rushley & crew

I don't think Russ and I have had a just-the-two-of-us getaway since Ada was born. We've had little family getaways like Park City last November and St. George in May, and Russ and I also got to do Questival in July (without Ada, but that's more adventure-y than getaway-y), but this was our first romantic and connecting getaway in over a year. We weren't even planning to do a getaway -- we were just planning to go to Lagoon. But going to Lagoon and having Granny B be the one to do the babysitting meant that she would have to come in the day before and leave the day after in order for us to do Lagoon all day, so we asked her if she wouldn't mind starting her babysitting a little early, since she'd already be here anyway. She kindly agreed :) We started our getaway by heading up to Salt Lake for dinner. We got a Ruth's Chris gift card at Russ's work Christmas party last year, so we finally used it. We got one steak, mashed potatoes, and brussels ...

Over the weekend, Russ and I celebrated five years of marriage. It is just absolutely crazy to me! In five years we have lived in three different places (though all within a 10- or 20-minute radius), had a combined total of seven different jobs, traveled to fourteen+ different places, and made the most adorable baby on the planet. In five years we have also learned a lot more about ourselves and about each other, and we have grown closer as we've depended on each other during difficult times. We really love being married to each other, and tell each other that nearly every day. We like hanging out, we like finishing home projects (I like it more than him because he's usually the one doing most of the work!), we like obsessing about how cute Ada is, and we like talking about deep and important things. We don't have a lot of common interests, but we're committed to each other, so that doesn't really matter. Maybe someday we'll find some hobbies to do that we...

Russ and I figured it all out before Ada was born -- He would take his one-week paternity leave immediately following her birth and we would have meals from the ward delivered that week. If we got overwhelmed, we could call on my family since they live close, but we mostly just wanted to have some nice time as a new family of 3. The second week, my mom would help out, and the third week, Russ's mom would help out. But when Ada had to stay in the NICU, we reconsidered our plans. I told Russ he could wait to take his leave until she could come home so that he could have more time with her, but he countered that his paternity leave wasn't just about taking care of Ada -- it was about taking care of his family, and that included me. He ultimately decided to stick to his original plan of taking his leave immediately following her birth. It made me feel so loved and special that he thought taking care of me was enough of a reason to use his leave. And truly, I ended up being so g...

Some Background Info Throughout my pregnancy, friends and family would often ask me about my birth plan. The truth was, I didn't really have one, and I definitely didn't put a ton of thought into the one I did have. Mostly, I just figured I wanted a vaginal delivery if possible, and though I was open to trying without an epidural, I figured I would end up getting one. But like I said, this plan wasn't super concrete. This is because I'm diabetic (always, not just when pregnant), and I knew that there was a high likelihood that my plans would be forced to change when delivery time came. I didn't want to get my heart set on any certain way, since there were definitely no guarantees that I'd get that. When I was around 30-35 weeks, I started asking my doctors what they thought my delivery would look like. They kept stalling and saying we'd wait to find out X information at Y appointment before we could make a more concrete plan. At one point, my OB said we w...

Back in June, we didn't really do anything to celebrate our fourth anniversary. I figured we could just do a babymoon and anniversary something-or-other all in one go. I didn't quite know what we'd end up doing, but we finally came to the conclusion that we'd just do a one-night getaway somewhere nearby. Although we would have loved to do something more extensive, Russ really didn't have the time to take off work, and we really didn't have the money for anything extravagant since we've been putting a bunch of money into our yard and water softener (and still have more to spend money on for the yard! Sheesh!). We considered going to the Anniversary Inn because we love going there and hadn't been in over a year , but I just kept thinking about the amazing breakfast buffet that is available at the Little America Hotel so we wound up choosing that instead. We selected the "getaway package," which included the room, an assortment of foods in a ...

I've always had a hard time with Russ's birthday because it's January 3rd, right after all the holiday chaos. It's just hard to devote the proper birthday attention when I haven't had any time to plan or prepare for another event! But Russ was a lucky man this year because he finally got a good celebration-- a 3-day celebration, even! Since his birthday fell on a Sunday (a fast Sunday! [aka a non-eating-except-for-dinner day]), we did most of the celebrating on Saturday.  In the morning, I made a yummy breakfast of french toast, bacon, and hash browns and served them on our  special plate .  After that, we took a pause in the celebrations, because I really wanted to clean the house haha. I had given Russ the option of cleaning together Friday night or Saturday afternoon and so that's just how everything worked out. We weren't too hungry after our big breakfast, so we ended up just having an afternoon snack at Swig. The big thing we did t...

My parents are involved in all sorts of timeshares, so as one of their kids, I'm lucky enough to sometimes reap those benefits! About once/year, they give us a night in Park City, and we get offered all sorts of other weeks but we can't just up and leave work all the time! Haha :) This weekend getaway was especially fun because it had been a while since we'd had a special weekend alone :)  We started out the weekend by eating at a fancy French bistro (Bistro 412) using a restaurant.com deal. The food was expensive but the deal was good, so it worked out :) We got one salad and one meal to share, as well as some mac'n'cheese and fries for our super adult palates ;) Everything was delicious :) Next, we went into a photo gallery on Main Street. It had beautiful photos of outdoor scenes. We couldn't get very good pics though haha :) After that, we went to Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and got some tasty treats. I got an apple pie carme...