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 12th
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!
