Last Weekend of Maternity Leave

Today was the day I'd been dreading since Allie was born: the day I had to leave her and go back to work. The good part is Luke's home all this week, and we've worked it out where Allie will not be in daycare at all through the end of the year! Makes me feel a little better about returning to a different kind of adult responsibility.

Work was good, busy as expected. Luckily I had only 15 voice mails to come back to, and I kept up with my email all throughout my leave. Good thing, too, otherwise I'd likely have had thousands. I kinda missed listening to the voice mails, even the crazy ones. Today we had a guy call and tell us he was at fault in an accident and he didn't feel it was fair he was ticketed because with all the other trauma that goes with accidents, a ticket is salt in the wound. He rear-ended someone, no injuries, that's it. Also had a lady want us to find her husband, who had been released from prison but hadn't come home. Listening to the voice mails and reading through the emails we get at work definitely makes me feel super normal and super blessed in my life. I'm very lucky.

Since this week was our last home as a family, Luke and I took Allie up Little Cottonwood Canyon on Friday morning for some fresh air, fall colors and a little 3 mile hike to Albion Basin. This is right behind Alta Ski Resort, and the basin is part of the resort. You can see the chair lift. The trail actually starts at the end of a 2 mile dirt road that's now closed for the winter. Apparently this is also a popular snowshoe trail, which we might have to try once the snow really flies. There was some snow at the top of the canyon, which I didn't really expect or think about when I picked the hike. Made for chilly weather, but not too bad. All three of us were prepared.

We are definitely out of shape, as we didn't make it to the actual basin, but nonetheless it was a really pretty hike. We saw some brilliantly blue birds, deer tracks, and a vulture. It was nice and quiet since it was a weekday morning, and the sun helped warm us in our upward trek. Here are the photos:

Unfortunately we were about 3 weeks late to see the area really in color, but the mouth of the canyon was absolutely ablaze in golds, reds, and orange. Allie did great, only got fussy once. That was an experience to feed her sitting on a rock in 45 degree weather with Luke as a lookout for passers by. She likes to travel in the wrap, warm and snug next to Momma. The walking puts her right to sleep, though all the way down she cooed with every step. 

Saturday was pretty lazy. That night we celebrated Great-Grandma Barbara's birthday with some pizza, salad, and I made a homemade angel food cake with whipped cream and strawberries. We stayed to watch the Utes get beat by Arizona, which was heartbreaking because we really could have won that game. It was a late night, but a fun one. Happy Birthday Grandma!

Sunday, I felt bad that I had really done not a lot on the house my entire maternity leave. It's kinda hard to do much when all Allie wants to do is hang out in your arms. And all I want to do is let her. So I spent the day cleaning, getting the house ready for me to go back to work, and pushing through the laundry while Luke watched Allie all day. I got about half of what I wanted to done and almost all the laundry finished, but the good news was today the maids came and finished the bulk of what I had left to do. Just need to get the bedroom in order this week and maintain the nice clean house. It was so great to come home from work today and find the dining room completely spotless and de-cluttered! This had been our catch-all room since we put in the new carpet months ago. I can finally see the dining room table again, and what's better, use it! I'm thinking it's puzzle time this weekend...of course a lot of that stuff went into the spare bedroom and garage, so we still have some work to do on REALLY de-cluttering. It's definitely necessary before it gets too cold out to work in the garage. Our house is so little, we really need to get rid of a lot.

Luke picked up La Frontera for dinner on Sunday night so I didn't have to make it, which is always so nice. This morning was really hard to get up and say goodbye to Allie Bear for the day. My boss told me she cried for two hours when she had to do it, so I got lots of sympathy at work. I might have to have Luke bring her by the office one afternoon this week to visit. Luke says Allie was great just him and her, had plenty of milk, and they had fun watching Netflix, talking baby talk, and snoozing.

Well, it's 3:30am, and I should definitely be asleep so I'm not a zombie in the morning, but you know how this "up to feed and pump" thing goes. Back to the grind!