ten thoughts on a wednesday |21|

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one.
monday was our third anniversary! we rotate who is “in charge” of the anniversary celebrations each year, and it was ian’s turn this october ninth. he took moses and i to the dolomites (the italian alps) for the weekend! i had seen some photos of the area and showed them excitedly to ian one night many months ago while laying in bed, and he went ahead and plane booked tickets to verona - and a rental car to drive up into the mountains -  a couple weeks later. we had a pretty amazing time celebrating our love in that gorgeous place (and we had some crazy travel mishaps that i’ll include in my blog posts about our trip). on our actual anniversary on monday, we left moses with a babysitter, went to shake shack in covent garden and took a long walk around our neighborhood, which we are feeling more and more sad to move out of so soon. it was a really pretty, sparkly night in london and a perfect, simple anniversary celebration (after an epic weekend trip!).
the past three years have been the best and most stretching of my life. ian and i have a great love – full of rich friendship and romance – and it truly keeps getting deeper and better as time passes. loving this boy is so easy and so hard, and the most meaningful and wonderful adventure of my life.
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two.
i’ve be refocusing on making sure i have great mornings – hoping right to it when i wake up, getting out of the house as soon as possible, and trying to fill my life with good things and good thoughts and good feelings from the get-go. my day always goes so much better if i am determined to have a productive and happy morning.

three.
ever since moses was a teeny tiny newborn, i’ve felt that being his mom gets more and more fun with each passing month. i do miss a lot of things about when he was littler, and there are definitely new challenges that come as he grows and develops, but i am consistently amazed by how it all just keeps getting better. i love love love watching him walk around (and especially when he reaches up to hold my hand!) and show off his personality with different expressions and actions. he’s so interactive and friendly and excitable and just fun. i adore my little buddy.
{photos from a recent great morning when mo and i went to the rose garden at hyde park corner, and happened upon the changing of the horses guard - we followed the queen's horses all the way from wellington arch to the horse guard parade!}
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four.
at least once a week i eat a pret pickle and mature cheddar sandwich from pret a manger (a ubiquitous coffee shop/quick food spot in london). it’s really random, but i’m kind of obsessed with it. i like to put potato chips on my sandwich! that adds the perfect little salty crunch!

five.
often, ian and i just get so giddy talking about our new flat. there’s a lot of exciting things about it, but the thing we are most excited about is putting a big christmas tree in the bay window and hanging our stockings over the fireplace (because it has a beautiful old fireplace!). we seriously talk about christmastime at our new flat at least once a day – haha!
christmas is actually popping up around london already – this morning moses and i saw the tree had been put up outside the natural history museum! halloween isn’t really a thing here, and thanksgiving doesn’t exist, so i guess…october is christmastime? i am not sure how i feel about that…

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six.
one of moses’s favourite new pastimes is walking (fast!) through world-famous musuems with his arms outstretched and while babbling excitedly. last week he did this at the national gallery, the london transport museum, and the british museum. he just loves having so much space to walk! and testing out the echo in different big rooms :) we found pretty much every painting with a dog or a horse in it in the national gallery, and little mo had a nice babble chat with the mummies in the british museum. it’s a workout to keep up with him! but so much fun.



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seven.
ian is away on a business trip for the next few days (he is meeting clients in dublin, helsinki, and stockholm). we both really hate it when he is away and we miss each other like crazy. and i know ian also just aches when he doesn’t see moses for longer than 24 hours. we really could not hack it if ian had a job that required him to travel extensively for work (in his current job, he’s away on average one day a month – this trip is unusually long). last night, ian went to the grocery store and bought me some ice cream so that i’d have that stocked in the freezer when i am missing him in the evenings :)

eight.
speaking of delicious sweets, a couple of days ago moses and i baked cookies together! we made my all-time favourite: molasses spice cookies (you can find the recipe in this post). those little babies give me a perfect hit of autumny/holiday-ish festivity. i don’t really bake very often, but every time i do i think i should do it more.

nine.
i am feeling some kind of intense/confusing mixed emotions in regards to leaving our church congregation (when we move, we will live in the boundaries of a different congregation). it’s kind of complicated (and maybe a topic for a separate post), but i’m struggling with the transition of moving from a very diverse and quite high-needs congregation to one that is much more full of people like me/in a similar life situation as me. i think there are great things about being a part of both of these types of communities, and that our move is really what is best for our family. but i’m just a little mixed-up in my heart about all of it. i’m learning a lot from that feeling.

ten.
my anniversary gift to ian was a little video i made with pictures and film clips from our three years of marriage (i added onto the video i made last year of our first two years). we laid in bed watching it together on monday night with huge smiles that made our cheeks ache. we share such a beautiful life, and i am so grateful.

happy wednesday! life is beautiful!

