Author: Cami Grace

Currently – July 2023

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It’s the end of the last day of July, but I made it! Life certainly looks different since the last time I made one of these posts! Gryffin joined flag football this year, so the past couple months were spent watching him play on Saturday mornings, then we would grab a late breakfast/early lunch and hit up garage sales around our area just to be out and about for a bit longer. Flag football is now over but we’ve still been enjoying the garage sales!

In addition, and on a random side note regarding work, I have also been job hunting. My remote position is coming to an end and it couldn’t be a more bitter sweet situation. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s ahead and seeing this as a new adventure, but it’s obviously stressful. I’m finding the job market to be a bit competitive, so it’s proving to be a little bit tricky. However, I KNOW God has a plan for me and He’s got his hand on this.

Anyway, with that bit of information, here’s what else we’ve been up to.

Currently Watching

“Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend” on Netflix.


via GIPHY

Season 1, episode 2 is one my favorites! I don’t think I’ve really cared or rooted for someone so much on the show. I’ve only watched 3 episodes in the last month, but it’s been a nice break from COUNTLESS episodes of Bluey and Baby Shark.

Currently Reading

“Help, I’m Drowning” by Sally Clarkson

I have been slowly making my way through this book since last year…and I mean sloooowly – mostly because I’m so exhausted from having a little one. I have so appreciated this book and her perspective, insight, and brutal honesty.

Currently Making/Baking

Italian Pasta!

This is such a good summer meal as it’s perfect for those hot summer days that you don’t want to be over a stove for a long period of time. It’s cool, refreshing, and tasty!

All you do is boil the pasta, drain and rinse with cold water, and throw all the below ingredients together! You can also add or remove any ingredients you prefer. I don’t measure exactly, just however much feels right to you.

  • Tri-Colored Pasta (I use garden vegetable pasta)
  • Cubed Ham
  • Pepperoni
  • Salami
  • Pepper Jack Cheese (or whatever cheese you prefer)
  • Tomatoes
  • Olives
  • Pepperoncini
  • Italian Dressing of your choice (I love Olive Garden’s dressing the best)

Current Favorite

This amazing, cozy, comfortable $20 garage sale find! I still can’t get over this! I never go into garage sales with any sort of expectation, but I cannot tell you how many times I’ve thought about having a cute little reading chair for my office. What a fun surprise this was to see!

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I hope you all are having a wonderful summer! I would love to know what you all are up to!

Much love,

Cami

2023 Summer Bucket List

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I’m trying to wrap my mind around the fact we’re nearing the end of July! I mean what?!?! Thank goodness I’m realizing this now because we have a lot of fun we need to catch up on before the summer slips by.

We have some traditional items on our list but also some new fun added too! So here we go!

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I hope you all are having a wonderful summer!

Much Love,

Cami

Introducing Our Little Miss

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Playing catch up for a year and half worth of changes isn’t easy, but here we are. This one right here was the biggest and best change of them all!

This pregnancy was difficult in just about every way possible. I can’t say that I recommend packing up and moving states while being 6 months pregnant. Also, on top of that, beginning at 20 weeks I was in a lot of pain as she was positioned so far forward that just about any movement from her felt like daggers moving across my stomach. There were a few times I wondered if we were having a baby vampire instead of a human, haha. However, she still won my heart and she helped me get through the isolation that is felt when you move to a new city and you don’t know anyone.

I thought for sure this little one was going to make her appearance on her brother’s birthday, but thankfully she decided to snuggle back in and wanted to stay a while longer. Thanks to my age and previous complications they induced me on her due date (yay!). She was born just over 7 pounds and was sooo quiet and peaceful. I had a bit of trauma post delivery but thankfully I’m alive and everything turned out ok – I will spare details.

Coming home felt so good and it was the sweetest seeing big brother meet her for the first time! He adores her!

Now over a year later and she has grown so much and is sweet, silly, sassy and smart! Here she is being fashionable and cheering on her brother at flag football. :)

We can’t imagine life without this little one!

