Brian Started His MBA (Aug. 2018)

If you’ve noticed a trend that we go on trips every 2-3 weeks, our trend continued through August. 

A year ago, we moved to Florida for a few reasons, the biggest one being an MBA program for Brian. We wanted to be in Florida for at least a year before the program started so we could get in-state residency tuition, and spend some time with my grandma who lives in Clearwater, which is about 2 ½ hours from Gainesville, where the University of Florida is located. 

The U of FL has one of the top ten ranked MBAs in the country with multiple different options. Because Brian’s undergrad degree is in business and finance, he was eligible to do an intense, 16-month accelerated hybrid program. The program started with a week of foundation review, 10 tests to finalize his qualification into the program, and one day in class with his classes for the first semester. 

We left our house at 4:30 AM on the 12^th to make it to Gainesville by 7:30 for the first day (a Sunday, yes he had a 13 hour day on a Sunday). Brian had information sessions and a welcome reception that kept him busy until 8:30 PM that day. The rest of the week, including Saturday, he had the foundations review classes from 8 AM-5 PM and Sunday the 19^th he had his first day of class for the first semester.

Since it’s a hybrid program, it’s mostly online and he just has to be on campus for exams and projects at the end of every term: this December, April 2019, August 2019, and December 2019. He’ll graduate in December of 2019! Since he would be gone for a whole week for the start of the program and there wasn’t anything keeping us in Clearwater, Tatum and I decided to go with him! It wound up being a great decision and I like to think it made it a little easier on Brian having someone to drop him off at classes and pick him up and have dinner ready haha.

We originally rented a one bedroom apartment on Airbnb, but about a month before our arrival, our host messaged me and asked if she could upgrade us to another place since I had requested an early check in! Most places don’t let you check in until 3 or 4 PM, and since we were arriving by 8 AM I needed something earlier. She could get us in at 1 PM if we switched, so she upgraded us to one of her luxury 2 bedroom/2 bathroom condos with a pool in a great location! It was closer to the business school, and near Main Street downtown with lots of cute restaurants and convenient parking in a covered garage. We were also close to a great new park, Depot Park, with a bunch of different playgrounds and a free splash pad. (If you EVER go to Gainesville and need a great place to stay at an affordable price, look for Superhost SUSANNAH on AirBNB! She was fabulous!!)

Sunday, we dropped Brian off, grabbed some breakfast, and went to church. Somehow I miraculously made it through all of church with Tatum without her having a meltdown, then we grabbed some lunch and checked into our condo. Tatum took a brief nap and we went grocery shopping before we picked Brian up. I felt good about not spending a lot of money this trip and I’m glad we decided to go with an Airbnb so we had our own kitchen. Our week was spent hanging at the park and exploring while Brian was in class.

Thursday, Tatum and I went on a little day trip to Jacksonville to go to the zoo! I was trying to decide where to take a day trip and other considerations were St. Augustine or the gulf side beaches farther north than we are, but then Brian suggested the zoo in Jacksonville and it felt perfect! The zoo was sooo much fun. Tatum loves animals and the older she gets, the more excited she is about stuff like the zoo. We spent almost four hours there and Tatum walked pretty much the whole way which was great for me because she took a good nap on the hour and a half drive home.

We checked out a little Mexican restaurant in downtown called Boca Fiesta and it was sooo yummy. Brian got an alligator burrito and loved it, and Tatum kept trying to steal the pieces of gator from it because she loved it so much! It was a very long week and we were all happy to come home on the 19^th. We had five days to get back on a routine and get some things accomplished around the house and then my dad flew in for a week and a half vacation the next Friday!

Most of that time was spent at the beach with Dad, and the last day of August Brian and Tatum and I spent the day at Adventure Island, a full waterpark in Tampa! Tatum had a blast and we were even able to take her on some of the water slides with us. They have a huge lazy river and a couple sections strictly for little kids. It's also one of the more affordable amusement parks, considering we live within an hour and a half of about 15 major parks!

Luckily, the next month and a half were travel free, but not without our normal business! Check out our next post for more on that. 

-XoXo

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June 2018: First Sour, Ending Sweet

I’m normally super excited for June because June normally means the true beginning of summer, but in Florida, the lines of when summer begins are so blurred and it’s so outrageously and uncomfortably hot that I can’t say I was looking forward to summer, only that I was looking forward to getting out of Florida as much as possible. Especially after the way June came steamrolling in…

May 31, I went to Sam’s Club to get some grocery shopping and came out to find that my Jeep wouldn’t start. It wasn’t the battery because all my lights and AC would come on but it would just click when I tried to start it all the way. I had to Uber home with Tatum and all my loose groceries and tell my stepmom I couldn’t pick her up at the airport the next day anymore because I wouldn’t have a car. Friday, (June 1) Brian got a phone call from our renters in Utah saying the garbage disposal broke. Saturday, the Jeep was still at Sam’s Club and after breakfast out with my stepmom and grandma, Brian waited around at Sam’s Club for THREE AND A HALF HOURS waiting for them to tow the Jeep to my grandma’s where he would have room to work on it since we still lived in our apartment at the time. Once it finally got to my grandma’s, Brian spent 5 ½ hours attempting to get TO the starter to check it, but Jeeps are apparently the worst and he had to remove the entire drive shaft. Probably 15 trips to the store later for tools and parts and it still wasn’t resolved that day because at the last minute (and as it was getting dark), Brian realized he needed something ELSE he didn’t have.

