floating device so we're excited to try it out.

Key Lime Cheesecake because SUMMER

He didn't eat this whole thing, but lots more than I'd hoped for

He loved being the doormaster for the hens

BUM BUM!!