Yuma Adventures & Celebrating 11 Years of Marriage

Nick and I celebrated our 11 year wedding anniversary on May 31. If you're new this little space of the internet, you can read all about our love story here. Ask anyone who knew either of us 11 years ago if they thought we'd last. People laughed at us and told us we were crazy.

It was hurtful, but I didn't blame them. We barely knew each other when we got married, and statistically speaking, we were doomed. But through each year that passes, I always think to myself, "that's another year down, haters."

If you know us well or have followed this blog for the last decade, you know our struggles well. I've been open and honest about our struggles on here in hopes that others realize that what you see on social media is never the full story. When our marriage was at its' rock bottom, I threatened to leave Nick and move back to Texas with both kids. He was more than willing to buy us a one way plane ticket back to my home state. It was bad. Praise Jesus for my mom who refused to let her 29 year old daughter move back into her house with 2 kids. We were forced to work it out, and neither of us did it quite willingly either. And....

It was a long journey...that included lots of therapy, church counseling, and prayer. I literally had days where I locked myself in my room, fell to my knees, and just sobbed...begging God to just fix my marriage.

But here we are! 11 years later. We still annoy each other some days. There are days that I pick fights just because I'm in a bad mood. We are complete opposites which means it's hard to find things we agree on. But we also have some of the most amazing life adventures together. I thank God every day for the big and little blessings he has given us.

In 11 years, we have:

So much life lived in just 11 years, and I have no doubt the Marine Corps will keep the next chapter of our lives just as full of adventure.

This year, we decided to do a "staycation", and discover some fun things about Yuma together. Yuma is a very small community, and from the outside looking in, there isn't a whole lot to do here. We wanted to stay local and find Yuma's "hidden gems". We got an overnight sitter for our kids (thanks to the Aggie network!), and ventured out to Yuma.

We ended up in downtown Yuma for dinner at a local craft brewery, Prison Hill Brewing Company. They have typical "bar food", which is right up Nick's alley. Give that man a nice burger and sweet potato fries, and you have one happy devildog. It sucks that Nick can't drink beer due to the development of an unfortunate allergy to hops. We still ended up enjoying some really good drinks and food there. The highlight of our meal there was fried avocado. It came with an amazing dipping sauce, and something I'll definitely go back for.

Dowtown Yuma

I had their signature Bloody Mary, and Nick had a jack and coke 

I'm sad I didn't get a photo of the amazing fried avocado, but I did snap a photo of this amazing  Southwest Bandito Salad. What sold me was the roasted poblano pepper (I LOVE Poblano) and the roasted corn it was topped with. It came with a creamy Chipotle dressing that was AMAZING.

Yuma is home to two Indian reservations (the Quechan and the Cocopah reservations), and both reservations have recently opened up a casino and resort. We headed to the Cocopah where Nick booked us a room (the Quechan supposedly is better, but it was completely booked). We figured, since we're in Yuma, we should at least check out a casino and do some legal gambling! Nick and I are NOT gamblers, but we figured it'd be a lot of fun to sit at the penny slots and try our luck. Our room at the casino was really clean, but nothing special. They don't offer room service, or anything you'd expect at a Hilton. It was nice though. The casino is downstairs, and like most casinos, it smelled like cigarettes and booze (gross). We each had $100, and found the penny slots.

The highlight of our night was me winning $400! I NEVER WIN. We cashed out, and decided to call it a night. I don't think hitting up the local casinos here in Yuma will be a regular date night for us, but it was still fun to do together (Yuma bucket list item). I may head back to the Cocopah with my kids one of these days to tour the museum.

The last thing I wanted to do for our anniversary staycation was to hike Telegraph pass together. Telegraph pass is a popular local hiking trail. We've taken our children there plenty of times, but have never made the trek all the way to the top. It's a 5 mile hike, and takes about 3 hours. It's extremely steep, and weren't sure our kids could make it to the top. It was the perfect way to end our staycation in Yuma. We woke up early the next morning, had breakfast at the hotel, and headed to the trail.

