One Serious Update - July

The first thing that happened in July (we found out the last weekend in June, but it wasn't official until July 1st :]) was a pretty big deal. Blaine was assigned him area for work and, to our surprise, they assigned him Miami and Puerto Rico! So that means that we're staying in Miami permanently! Blaine will be traveling 2 weeks out of the month and will be doing territory work in Miami and occasionally Puerto Rico the other 2 weeks. Blaine will be using his Spanish a ton! (They kept him here because of his mad Spanish skillz :])It was all kinda crazy how it worked out, but we're so happy to be staying here. It is truly a miracle that we stayed. We are so grateful for the opportunity to be in Miami for at least the next couple of years. I was so worried all the time thinking about where we'd be moving to, leaving my job which I love and what a big change it'd be. But Heavenly Father had other plans in store for us! 

One of Blaine's managers who was involved with assigning his area sent him this text message. We both had goosebumps reading it!

That being said, the week of 4th of July, Blaine had some time off and we started looking for apartments. We looked and looked and looked. Rentals in Miami are absolutely ridiculous. It was exciting but also very discouraging. Our weekends have consisted of apartment hunting for the last month. 

Fourth of July was fun. It was SO nice to have Blaine home for 4 days. It felt like forever compared to what we're used to. We celebrated the holiday with my family at my Tia's house. We ate yummy food and watched some fireworks at night. 

My mom made this ice cream cake last minute and it was so good!

Andrea visited from New York again so we all got together for brunch (we really love brunch...) at OTC. It kinda reminded me of Station 22 in Provo. It was really yummy. It was so nice to catch up with these forever friends.

A twist on eggs benedict - they used cornbread instead!

In July, they released us from our calling. We absolutely loved teaching our kids. There weren't many kids but the ones who did go to class were smart, insightful, fun, sweet and such good examples to us. They still come up to us every Sunday to talk to us. So they called me as the 2nd counselor in the Young Women and the ward chorister. I love the Young Women organization and the Personal Progress program. It was such a blessing to me when I was a teenager. The president is Dulce, a good friend of mine who was in Young Women with me. The 1st counselor was my YW president during my senior year and the secretary is also a really good friend. We make a good team! But the YW in our ward are extremely inactive. So its definitely challenging. But I do love the youth and love getting to know them. Now, I am not excited about being the ward chorister. I do not sing well and will never sing well. I just know how to conduct basic music. I have had this calling 3 times now! I am not complaining, just stating the facts. But I do love the beautiful hymns of the gospel and I'm very grateful for them. 

Some of our YW at mutual designing mugs with Sharpies.

Last Sunday, Blaine was called to be the 2nd counselor in the Elders Quorum presidency. He really misses the primary, but is excited to work in the Elders Quorum. Our ward is really lacking in priesthood so he'll definitely be a strong force for good! 

We've gone on many double dates with Bruce and Damaris :)

Blaine eating Steve's Pizza - his favorite pizza from the mission

It was ginormous.

'

Re-exploring Miami has been fun. Recently, we went to a new ice cream shoppe called Azucar after Celia Cruz's famous saying that mean sugar in Spanish. All the ice cream flavors are infused with typical Cuban sweets. It was really cute and delicious! 

In the heart of Little Havana

My ice cream had pieces of guava and cream cheese as well as Maria cookies
 with extra guava drizzled on top.
So good! 

I went to dinner at 100 Montaditos (a tapas-style Spanish restaurant) with some friends from when I was teeny (they were my sisters older friends at church and I always tagged along. They were nice enough to have me around :]).

Karem, Cristy, Damaris, Me, Darling & Daleth

And finally, we've been house hunting! After doing some apartment hunting and being unsuccessful, we realized that we could afford a mortgage payment. That's how high rentals are here. So this has been really exciting so far, but its also very overwhelming. The whole process is tedious and long. But the very idea of owning a home is exhilarating. Now we're not looking at very big or very nice houses, but something that will meet our needs for now. So far, we've looked in the Miami Springs area (which is right by my job and the airport). I'm really hoping to be in our own place sooner than later! Send your prayers our way!

The first house we've looked at. I love this cozy home!

So that's what we've been up to in sunny Florida. Now that I've caught up, I will write more about our jobs and what we do, how it is to have Blaine away all the time, Blaine's travels and the things that I miss about living in Provo Utah (can you believe I'm saying this?). A lot has changed in these last 3 months and its been challenging, but we feel very blessed to have the life that we live!