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Upcoming Posts: “Summer Bucket List” and a “Currently” update!

Thank you for reading!

Much Love,

Cami

Did You Miss Me?! I’m Back!

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First of all – hello!!!  I’ve taken many blogging breaks in the past but this by far is the loooongest.  I tried a couple times before now to write a post but major life events kept rolling in and it’s taken me a long time to get back to a place I can write again. In some ways I feel like the current “me” is shaking hands and making acquaintance with the 18 months ago “me” because just so much has changed.

I could write a novel for everything that has gone down the past year and a half, but to speed things up I made bullet points, which sums everything up pretty well. Unfortunately by doing so you miss out on the “touchy, feely” details of all this and I don’t think you can quite grasp the fully understanding of just how deep, agonizing, stressful, yet also joyful and exciting these past months of our life have been.

I’m going to back up where I left off to the summer of 2021. If you had been following along with my blog at that time you knew that Mikey, my husband, had been going back to school. We knew there had been a *slight* chance that we could potentially have to move in order for him to get a job in his field, but with so many hospitals around, we really weren’t expecting that to happen.

Well, God clearly had other plans. Welcome to the summary of the past 18 months…

  • Mikey finished school in June and graduated (yay!!)
  • Mikey got an internship at one of the local hospitals (yay again!)
  • The last month of his internship I found out I was pregnant with baby #2 (yay!)
  • There was only one Bio-Medical position posted at the end of the internship in August…ONE
  • Mikey interviewed, but he did not get the position and was informed he was a close second. Obviously, second is close but not close enough
  • Mikey then applied to multiple places in Washington and Oregon (insert agonizing waiting game here)
  • A hospital in Salem, OR reached out to Mikey and requested an in person interview, which turned into a 3 hour interview and he was offered a job that same afternoon! (skipping a lot of details here, but again, for times sake I’m moving things along)
  • November 1st, he accepted the job (I was now 4 months pregnant)
  • 3 weeks later we listed our house on the market and we accepted an offer the week after Thanksgiving
  • 2 weeks later, in the middle of December, we moved to Oregon – leaving behind family, close friends, a daycare we trusted, the kindergarten I “knew” Gryffin was going to attend the following year, a church that we were finally becoming involved in, and 10 years worth of memories
  • 2 weeks after moving into a townhome in Salem, we found a beautiful home in a city nearby that we fell in love with and put an offer on. We were accepted on Christmas day! Truly a miraculous gift!
  • 2 months later we moved into our new home
  • All while we were adjusting to our new life in Oregon, I was busy still working full-time with my 4 year old at home because there were no openings in any daycares (I was able to keep my job and work remotely for the same company I had been with, which was a huge answer to prayer), and I was also trying to figure out new doctors and insurance because I would soon be approaching my 3rd trimester – talk about majorly stressful. Obviously, this all got worked out.
  • 1 month before the baby was due, we got to finally move into our new home
  • 1 week after moving I was able to get Gryffin into a wonderful preschool in our new city!
  • Our little bundle of joy arrived, unfortunately I had pretty bad complications post birth, but thankfully everything turned out ok in the end. Let’s just say I highly regret not getting the blood transfusion.
  • The next 2 months I mostly spent on the couch or in bed, snuggling and around the clock feeding the baby, of course. I couldn’t be more thankful my mom was there to keep everything afloat!!
  • After 3 months I went back to work with a baby at home because we couldn’t find another daycare for an infant (eek! Probably the most stressful time of my life)
  • Gryffin started Kindergarten in the fall
  • Holiday season (because every knows that’s a hurdle to get through every year)
  • Birthday season (Gryffin’s and our baby’s birthday are only 1 week apart!)
  • Easter
  • Gryffin graduated Kindergarten (how is my first baby a first grader now!)
  • Here we are and Summer has commenced!