Comments

  1. I appreciate you being so candid regarding your feelings about transitioning wards. That's one small aspect of the LDS church I've always been curious about. How people navigate things if/when they need to move to a new ward, if their current ward has practically become family. Or what you'd do if you feel a ward other than your own is better fit personality/relationship wise.

    If that ever happened- you just felt another ward was a better fit- could you attend a ward aside from the one your physical address denotes? How DO you navigate switching wards, or having a hard time adjusting to a new Ward and group of people?

    I'm sure the fact that at LDS meetings on sundays are similar (they all work off the same schedule right? I think I remember hearing that...) makes it easier. You don't have to worry about variance in "content", just in the personalities. I've always been envious of that- as I've found within my denomination a wide variety depending on location. While I've enjoyed services in one city, maybe not so much another.

    Anyways, best of luck. I'm wishing you a lot of peace with your transition.

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    1. thanks so much, rachel!

      some people do attend a ward different than the one they technically "live" in. this is not encouraged, simply because of logistics (it's much easier to serve and engage with those that live closer to you) and because it hinders the streamlining of the organization (and once you make one excuse, it gets a bit messy with people attending all kinds of different wards in different areas). because ian has seen (when serving in leadership positions) the administrative difficultly of regular cross-boundary attendance, we will likely always go to the ward that we geographically live in, barring truly exceptional circumstances. sometimes it is a struggle for certain people (including me at different times of my life!) to feel that they "fit in" in a particular ward, but that helps everyone to exercise certain principles of the gospel - reaching out, compassion, courage, focus on christ. for me, i like to find and appreciate the good in every type of community and all types of people. that's easier said than done, of course, but i believe it is important, especailly in a faith community. it IS nice that the content is the same everywhere you go, but culture can be quite different. it's all part of learning from each other and working together as the body of christ.

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  2. How long is the longest period of time you spent in a specific ward?

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    1. roughly 18 years - growing up in utah :) since leaving my parents' home i have been in many different wards - the longest span has been around three years.

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  3. "i like to put potato chips on my sandwich!" you are becoming British my friend! ahah

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  4. One, I love how you also mention that your marriage is hard. While I am more your older sisters age, I think it is important for young girls or other woman to know that marriage is hard. That it isn't all rainbows and unicorns. I like that you keep it real. Two, I love Pret and wish they had one in Germany. Three, seriously also jealous of your trip to the dolomites it has been on my bucket list for a long time after seeing a Rick Steves on the destination. Just haven't been able to fit it in the schedule. Four, We moved to Germany this year and made a mistake of going to the wrong word the first couple of weeks. Anyway, we were asked to attend the ward in our boundries but told we could come back if we wanted. The other ward is technically closer to our home; I am still after 4 months here trying to find good in the new ward. The other ward was perfect because we really felt like we could contribute to that ward as it was needy, but the new ward is a well oiled machine and I often feel like no one could care less if we come or not. The one good thing is there is this sweet old lady named Ida who gets excited to see me each week. I am sure your new ward will be amazing. I will also have to face a new ward when we return home to the states as they split our ward boundries and after 14 years most of the families we have grown to love and adore are now not in our boundries. I don't know really anyone in our new ward.

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  5. It is so hard to leave a ward you love! Our stake created a new ward earlier this year and most wards had boundary changes. My neighborhood was switched to a different ward and it has been a really hard 7 months. Our new ward is MUCH smaller than our old ward and people just keep moving out. It's hard to get callings filled and keep them filled (I'm in the Primary Presidency). Good luck with your new ward!

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  6. Love your thoughts but I just have to say that picture of Mo in his glory at the British Museum has got to be framed! LOL!

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