Family Life

Christmas Letter 2023

2023 what a year! Lots of amazing things and some not-so-fun things too. It was the year of the virus for me COVID, shingles, and a whole house outbreak of Hand, Foot, and Mouth. Shingles was the worst but thankfully using integrative medicine and cool technology was able to recover from that in about a month. It just made the month of July seem to disappear quick!  But onto the fun stuff! 

January started out with a performance by Sis in the Best Christmas Pageant Ever (postponed from December). And both kids participated in Upward Basketball. Dustin was an assistant coach for Lil Bro’s team. We had surprised the kids for Christmas with a Disney Cruise for January.

There was a “sale” and they had so much fun on the Disney Wish we won in 2022, that we thought they were at the perfect age, so we decided to do it again. We boarded the Disney Dream for their Marvel-themed cruise and it was perfect. It was sailing out of Miami and that was a blast. We stayed the night before the cruise and after the cruise in South Beach.

We loved the Miami vibe and almost felt transported to Barcelona in a way. The kids loved practicing their Spanish with the cab/Uber drivers. We stopped at Disney’s private island in the Bahamas and in Cozumel Mexico. I should probably dedicate a whole post to that trip soon! I probably got COVID on the trip home, but it was mild compared to the first time and we were all good to go for our next trip in early Feb to visit Dustin’s parents in Venice, FL. 

Bro lost his first teeth the first and second night we got to Florida. We enjoyed the warm weather and got some professional pictures on the beach as a family since when I take them it’s hard for me to be in them very much. And I did a fun sunrise photo shoot with the kids in downtown Venice one morning.

We ended the trip heading to Orlando. We spent an afternoon at Blizzard Beach, one of the water parks. It was in the 80’s and we had a waterpark ticket included with our pass! It was a first trip there for the kids. One of our neighbors and friends was going to Magic Kingdom the same day as us which was so fun to hang out with them here, and we also spent a day at Hollywood Studios with the Muir Family. It was so nice.

The kids had a blast and we got on all the rides we wanted. My sister Ashley, a Disney expert, also flew in to spend the two days with us there. We missed a Muir-Hartzler family vacation during the COVID shutdown so this was a sweet time together.. someday we’ll make it a bigger trip! 

March birthdays came and we celebrated the whole month like normal! And Princess K was also the lamb in Charlotte’s web at her school! She has some girls over for her bday, they have such a sweet friendship, and lil bro had a sports party at the rec center with all his friends.

Spring brought soccer for Bro and jump rope team for Sis. I made 2 trips to Orlando in May for the Institute of Functional Medicine and the A4M Spring Congress.  I also made a quick trip in May to visit my friend/colleague Lara in NYC. I hadn’t been since high school which was pre 9-11. I enjoyed visiting the city and getting the full New Yorker experience. We even saw New York, New York on Broadway which was fabulous! Someday I’ll make it back to be in the studio audience for Live with Kelly and Mark. Before we knew it it was the end of the school year, dance recital weekend, and our Puerto Rico Trip! You can read about it here in Part 1 and Part 2. 

We got back from Puerto Rico and were home for 3 days before we headed to Myrtle Beach with the Hall side of the family. It was fun to have everyone together and enjoy the warm weather! We did putt putt, bowling, and Sis even went to a show with Nana. I worked a bit virtually as I could! Self-employment doesn’t allow for a whole month off. 

The Duerr family actually came to Myrtle Beach on our last day to start their family vacation with their parents and we had ice cream with them the last night. We may have had ice cream a few too many nights at a place called Melt in North Myrtle. Highly recommend wipes, they aren’t kidding about the melt part!

We stopped on the way home to visit our friend Adam and our friends Todd and Katie in North Carolina. Adam is a friend of Dustin’s that he talks to daily! They connected years ago at a WordPress event. Todd is a friend from college, they have beautiful twins. 

July came, and we celebrated the 4th of July with Sis walking in the parade with her dance class and fireworks, we had a little dinner at our house too with sparklers! Sis modeled a new romper for a small clothing brand that was perfect for the holiday!

And then Sis started rehearsing for her first musical. She was in Moana at a local theatre. It required her to not miss practices since it was only 8 rehearsals to prepare!

Lil Bro and I made a quick trip to Green River Lake in Kentucky, where my brother-in-law Ryan’s parents have a houseboat.  Bro loved his first tubing experience with his cousins. The Moana performance was outstanding, we were thankful so many friends and family could join! 

Amidst the July fun is when shingles came on, maybe too much travel, maybe stress, maybe COVID triggered or all of the above, but it wasn’t fun. We did still spend a week later in July at the Muirs who live in the same neighborhood we rented a condo in when we lived in Columbus for a little over a year, and so the church we went to during our time there, so the kids joined her crew for VBS at Genoa. We had missed the VBS we normally attend while we were in PR, so it was perfect, the kids enjoyed hanging out together at the house too.

