Birthday and Reunion Dinners

Another week of family, friends and festivities. Monday after work we all headed up to Grandma Moyle's house to move Bridger's ping pong table and shuffle board table back to my parents house. The bachelor pad is going back to a family home. My parents were able to sell the house to a cute little family who lives in the neighborhood and they should be closing in the next few weeks. My mom has been working up there like crazy, ripping down wallpaper, cleaning out cupboards and hauling out the residual boxes and bins with my grandparents belongings. It's been an emotional process for her. I can only imagine the memories and emotions of packing up and saying goodbye to your childhood home. I think it is helpful her to watch a new young family buy the house and start their own life and traditions there. 

Tuesday was Bridger's birthday and he requested we go out to eat at Sushi Monster so that is what we did. I sent him 22 pictures of memories over the years that I had saved on my phone. Hard to believe he is 22! I'm so grateful that he was born and we got to be part of the same family. From the time that we were little we always wanted to be close because we were/are each other had. I am really grateful that he and Jaden get along so well and we are all able to hang out and make new memories together. After dinner we went to Yonutz which is a doughnut franchise that has blown up on TikTok but none of us were very impressed by. I was kind of grossed out by the idea of ice cream, doughnuts and cereal all mashed together so I just got an ice cream on its own but Bridge went all out with a delightful fruity pebble mountain. Then we went back and opened presents. Rand and Robyn came by and we got them to stay and play a round of the game we got Bridger called "Poetry for Neanderthals." It's a game where you have to describe a word using one syllable word phrases only. It is hilarious we were all rolling with laughter. I feel like the hardest I have ever laughed is when I play games with friends and family. As Jaden and I wrote in Bridger's card we both said that we were so glad we could be home and celebrate with him. It's missing out on family celebrations that was the hardest being away.

Wednesday was a super busy work day. We had a long time client go a different direction with their business and terminated their contract with us and had another client reach out in a similar situation. My boss and I scrambled to get a meeting on the calendar with the executive team and spent time putting together a slide deck to present. It was a high stress few days but very good to get eyes that are normally far above our business to see the value we provide and growth trajectory we are experiencing. Only time will tell but we are hopeful we will retain them as a client. 

Thursday we had our client meeting and I kid you not my heart was hammering in my chest during the entire call. Like I said before we both felt good about the meeting after it was over but will just have to wait and see what happens. That night I went over to Morgann's house to meet the newest member of their family and my new best buddy cute little baby Tru. He is so sweet and newborn snuggles were just what I needed after a stressful couple of days. I am so happy to be back close and able to see Morg a lot more. Her cute daughter Myla took a few minutes but by the end of the night she was making me toy ice cream and showing me all of her toys and stuffed animals. I had to laugh when she and Morg sang their rendition of Twinkle Twinkle little star which included mentions of almost every Disney princess. As Morg tucked her in and we left the room I heard her call out, "Mom can McKenzie come back here?" I thought it was so funny that she uses my full name because Morg only ever calls me Kenzie or Kenz so I'm not sure where that came from. I turned around and walked back in and she said "my daddy is going to come back and give her a goodnight kiss." I told her she is so lucky to have such a good mommy and daddy. And she really is, Jaden and I are indebted for Morg and Elijah for setting us up and we truly love spending time with them and their cute growing family. 

Friday night we met up with Pete and Alexa my friends from high school that were conveniently in Chicago during the same time last summer when Jade did his internship at EY. We hadn't seen them since then and it was so fun to catch up and eat delicious pizza at Slackwater. We were talking about how Jaden says sometimes he misses being far away and not running into someone you know everywhere you go like you do in Utah. I kid you not, not even 5 minutes later one of Alexa's friends that used to nanny for Megan and Mike walked up and started talking to us and then we look across the restaurant and see Bryn, Logan, Sam, Kennedy, Jake and Taylor. It was so funny! Slackwater is really so dang good there the California Sunrise and Hot Honey pizzas are our all time favorite. It was a fun night out with them and we definitely plan on hanging out a lot more now that we're all back in Utah. 