Some facts about Telegraph Pass

Because no adventure is complete without an Aggie ring picture

Story about this photo. A random hiker saw us taking this photo on the trail. He ended up following us down the trail. Later that evening, Nick got a random Facebook friend request and a message from the stranger. He had seen Nick's name tape on his camelback, and looked Nick up. He is an Aggie grade stationed here in Yuma, and has kids the same age as ours. Such a small world we live in!

We had so much fun on our little local staycation. The best part was just having that time together to reconnect as a couple without the distractions of our kids.

When people ask us, "What's your secret?", I never have a great answer.

But I will say, the ONLY constant and consistent thing our marriage has always been God. I think there's something to that...

"Mom'ing" in the Summer

You know it's summer, because this blog has been neglected. With both kids home all day long, my days seem to leave little to no free time for myself. Even with my days a little busier, I still feel like my kids are having a little too much screen time for my liking. But things like laundry (oh, the never ending laundry) have to get done whether my kids are home all day or not. So some days, I spend 3 hours folding and putting away laundry (I'm not even kidding y'all...3 HOURS), and my kids get a free for all when it comes to screen time. It's called balance, right?

Summer is always an interesting time for a stay at home mom. I feel like it's a true test of our abilities as a mother. Are we truly capable of caring for our school aged children all day long without completely losing our minds? I can answer that for myself. No. I'm not capable.

 I lose my cool with my kids more times in one day than I am willing to admit out loud. I oftentimes find myself at the end of a very long day wishing I would have been a little more "fun", a little more "grace-filled", and wishing I wouldn't have been so hard on my kids. Let's face it though, in the heat of the moment when my kids are fighting with each other, tattling on each other, and whining to me about being hungry or bored or whatever they are, it's really tough for me to not be completely overwhelmed. That's usually when I lose it, and I'm not always proud of it. Praise the Lord for grace and mercy, amiright?

The other day, I did manage to stop myself before saying something unkind to my children. I got in my bathing suit, and just lounged in our pool for 20 minutes while I gathered my thoughts. Once I was calmed down, I felt more in control of my erratic "mom emotions", and in turn was more more pleasant for my kids.

Sometimes, you just need some water, a floppy hat, and some quiet time to gather your thoughts.

Oh yeah, our pool is finally finished! Hallelujah! It literally feels like it took forever, but the pool company finished it just in time for summer. The temperatures are averaging in the 100s these days, so it's a nice reprieve from the heat. It also gets my kids out of the house and off their screens, so that is also a nice added bonus. My backyard is also slowly coming together as a nice place for me to hang out. Shout out to Nick for tirelessly working and building things for me.

I don't want to ever hear from Nick that I don't help maintain the pool...

Not sure if this little boomerang video will even load, but if it does...

I got a TON of compliments on this striped one piece bathing suit. I got it several years ago, and thought I lost it. But through moving and unpacking, it mysteriously appeared out of thin air! These days, I am enjoying rocking a cute one piece more often than a two piece. I'm trying to teach my daughter about modesty, and it's hard to be doing that when mama's hanging out of her bathing suit all the time. 

A few months ago, we got 6 baby chicks that are now hens. We named them Opha Mae, Dixie, Lydi, Kimchi, Presley, and Aggie. One of them (we think its Lydi) laid her first egg this week! We're excited for all of our hens to start laying. We are going to be using the opportunity to teach our kids about entrepreneurship and giving!

This is me and Lydi (the suspected egg layer)

I started a new devotional this week called "Children--A Gift and a Responsibility". It's a free devotional I found on YouVersion, and so far, I am really enjoying it. It literally takes me 5 minutes a day, and let's face it, during these summer months, even just 5 minutes with Jesus can restore your sanity.

There's a lot I need to blog about and catch up on. Nick and I recently celebrated our 11 year anniversary, and got to do some really fun things here in Yuma. I think that's what I'll post about next! Other than that, I hope summer is going well for everyone. I thought I'd end this blog with a quote that I found this week on Facebook that lade me chuckle...

"Don't worry about me. Worry about your eyebrows."