After that, I took the kids to the Hartzlers for a week, and I came home for a little stay-cation for a few days with Dustin. I also got to attend the Global Leadership Summit in the Chicago area with colleagues in the natural products industry. And even saw the Reds play the Cubs from across the way at the Wrigley Rooftops.

The rest of August was pool time, lemonade stands, and back to school, we also took the kids to their first MLB game with the Duerrs to see the Reds vs. the Guardians. Our little guy has become a sports fanatic so he may have been rooting for the away time. (Aka Dad’s team).

The boys also went to Cleveland later in the season for another game with Brian and Ashley. We can’t believe we have a 4th grader and a 1st grader. Sis is spending her time split between two schools again and bro is fully in the Spanish immersion school. Both schools are wonderful and they have wonderful friends. Dustin also traveled to WordCamp US, this year in Washington DC and we visited the Newport Aquarium while he was gone.

September I had a team retreat and conference in Nashville, so that was a blast! Soccer and dance were in full swing as well. This year there weren’t the traditional soccer games but Bro is still enjoying the training and scrimmages that they did have. He’s getting a lot better and scoring goals all the time. We also celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month with their school by walking in the Hispanic Heritage Parade downtown. 

In October we surprised them with a quick trip to Mexico! Thank you Marriott Bonvoy points and Delta miles! This may have been an impulse booking when I was dealing with my summer virus aka it was my reward ha! We had a blast, we all practiced our Spanish (kids better than us) and checked out a new resort that had amazing food, a water park, and perfect weather. The kids said the kids club was better even than a Disney cruise. Sunshine, pool, beach, and guac and chips, and I’m happy. 🙂 We even got to see the solar eclipse.

When we returned to Ohio, we dressed up as an OSU football theme for trunk or treat! We also had a baby shower for my sister Ashley to celebrate her first baby!

November and December blew by… November highlights = work, hand foot and mouth, thanksgiving, hands peeling off, and a NEW NEPHEW! My little sister Ashley had her first little one on the 27th. 

In December Lil bro won tickets to his first NFL game! He and Dustin got to see the Bengals take on the Colts at Paycor Stadium. Basketball started again and this year Dustin is coaching the 1st grade boys, who are doing pretty well! Bro has good hustle and really enjoys it!  Sis is finishing up tumbling classes and still dancing.  She also is playing basketball on a team of girls from her school.

I took a quick trip to Las Vegas for an integrative and functional medicine meeting and they surprised me with shiplap and new mirrors in our master bath! Something we thought we’d do 5 years ago when we moved in! 

So all in all 2023 was a great year with a few hiccups related to the immune system ha, but good thing I know a thing or two about supporting that! We went to Mexico twice! (It was a cruise stop too), Bahamas (on the cruise), Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Carolinas as a family. Dustin even made it to Spain and Costa Rica on work trips! He is still working for Automattic and I am self-employed, I own PharmToTable, LLC which runs PharmToTable.Life and FxMedCE.com, and launching a new clinic/business next year with my mentor and business partner at ProferoTeam.

Stay tuned for a new website at IntegrativeMetabolicCenter.com, we are starting an integrative endocrine practice right here in Centerville. We will manage diabetes both type 1 and type 2 as well as help with weight loss, hormone imbalances, and thyroid conditions all from a food-first and root cause approach. We do this currently on our virtual team, but bringing an in-person option and adding in the diabetes technology is going to be fun! 

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We are so thankful for our friends, family, and community we have across the country and thankful that God has put each of you on our journey! I marvel at the Lord’s handiwork in our community and the people we get to do life with. May the Lord’s peace be in your hearts this Christmas as we celebrate our Savior’s birth! 

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico Part 2

After spending 3 nights in San Juan we packed up to head to the east side of the island.  We wanted to try out some local coffee so we first stopped at 787 coffee , it was so good and the vibe was fun! Their iced coffee came in a bag. We were heading to Palmas Del Mar and decided to do a Walmart pick up order in Humacao. This was maybe the best decision of the whole trip because it was MADNESS! Our friends that live in Palmas said that Walmart there is always crazy but we had no idea. Just think your Costco or Walmart at home when a snow storm is coming or the Saturday before Thanksgiving.. apparently that’s the norm! I did go in for some apples because they substituted Gala apples and who eats those LOL. I risked it for some Fuiji and survived ha!

