Loving it

Can I say how much I'm loving being in Utah???  Ok, flying all across the country 7 months pregnant by myself with all three kids (and they were still alive when we got here) was nothing short of a Christmas miracle, but we did it.  And 4 hours later I spent the night throwing up, but hey - can you imagine if that had been a few hours earlier?  While I was on the plane alone with all my kids??  For that reason I couldn't even be mad about being sick. 

Back to being in Utah.  I used to think maybe the gooey goodness of the Utah folk would drive me crazy after living out of state, but OH NOT SO.  Can I tell you I almost started crying last night in Costco when the lines were crazy long and I saw two women going for the same line and when the one noticed the other there, she said, "Oh, sorry, were you coming for this line?"  To which the woman cheerily responded, "Oh, no problem, I'll just go to another one!"  I about died.  Can I tell you THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN IN MIAMI!  And anytime someone was near me in the aisles they would so sweetly say, "Oh sorry, I'm just going to sneak around you here if that's ok!"  People have stopped to let your car in in crowded parking lots, chatted with you in store lines and talked to me as if I was the coolest person in the world with my out-of-state license.  The Wal-Mart workers are actually helpful (in Miami when I've asked for an item I couldn't find they say, "Did you see it?  If you didn't see it, we don't have it.") All the stores here are well-stocked, employees actually know what they're talking about, and Costco even carries different stuff that's cool and that local people would want. And people here actually think like I do.  It's been so pleasant.

The last little while in Miami my children and I have been screamed profanities at by some grown man who apparently wanted to cut into my line of traffic but I couldn't understand his ambiguous gestures out the opposite window of the way he wanted to go.... I've seen other grown men jump out of their cars and get in fights with pedestrians on their way to work; I've been trying to get on a train pregnant with a triple stroller and had not one person scoot over to let me on (when they easily could have and instead just sat there and stared at me without moving while the train stalled for 3 minutes. I had to wait for the next train.)  I have watched a man irritated with the ridiculous wait at the post office walk out the door and then turn and kick the post office door, bashing it in and shattering the glass all over the other customers.... And I've called my doctor's office when I finally got my test results after asking for them for months to say, "Um, the wrong tests were done on me" to be met by a prolonged silence and then a, "So?  What do you want me to do about it?"  Oh, I don't know, fix it??  Oh, Miami.

So a little Christmas cheer, some snow, family, courteous people, and lots of holiday festivities have been so welcome.  We have done so many fun things here - and it seems to all be so much easier and accessible than Miami. The kids have been in heaven.  We've gone to an indoor kids place full of bounce houses, the Children's museum, a hockey game, birthday parties, a nickel arcade, Temple Square to see the lights, cookie exchange parties, plus spent so much time with family and cousins.  And the kids have even slept in until 9am every day. (They won't go to bed until late, but it's so weird because it's not due to the time change because that's 11am our time!)

And oh Curves. Let me take a minute to talk about the entertaining nature of Curves.  I was worried that I would totally lose any level of fitness I had at this stage in the pregnancy while here in Utah since I was used to going to the gym a lot in Miami, so my mom came home one day and said that I could do 30 days free at Curves where she goes.  So I really know nothing about the place and have never been, but I figured it would be better than nothing.  Let me tell you, the first time I went in, it was me, 4 geriatric women with perms in those cozy brown old lady shoes and a 300lb woman with oxygen tubes in her nose.  Oh my goodness. It was really hard not to laugh.  Let's just say it's probably good for my pregnant self esteem - in Miami everyone is like exotic and Brazilian, full of implants in all sorts of places, perfectly spray-tanned, and they all have amazing bodies.  So I get comment after comment from the chatty old ladies about what good shape I'm in.  :)   And it's even cuter because in between each machine they have these little mats that you are supposed to just move in place or do something aerobic on and I love seeing the old ladies "jog" in place, dance around and twist their hips, or some just wave their hands in circles.  Oh man, it's fun.

Not to say we don't have any fun in Miami. I did realize the bonus of Christmas activities in Miami is that you can stand outside for hours and enjoy them cause it's like 75 degrees.  So here are a few pictures of some Christmas festivities we did before we left Miami.

 

 

 


(About as good as a "cute" posed Christmas picture of the boys gets)

 
 Cash and one of his best little buddies, Samuel:

 


Hope you all have a merry Christmas!!