As of Late...

April has been an interesting and exciting month for us. We have made more and more progress on our apartment, getting closer to that “at home” feeling. We have also spent some time preparing our yard (or I should say patch of grass...and I should also say Jason, not we).  Lately, he has been really interested in starting a small garden, so we have spent some time preparing for that as well.  The plants we have been most interested in are those that can be used to make homemade salsa. We were spoiled last fall by his brother’s family, who supplied some delicious homemade salsa week after week from their garden, and we would love to make some of our own. If we had more room, we would love to plant corn...nothing better than fresh corn on the cob with butter and salt! But that will have to a dream that we live-out in the future. Neither of us really know a whole lot about gardening (especially myself), but we are giving it a try and it has already been a source of joy and excitement for us. There is something satisfying about working on a yard that you can call your own. We have only planted a few things so far, as we are waiting for the appropriate temperature and time of year. Hopefully something will grow and it all won’t be a major disappointment..The only living plant we have had before this was an indoor potted plant from my grandma....and needless to say, it died. So we are crossing our fingers and improving our watering skills. 

Trimming the lawn for the first time

Clearing the spot for our small garden - pre-hoeing and fertilizing

A scary little friend we found right next to our front door...we have yet to catch and kill...so we're a little nervous about that.

I will include pictures of the inside of our apartment in a later post. 

We had some fun birthday celebrations this month: my sister-in-law, April, and her son, Alex. I was able to meet up with April, Nancy, Alex, Elsa, and Mya for lunch to celebrate April’s birthday at Mimi’s Cafe. That was a fun treat! And for Alex’s birthday, the Grubers had the whole family over for a delicious Spaghetti Dinner. I can’t believe Alex is six years old!  We got him one of those cool photo puzzles from Shutterfly...basically it is his own personal puzzle, with a picture of him eating ice cream. Pretty dang cool. 

Lunch at Mimi's Cafe

Alex's Birthday

Ever since announcing my being pregnant, we have had so many friends offer help, showers, gifts, etc. It really has been humbling and appreciated. One of which was a shower/party with the old Vivint Customer Marketing gang. As I have mentioned before, we had a pretty awesome group of friends in Customer Marketing. Many of us are happy to find any excuse to get together. Well, the old team thought a Baby Shower for Baby Gruber would be the perfect opportunity. Christian McDonald planned and hosted a Co-ed Breakfast Baby Shower for Jason and I, and it was so fun! I’m not going to lie, there was a lot of Vivint venting/bashing, but also a lot of good and fun memories. We received some great gifts and it really got us excited for this little boy to finally join us. 

Christian McDonald, Victoria, Christian Hancock, me, Casey, Nick, and Carson

As of a two weeks ago or so, I was moved to part-time at Pixingo. This transition was definitely bittersweet. The workload really was not necessary for a full-time position, as the company is still in “pre-launch” phase. However, it is sad to see the amount of money I expected to earn, before leaving the workforce to be a stay-at-home mom, be cut in half. While that aspect was hard to face, on the other side of things, it has really been nice to be able to leave a few hours early each day. It really does something to rejuvenate you and kicks you into gear to get other things done that day, rather than just get home and want to crash. I have definitely felt more productive, and it has helped combat some of the burn-out I was beginning to feel with slow eight-hour days. All in all, I think it is gradually preparing me for my final days at work. My last day will be June 1st....so one more month to go!