A Really Great Weekend ~ The Jackson Chronicles

I can't believe Tate was once so small and sleepy

*More pictures from the photoshoot are at the end, so feel free to skip over my ramblings to see them...
This weekend was really fun! Friday night we went to our ward party. It was great. It was a service party with different "service stations." So one station was frosting cookies to give to someone, another was writing letters to your spouse, and one was quilting. There were a few other ones. Josh and I spent most of our time learning to index. I did some indexing when I was in high school, but Josh has never been able to because there has always been something wrong with his login. So he got his first real taste of indexing, and now we can do it at home! Our ward is really awesome. We have some really good friends in the ward. Stacy and Andrew (who live above us-I played soccer with Stacy at BYU) are in our ward. They love love Tate! So they held him the whole time at the party, which was nice for Josh and I. Someone was going around taking pictures and Stacy/Andrew had Tate for most of the time, so in almost all the pictures it looks like they are his parents. We have already designated them as his godparents, so it works.

Saturday night we dropped Tate off at Josh's aunt Heather's house. And Josh's aunt Kristin was there too. It was so nice to be able to go out with Josh. We went to the Mount Timpanogos Temple. It was great because I was able to do temple work for three of my ancestors. My mom found their names and let me do their work. I really felt something special when I was there. Before we went I felt really strongly that we should go to the temple so I could take their names and do some of their temple work. And in the temple I really felt like I was doing the right thing and I felt connected to those women. I felt a lot of love for them. The temple is amazing, because I have never met these women and they were born in the 1700s and 1800s, but the temple brought us together. I also thought about how I wouldn't be where I am without them. So I also felt a lot of gratitude for them and for making it possible for me to be alive! What the prophets and apostles have said about the importance of family history work is so true.

After we went to the temple we went to paradise bakery and got dinner. It was delicious. Josh and I are weird, because we like to talk about what makes businesses successful, or how we think businesses could be better. So we spent most of our time comparing paradise to zupas (a similar restaurant) and how their menu styles bring in different types of people. We love both of those places.

As we were driving up Heather's street to get Tate, we saw they were outside. We drove by their house to turn around at the end of the cul de sac. As we drove by we saw Heather holding Tate and he was crying. We automatically assumed the worst, that Tate had been crying the entire time. When Tate is fussy, being outside really helps. There he was crying, so we thought they had had to resort to going outside to calm him down. Well, turns out he had been great the whole time, but right when we drove by Tate hit his face against Heather's collar bone, which was why he was crying. It was perfect timing. We are so grateful Heather wanted to watch him, because we had a great time together!

Another reason why this weekend was so great is Tate only woke up once last night! He woke up at 1:30 and didn't wake up until 7:15. I woke up at 6:30, but I got a good solid 5 hours straight. That's one of the longest stretches I've gotten in a long time. Way to go Tate!

To top it all off, tonight we went to Josh's parents house and had dinner with Heather and her family, Kristin, and Grandma and Grandpa Clark. It was really fun. Heather made these awesome taquitos. Grandma and Grandpa Clark made amazing salsa (I love good salsa). Kristin made these super delicious peanut butter oatmeal bars that I am really excited to make (they only have honey, PB, and oats). And we brought Tate! It was fun to see everyone. Jessica, Josh's cousin was there too, and she got to hold Tate a lot. Tate was great. I had a really fun time. I am so bummed I didn't take any pictures! In August, Josh's mom's side is having a family reunion, so tonight got me super pumped for that!

Tate and I are going to Georgia on Wednesday. We are really excited! And when we get home Josh's family will be home from Europe, which we are also really excited about! We have missed them. But Josh's sister Carlie posts pictures on Facebook, so whenever she posts new ones, we sit and go through them all together. When we found out we were going to have a baby, we drove up to Josh's family's house to tell them. At that point we were probably going to go on this Europe trip. But when we told Josh's parents I was pregnant, one of the first things Doug said was "what about Europe!" And that's when we found out we probably weren't going to Europe anymore. We are excited to have them back.

On Friday I stopped by Jen's office to pick up something from Coach. Jen is the head coach at BYU (soccer), Coach is her assistant coach, and Aleisha is another assistant coach. It was fun to see them. Their season is coming up in a week and I have seen the girls practicing on their own, getting ready for preseason double days to start. It makes me really miss soccer. I loved preseason. It's just playing soccer for hours and hours everyday. It was really, really hard, but I loved it. I love playing soccer and I miss playing super competitive soccer everyday. But to be honest, I would rather be where I am now.