Sunday, I woke up with a splitting migraine and the water shut off to our apartment due to a major pipe break in our building. We took showers at my grandma’s and saw my stepmom off, and that night Tatum woke up with 104.3 degree fever and we had an almost entirely sleepless night. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the water wasn’t restored to our building until 5 PM the next day so I was feeling gross but more importantly I couldn’t give Tatum a bath to try and bring her fever down. That night, Brian had another three hours of working on the Jeep before he ran out of daylight and Tuesday, he gets the Jeep fixed only to have to go buy a new battery for his car because it died. WE COULD NOT CATCH A BREAK.

If you saw my previous post, you saw that we bought a house and closed the first week in June! This was a very exciting and a very stressful time, especially with everything else that happened to us the first weekend of the month. There were a few things that the owners were supposed to have taken care of in advance that they suddenly said they wouldn’t be able to do in time. While it was annoying and they were in breach of contract, our options were to let the house go and know it would immediately be snatched up (we were in a bidding war and know there were at least three other offers on the table when they chose ours) or accept closing credits and take on the burden of a few projects ourselves. We chose the latter.

We were very strategic about when we put an offer in. Putting an offer in on the house in May gave us a closing date in June and our first mortgage payment wasn’t due until August, which is when our lease ended on our apartment. That meant we had from our closing on June 8 until August 16 to clean, paint, and get our stuff moved in before our lease ended, and we only paid double on rent and mortgage for half a month. We got most of the stuff done in June so we could move our stuff in July before I went on a weeklong vacation home for a friend’s wedding. We painted everything except the kitchen that we’re replacing the floor on (so I wanted to wait and choose a color once I bought the tile) and the third bedroom that’s getting a facelift in September.

All of our free time in June was spent working on the house with a few fun breaks. Brian turned 26 and we got a babysitter and went out for dinner at Bonefish Grill, then took a sunset walk at the beach. I made him his favorite homemade chocolate cheesecake and we celebrated my favorite person in the world, so it was a great day.

The day before Father’s Day, we went and used our last Disney day at EPCOT and quite literally ate our way around the world. We had macaron ice cream sandwiches and ham and cheese croissants from France, Brats and chips in Germany, gelato from Italy, Fish & chips in the United Kingdom, and snacks from pretty much everywhere else. EPCOT is great because wait times are way less than every other park and we rode everything. Tatum loved Nemo & Friends and Frozen Ever After, Brian and I rode my favorite (Soarin’ Around the World), and Tatum got to meet Ana and Elsa and take pictures with them. Father’s Day was spent at church and home with Brian’s favorite foods and desserts and it was a great end to a great weekend.

At the end of June, we made our second trip to Utah in 2 months. We planned this trip perfectly because Kevin and Amanda were in town visiting and one of Brian’s best friends, Glen, was getting married. We flew out on a Wednesday after Brian got off work, and Thursday we spent all day at Lagoon with Brian’s parents, Kevin and Amanda, and all the nieces and nephews. It’s so fun letting Tatum play with her cousins. She evened the count on the Baldwin grandchild side, so now there’s 4 boys and 4 girls.

Glen and Kelsey’s wedding was on Friday, so we left Tatum with Lindy and her cousins and went to their sealing in the Salt Lake Temple. This was my second time going to a sealing at this temple and it was so beautiful! We had some time to kill after the ceremony until the reception, so we grabbed some In ‘N Out (of course) and caught up with some friends in between. That night, Brian and Lindy and I went to see Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom because everyone else had gone during the day while we were gone and Lindy had the little kiddos. I love me some Chris Pratt!

Saturday was pretty laid back, but we had a late celebration of Brian’s birthday and an early celebration of Braxton’s 12^th birthday that evening. A friend of Brian’s since he was little had a wedding reception that evening that he headed off to and it felt like a really fulfilling trip that so many big events happened while we were there again. Sunday, we went to church and visited all of Brian’s grandparents that we’ve really missed seeing every Sunday! Monday, we had to head out again but not before shopping a little at Station Park and grabbing more Utah food! It’s always how we end our trips LOL.

It was nice to really get a lot out of our two trips out there, but we’re both happy to not be traveling west again until November! Tatum is such a trooper on airplanes but the long flights aren’t easy on anyone, especially with layovers and tons of delays... Airports just don’t seem to be able to get it together as much as they used to these days. Another busy month in the books! And we’re very happy it ended much better than it started…

Here's a mixed up compilation of photos of our adventures!

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