A year and a half later and we’re finally coming out of the shell shock of it all. Looking back we can see God’s hand in all the details and we are in awe of all the blessings along the way.

I don’t have a posting schedule yet but I’m glad to be back! It feels good to be here. Posts to come will be a “Currently” life update (which of course will be an appearance of our little miss), and an updated Summer Bucket List, of which I really need to get on since we’re already well on our way into Summer! I’m also happy to take down post requests too!

If you’ve been following along for any amount of time, I’m thankful you’re still here and happy to “see” you again! If you’re newly reading along, welcome!

I hope you are all doing well.

Much Love,

Cami

2021 Summer Bucket List – Recap!

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I realize the timing of this post could be better (like, a month ago, ha), but I know you’ve just been on the edge of your seat waiting to know what we did this summer ;) This summer ended up being another strange one for us. We are in a time of what feels like a major transition in our family (more on that another time) so we didn’t do quite as many things as I had planned for this summer…and that’s ok.

So while we only got to maybe half our list, we still made the most of it! Here’s everything we checked off…

Food & Drink

  • Make cherry pie bars

Yes! I finally made these! These were on my Pinterest board for far too long without trying it. I personally still prefer classic cherry pie, but it’s fun to switch it up.

  • Make peach cobbler

No picture, sadly. I made these last month and unfortunately used a different recipe. The peach filling tasted good, but it didn’t turn out like what I’m used to. I’ll just have to make it again using the right recipe. :)

  • Have a BBQ

Yes! We bought a grill! No pictures to show on this one either, but we made burgers, salmon, ribs, and so much more. We were very happy.

  • Make a cheesecake

Yes! My husband’s birthday lands during the summer and he loves cheesecake. I used a classic cheesecake recipe and topped it with chopped Ferrero Rocher chocolates and drizzled it with chocolate sauce. It was delicious! Again, no picture. I am really not very good at food photography and the picture didn’t look appetizing, so I’m sparing you. I promise it tasted good!

Out & About

  • Go to a farmers market

Yes! I honestly didn’t think we were going to make it to one again this year, but we did! It was a small market, but it was fun to get out and buy local, fresh fruit and goodies. This is where I bought the peaches to make the cobbler. It was pretty fun!

  • Visit a new park

Yes! There is small park a short drive from where we live that we had never been before. We went back a couple times since it was so close. :)

  • Try a new restaurant

Yes! I mentioned in my last post that we were introduced to a modern French bakery close by. We love it!

  • Go to a splash pad

Yes! We actually went to a couple different splash pads. I was so relieved they were open this year! It was fun to run around, dry off, and then head out for ice cream after. Pretty much the perfect way to spend any summer afternoon.

Fun in the Sun

  • Have a water balloon fight

Yes! No picture to show for it, but we had a big family get together and all the cousins got to have a big water balloon fight. Super fun!

  • Plant flowers

Yes! Thank you to my sweet neighbor friend, she had given me her extra flowers that she didn’t have room enough to plant. I ended up filling a few planters I had laying around and put them on my deck to enjoy. They lasted through most of the summer. Sadly, it got so hot outside that they scorched toward the end of summer. Poor flowers. I definitely plan to plant more next year.

While it’s too late to take a picture of them now, you can see a tiny glimpse of one little flower pot in the background (plus who doesn’t want to see a picture our sweet Kahlua : ).

Rain or Shine

  • Pajama movie night

Yes! This is an easy given, because every Friday is technically pajama movie night for us :)

  • Play a new board game

Yes! Ok, well, it’s a card game, but we got Gryffin the “Eye Found it” Disney game.

He’s really good at it and beats us half the time!

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That wraps up what we did this summer! Some of the things on the list that didn’t get done were out of sheer laziness, while others didn’t because, quite honestly, I became really sick at the end of summer and just couldn’t get to everything I had hoped for. There’s always next year, right?!

I do plan to do a Fall Bucket List, so stay tuned for that!

I hope you all are having a wonderful Fall so far!

Much Love,

Cami