Hello, it's Me

I often get depressed when I blog hop, everyone's life seems so perfect. Then I realize that my life probably comes off the same way. Most blogs are all about holidays, birthdays, vacations, and cute babies. My friend Kristi and I were discussing this one day at lunch and I was inspired to open up a little more. I use this blog as a journal and one day hope Andrea will appreciate the few things I wrote about. But I also want her to know that our life wasn't perfect, so I'm hoping to become a little more realistic.
First confession... depression. Being a stay-at-home Mom is so difficult emotionally. I know it's just a small moment in time, and I know it's best for Andrea, and that is why I do it but it would be so much easier to send her to a day care while I get paid and get some adult interaction. It's surprising when I talk with other stay-at-home Mothers and hear how many of them are on anti-depressants. I've been there, and don't want to do that again, so I guess the result is a lot of days that leave me crying at the drop of a hat. After a year of staying home full time, these day are getting farther in between and I'm adjusting to our routine and lifestyle. I think the cause for my depression is the feeling that I am a nobody. Most days no one calls me, no one even sees me. If it weren't for facebook I would feel even more alone. While working I talked with countless co-workers and felt like the job I did was important and necessary, now all the sudden the world keeps turning without me.

Andrea and I have a great relationship, we laugh together, we clean together, we cook together, we understand each other. When I do have those "breakdown" moments she come and gives me a kiss and says "are you happy again?", what can I do but say "of course that makes Mommy happy again!" so the plus of staying at home is to have a close relationship with my daughter. I can't wait til we can go shopping together, to the movies, on vacations...

My entire life growing up I dreamed of being a stay-at-home Mom and all my friends in High School know that I wanted to be a "walking, talking, baby factory". Now that it's all come to reality my dreams have changed. I really can see the benefits of an only child and right now without insurance it really does look like the way to go. So there you have it, a little bit of our real world, as a preview to more down to earth post yet to come.

St George

Last month we were able to go on a fantastic weekend getaway with some of the owners/employees of Ryan's company. Going to St George in March was such a nice break from the winter weather.  We started with some hiking in Zion on Friday afternoon.

Because it was still early spring the crowds hadn't invaded and it was nice to get a parking spot and the hikes weren't crowded. It was, however, colder than we all expected up the canyon so by the third hike we were all borrowing jackets from the only prepared couple Amanda and Chuck.

The Weeping Rock, left to right: Amanda, Chuck, Socorro, Josh, Jeff, Stephanie, Me, Ryan.

The Riverside Walk

Emerald Pools

Zions Park always surprises me with it's beauty, no matter how many times I've been, and seeing it in Spring was a nice change, there was still snow in places and lots of deer on the hikes.

That night we all had a nice dinner in St. George and rested for our next day of golf. Chuck, Amanda, and myself all went to the driving range before our tee time since we hadn't golfed for quite some time. This course was beautiful and had the coolest carts I'd ever seen. Each golf cart had a digital screen telling you the info for each hole: distance, par, your cart's location, and it kept score. The course was beautiful and none of us were prepared for the sun... we were all pretty red after 6 hours.

We played golf scramble style, which is my favorite type, in groups of three. Not only did we play off the best hit out of the group, we also each got one free throw (with each hand), a roll, a kick, three man toss, and 10 sticks of liquorice that could be used to measure the distance from the ball to the hole. So with all those freebies and our great coach Josh, mine and Ryan's team won, which meant we got 2 more cents than the other team :)

This was my golden shot of the day, I got this close to the hole with my drive!

One of my favorite parts of the course were the critters. Jack rabbits were everywhere and so were squirrels who were obviously used to mooching off the golfers.

The rest of the day Saturday was on our own so Ryan and I did some souvenir shopping for Andrea, had a nice dinner, and drove around the town (I really love St. George) dreaming about having a condo of our own there some day.

Sunday on the way home we stopped in Cedar City to visit with Matt (on his birthday, Happy Birthday Matt) and Grandma and Grandpa Baumgartner.

The weekend went by far too quickly, especially since it may be the only vacation we get this year. But I can say that I took in every moment... loved the scenery, the company, the weather, and a full night's sleep with no worry about when Andrea would come in the room saying "watch Mickey".