One Serious Update - June

June was also a very busy month. Unfortunately, Blaine's grandmother, Grandmom Dawson passed away after a stroke. She survived the stroke, but never fully recovered. She had a hard time breathing and had aspirated a lot into her lungs. It was very sad for both of us. I always loved Grandmom Dawson from the moment I met her. But it was especially hard for Blaine, being the first person in his family to pass away. She was an exceptional woman. She was a great grandmother, wife, mother, citizen, and disciple of Christ. She is the reason why Blaine's family met the church. We love her so much and we miss her presence in our lives immensely. She would always call Blaine to see how we were doing. When Blaine started this new job, she would call him every week to see where her grandson would be traveling to next. I will always remember her stories, her talents, and her thoughtfulness. She never failed to send a birthday card to anyone in the family. I loved that about her. She took the time to care about you and make you feel loved. Here is her obituary, which revealed to me and Blaine even more amazing things to admire about her. How blessed we are to have had her in our lives and to have had her so close these last couple of years. 

Last picture of Grandmom & PopPop. Their marriage is a legacy of love.

After hearing the news, Blaine and I decided to make a trip to the temple. The closest working temple right now is the Orlando temple which is 4 hours away. The Fort Lauderdale Temple (which is almost done!) will be opening in 2014 and that will only be about 20 minutes away from us. We can't wait! Until then, we have missed having a temple so very near to us like we had in Provo. We went to the temple with Damaris, Bruce and Kimberly (Jonathan was at work). We stayed with them for the weekend and also celebrated Kim's birthday a week earlier by going to 4 Rivers Smokehouse for lunch and Melting Pot for dessert. We love visiting the Hoffmanns.

Handsome hubs

I love to see the temple.

I found Apple Beer at 4Rivers and almost cried of how happy I was. 

Dessert at the Melting Pot

Work (and living in Miami in general) was really exciting in June. The Heat were in the Playoffs and the excitement was felt wherever you went. At work, we had Heat days where all the therapy activities were basketball and Heat related. We dressed in white and in Heat gear and also brought yummy treats to work. All the kids loved it, even the little ones who didn't really know what was going on :)

The north office!

Baby Logan with his Bow Chic Miami Heat bow tie! 

We didn't get to go to a game due to Blaine never being here and prices increasing whenever he was in town, but I did get to go to a Heat Road Rally with my mom, Damaris, Bruce, Uli, Oscar and Valentina. We lost badly, but it was still fun.

For game 7, I went to Bruce's parents house and watched it with friends. I really missed Blaine at this time. Its moments like these that make me miss Blaine a ton! Afterwards, we celebrated by hitting the streets along with everybody else in Miami :) All the games were so exciting, especially game 6.

We also visited Delaware in June for the funeral. It was obviously a sad reason to go on a trip, but it was still nice to see all the family. We barely did anything in Hockessin, which I kinda missed. The funeral service was nice. It rained a lot but other than that it was a beautiful service. After the funeral, we went to Grandma and Poppy's house with Stacey and visited them for a day. We had  a lot of fun visiting them. We even went to Assateague Island to see the horses there. At night, we ate dinner at Aunt Karen and Uncle Ken's and were able to see Sara and Powel as well. The next day, we went straight to the beach house and stayed there for the rest of our trip. We went to the beach, went crabbing and ate at some of our favorite spots. On our last night there, all of the cousins/siblings got together for dinner at Victoria's. It was delicious and a lot of fun to all be together. Afterwards, some of us went to see Superman. One day, we were able to meet up with Ryan and Kailyn Slaugh for lunch, who were also in town from Provo visiting family. It was so good to see them! We miss them so much. All in all, it was too short of trip. We miss Delaware all the time - especially in the summer. We're excited to visit again for Demery's wedding in October!

We loved seeing Grandma & Poppy!

Chilling on the boardwalk!

There was a crazy freak storm while we were there. No trip to Delaware is complete with some sort of natural disaster. I stole this picture from Kailyn. 

Stace being brave!

Greatest of friends

Yummy crab cakes

We missed Chris!

Other things that happened in June: 

  - I really love my job. I've become friends with a lot of the girls I work with and everybody is so nice. It it challenging at times, but it is rewarding. My bosses are really nice and sweet. They make work fun. We have events all the time outside of work. They also have great team building activities. This week, we're all going to a fun dance class called Vixen workout. In October, we're running several 5ks together. And they buy us yummy donuts for our office meetings :)

Also, one of the SLPs brings her adorable baby, Logan to work. And I'm the lucky one who gets to hold him and take care of him when she's busy. It has been so much fun having a baby to hang out with. He's such a cutie and all the girls are obsessed with him. He's definitely spoiled. And I'm definitely baby hungry. Can you blame me?

  - I watched all the kids movies that came out in theaters! I love kid movies and I love watching them with my little cousins. We went to watch Monsters University and Despicable Me 2. I loved both!

  - I became an officially licensed SLP-A. At this point, I was only "tutoring" kids and doing office work. Now, I just do therapy. I'll write more about this later!

  - Blaine and I have enjoyed doing brunch on Saturdays when he's home. There are a ton of good brunch restaurants in Miami. So far, our favorite has been Greenstreet Cafe. Blaine would go there every Saturday if he could!