Lately... and that time we bought a house

Oh, hi there!

Yeah, it's been a while.  But I've been busy so... what can you do?

Life has been pretty insane.  Like, we-really-put-on-our-big-kid-pants insane.

April came around and my AWESOME husband finished his undergraduate career at BYU!  I think he technically graduated in June but all his classes were done by April.  He just got the official degree in the mail last week and I'm so proud of him, I could squeal.

With that B.A. in hand, Spencer decided that he was seriously underemployed.  His plan is to eventually get his M.H.A. degree and become a hospital administrator.  He filled out applications like crazy to any job that might help him get a foot in the door to both a good graduate school and an eventual career in health administration.  After months of waiting, he finally got bombarded with a ton of interview requests.  To make a long story short, he got an amazing job offer with Accretive Health in Salt Lake City and he accepted soon afterward.  I don't quite understand all the little details of what he'll be doing so you'll have to ask him, but it's a REAL job.  With benefits.  And normal hours.  And vacation days.  And an office.  And clearance badges.

My husband is amazing.

Back to me... I've been working as a speech-language pathologist for Nebo School District since I got my M.S. last year.  After getting a graduate SLP degree, you have to work full-time for a year (called your Clinical Fellowship Year or "CFY") before you can get nationally accredited and put some awesome creds behind your signature.

I only worked part-time most of last year because of our crazy schedule.  So I was going to have to work part-time for 2 years before I finished my CFY.  Last year, a typical weekday looked like this: me working Mon-Fri from 8:00 a.m.-12:00 while Spencer watched Colton; me getting home at 12:30; the three of us getting to hang out for a total of about 5 minutes; Spencer immediately running out the door to classes at BYU until around 5:00; Spencer not getting to come home before heading out to work swing shift; Spencer finally getting home after midnight, where I was (usually) already asleep.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  To make matters worse, although I didn't have to work weekends, Spencer did.  Ugh.  It's too bad I don't get to see my favorite person in the whole world longer than a few minutes a day, right?

When Spencer completed classes in April, his new schedule was open enough that he could stay home with Colton all day until his job started at 5:00 p.m.  Because of this, I switched to full-time through the end of the school year in hopes of finishing my CFY sooner.

Then Spencer got this awesome job, and we decided that I'd keep working full-time because I could be certified in November!  November comes sooner than May, huzzah!  We'll have to put Colton in daycare while I'm at work since Spencer's new job has normal hours but it's only for like... three months!  We can do three months.  And Colton's not going to die.  I might die having to leave him, but he will not die.  I hope.  We found a wonderful lady to watch him who lives right behind my school and she was significantly cheaper than any other childcare provider we found.  She had fantastic references and has been watching kiddos and teaching child development classes at UVU for the past 15 years.  Not bad, eh?  And if I ever miss Colton a little too much, I can go on the school playground and see her backyard (creeper-mom status).

On top of everything, we learned that Spencer's going to make more money than I ever did working as a public school teacher and then some.  We won't be rich, but we won't have to live paycheck to paycheck anymore.

So we've been saving money slowly....

And now we're building a house!

I'm in love.  We'll be moving to Saratoga Springs in December and I'm going to stop working as soon as I certify in November so I can stay home with Colton every day.  YAY!  Again, I could squeal.  I'm really glad I'm finishing my CFY so I'll always have a good back-up plan, but I'm so excited to be a stay-at-home-mom for now!  I'd love to eventually go back to being a speech teacher but Spencer and I both feel like home is the place for me to be right now.  Blessings, blessings, blessings.  This Saturday I get to pick out our carpets, paint color, cabinets, granite, appliances, EVERYTHING.  Let's hope all those hours of watching HGTV will pay off and I pick something pretty.  Squealing.  lots of squealing.

The best part is that we'll finally get to spend time together as a family!  What?  Families should spend more than 5 minutes together every day?  Yes, please.

We feel very blessed to have all these wonderful things falling into place right now.  We've faced challenges this summer that I never dreamed of having to face because I didn't think I'd ever be strong enough to overcome them.  I've (re)learned so much recently: Prayer is real.  Family is forever.  And Heavenly Father always reaches our reaching.  I'm hoping to write about what we've been going through sometime in the future with the hope that it helps someone, somewhere, but I 'm not quite ready to write it all down yet.  For now, the moral of the story is that things get better.  After the trials, come the blessings.  Lots and lots of blessings.

I love you all.