The "Original" Vest's Update

"Original" means pre-Tessa.

It's hard to imagine our life before making this girl our everything, but there was a just us and together we were the ORIGINAL Vest family. And I realized since I got pregnant every post was about that and every one since she was born was all about her (and who could blame me? She is precious. And she did kind of change our entire lives).

Anyway, Mitch and I are doing fantastic! And even though adding a baby to the mix is different, married life is still the greatest thing ever. The other night instead of sleeping we stayed up late talking about "remember when..." moments of our dating, engaged, and early married life. It really only has been two years since we've hitched but I can hardly remember the days pre-Mitch. Kind of like how pre-Tessa sounds much further away than 4 months ago. 

Currently, Mitch is working two jobs and I'm back to work, but only part time. Since we don't have family close it's a juggle trying to get the bills paid and still have one of us home for every hour of the day to be with Tessa. And making it work out that way, it's a rare thing when all three of us are home at once. We still try to get the maximum amount of time we can together out of our crazy schedules, even if it means taking Tessa to visit him at the pool or me staying up uber late until Mitch gets home. Most nights I will even wait to eat dinner that late so we can eat together.

Mitch manages the outdoor, Scera Pool, part time and works full time over at Tahitian Noni--speaking the Chinese language. It was a hard decision, but Mitch decided come BYU graduation in December (one more semester!) he will not do medical school but instead use his Chinese and do business. I, to be completely honest, was ecstatic he decided against the white coat, but what made the decision scary was our lack of a plan for the future. Instead of "graduate BYU, apply to med schools, get accepted and go there, residency somewhere, be done and get a job in CA" it turned to "graduate BYU then......????" 

We have no idea. But upon making the decision, both Mitch and I were sure Heavenly Father would tell us where to go and more specifically, tell Mitch what to be. We have no clue what kind of job he could get, or where it will take us, but I am excited to be moving on to the next chapter of our lives. POST COLLEGE GRADUATION. Which really means...post poor college students with a baby.

My part time gig is actually pretty great. I still work at Center for Change, helping women overcome eating disorders. And since I've been there a little while, I'm on-call for only 2 days a week, and for very specific times of the day, to make sure Mitch is always home when I'm not. The days I'm at work are few and far between that it feels more like a break. And I really love it.

Once school starts, Mitch will stay with Tahitian Noni (or should I say Morinda Bioactives since they changed their name) full time and school full time and I'll keep doing part time. And we'll pray we can make ends meet until graduation and a salary-based job is found.

Having more than one kid seems completely crazy to me right now, not to mention totally impossible. I tip my hat to all the mothers with more than 1 baby. So, no please no more babies for a long while. I know someday I'll look back and say "ah, life with only one baby, how great and easy that was." Except line upon line, that's all I can handle right now.

I still, eventually, want to end up back in California--where we grew up and close to a lot of family. I never thought I'd be one of those wives who said, "I need to live by my family" because every time I heard that I always thought "cut the cord already." But once you have kids, it changes and all I want for her is to grow up with grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles and Sunday dinners and huge family birthday celebrations, etc. etc. It's how Mitch and I grew up and we know how great it was. I know that Mitch and I would be fine away from family, but I want them to be apart of Tessa's life. So, it may not be really soon, but I think it'll be in the cards for us someday.

All in all, our life is great. And I'm so blessed to have a husband that works hard and does everything he can to make his girls happy. 

And here's the very first picture we ever took together, exactly 3 years ago!