To wrap up the week we went to Hunter's first football game in Farmington which was so brutally hot we were all dripping in sweat by the end. Hunter did awesome, it's fun watching our nieces and nephews grow up and develop their own personalities and hobbies. We sure love our littles! Jaden and Casey went golfing after the game so Amanda brought Sloane and Dempsey over to our apartment where they played in the Grantham's play house and did some crafts. We all ate dinner together and then started the second Harry Potter to wind down. Dempsey absolutely loves Snape which makes all of us laugh. It made me excited for fall and Jaden's and my annual tradition of watching all of the Harry Potters. He won't let us start them until October 1st though so we have a while longer to go. I love summer don't get me wrong but this time of year I start to get so excited for fall. It's been my favorite time of year since I was little. I think because my mom made it so fun because Bridger's birthday is in August, both of my parents are in October and mine is in November it has always been such a fun celebratory time of year. 

Finally on Sunday after church I had the Relief Society presidency come visit me. Two out of the three were actually my young women's leaders when I was in young women's in high school. It was fun to catch up with them and reminded me again what a unique opportunity it is to be back in the neighborhood and ward I grew up in. One of the things I was most excited about moving back was for Jaden to experience the ward that I grew up in and helped raise me. There are so many good people here that truly made such an impact on my life. 

Peaches

• Finally joined the Stanley club. I figured as long as we are back in Utah we might as well join in on the trend and stereotype and I gotta say both Jaden and I are hooked and think they are worth the hype. I haven't even dropped mine yet which I am very proud of. The handle really is a gamechanger

• Bridger's birthday
• Playing games with my family and the Austin
• Our tomatoes are going crazy right now. I am giving them away left and right. We have made awesome fresh salsa, and bruschetta which have both been to die for. I definitely want a garden one day

• Hanging out with Morg, Myla and Tru while the boys golfed
• Made a yummy sheet pan dinner to take over to Morgann and Elijah and it was a hit. Love a good sheet pan meal and can't go wrong with any recipe from Chelsea's Messy Apron

• I'm convinced this balsamic glaze is good on pretty much everything especially bruschetta 

• Love this Dolly Parton poster my grandpa had that Bridger and his friends found and hung up on the wall. Dolly is basically regarded as a saint in Tennessee and I have grown to love her more and more over the years as I learn more about her and the good she has done for her community. One of my favorite outreaches she has done is her Imagination Library. This excerpt from dollyparton.com describes it well, "In 1995, Dolly launched her Imagination Library in Sevier County, TN, where she was born and raised. Inspired by her own father's inability to read or write, she determined that there had to be a way to help children fall in love with books. The program sent free books to children from birth to age five and helped inspire a love of reading in the lives of children in the mountains of her youth. Great ideas and unselfish dreams always have wings to fly and such is the case with Dolly's imagination Library. It spread from one county to the entire state of TN. The excitement and results of the program kept growing until it spread all over the United States, from there it expanded to Canada, Great Britain, Australia and most recently the Republic of Ireland. Generations of young children and adults affectionately call Dolly 'The Book Lady' a title Dolly warmly embraces and one that gave her father great pride, 'my daddy just loved it when all the little kids would call me 'The Book Lady.' That mean to more to him than the fact that I had become a star and worked my butt off." With more than 200 million free age-appropriate books mailed to date, Dolly's Imagination Library is just getting started and there seems to be no slowing down in sight!" Isn't that awesome?! It's no wonder my girl Lainey Wilson wrote a song called WWDD (what would Dolly do)

• Dinner with Pete and Alexa
• Setting up our table and styling the floating shelves. Love making and eating dinner each night with Jade

Pits

• Losing one client and being at risk of losing another
• Had to make a pitstop on Bridger's bday to fill mom's tire with air. We later learned she had ran over a nail and needed a new tire entirely.