 

We got to our condo in Palmas, it was very nice, we had a view of the golf course from the master/balcony and the upstairs rooms could see the ocean from across the street. It had a master bedroom downstairs, and then 2 bedroom upstairs. The only issue was the air conditioning was broken in the kids room but it was running a bit and they did ok. Thankfully they did compensate us a bit on the rate for the inconvenience. It had everything we needed, laundry, beach chairs, pool tools, etc. The only thing was that the pool had very specific rules and when we got there an attendant read us our rights! Apparently if there got to be a certain number of people we were only allowed 2 chairs and so many people in the pool, it was sort of comical because hardly anyone was there. Beach is nice but has lots of Sargassm covering it so not really useable. The kids enjoyed the pool even though the water was very very warm and almost wasn’t refreshing but again it was a heat wave. We made a pasta dinner in the condo and the kids enjoyed planning video games. 

The next day (Day 5 if you are keeping track) we explored Las Palmas a bit! Glen tried to get coffee walking to a restaurant and shopping area, but the restaurant changed names and was confusing but we found lattes at the hotel. If you are an AirBNB/VRBO host, the best thing you should do this year is get a Nespresso and milk frother instead of a Keurig ha! Your guests will appreciate you. 🙂

Dustin went back to Walmart and had go in for exchanges but it wasn’t as crazy. After he got back we checked out the little trail through the Pterocarpus Forest area. Then we went to a farrmers market they were having, it didn’t have a lot of produce but more craft vendors.  The girls got some homemade jewelry. Dustin and I got some Guava Sangria (it was super yummy!). The kids had been watching some different kids YouTube videos, so they spent some time inside making their own “YouTube videos” One of the twins is so excited for Dustin to make a video with our footage and make her a YouTube star! 

We enjoyed some outdoor time at the beach across the street but since the beach had lots of Sargassm, we didn’t expect to stay long but the kids lasted longer than expected digging a tunnel through it. Of course a few days later I saw in some places people were getting sick from it in other places.. whoops parenting fail! 

We went to the pool again, this time the guy with the rules wasn’t there, ha! After swimming we made tacos for dinner in the condo. Overall Las Palmas was very nice, but tennis and other things in the resort community were very expensive especially with 9 people. 🙂

After dinner, maybe the highlight of the trip for the kids was we got to visit with a friend of Dustin’s named John who runs is an entrepreneur and podcaster that Dustin connected with in his Podcast Movement days.  Their home was stunning and the backyard was a dream.  Jon and Kate’s dog Gus was even very excited to hang with the kids! Later we asked the kids their favorite thing so far and they all said John’s house! We finished the day with ice cream in the room with chocolate chips. Glad our friends love ice cream as much as us! #vacationmode  (and yes I coordinated their swim suits #photogmomlife) The sunset was also on fire!

On day 6, we set out for a tour of the coffee plantation at at Hacienda Munez but I took the address from their website, which was not their physical address and it took us up a BIG BIG hill and we had to turn around and come back down. It was basically like the trek from Black River to Ginger Hill in Jamaica but maybe some more houses. (IYKYK) We did find the coffee plantation but missed the tour but had some yummy coffee and treats. 

Then we tried to go to Seven Seas Beach near Farjardo, but there was a traffic jam and a million people at the beach so we grabbed our peanut butter sandwiches from the trunk and passed them to the car in the back and headed back to Luquillo which still had some parking. But as mentioned in Part 1, it was drastically different than the vibe from Thursday. There had to have been over 1,000 people there, there were two charter buses when we got there plus a full parking lot. We made the best of it and still enjoyed some sun, calm waters and found some shade under a palm tree. 

We found El coqui for Kellen, at the row of stores, one store was called Coqui Souvenirs. This is a frog native to Puerto Rico. The term “coqui” refers to the sound of the call produced by males to attract females and repel other males during mating season. After grabbing a few souvenirs, we headed back to our place at Palmas Del Mar. The crew raced against the clock to take some photos before sunset. We had pizza and put some really tired kiddos to bed. 

The next day, we headed back to San Juan so we were closer to the airport for our flights home. We spent our last night at the Residence Inn San Juan Isla Verde, which was relatively new and cute. It had a splash park in the pool area, games, and a nice pool. We could tell the kids were tired, they may have had some disagreements, but all in all they all did so well and we were so thankful all of us stayed healthy! Our last dinner we met our friends from college Kyle and Lori to catch up. Kyle teaches at the pharmacy school in San Juan. It was so great to see them, it’s amazing how when you spend 5 years with people in a community like college, you just pick up conversations like that was yesterday and not 14 years ago! 

This trip was a blast, we are all dreaming up the 2025 double family trip! Next summer we each have some fun plans, we are taking an Alaskan Cruise with my business and exploring the state of Washington a bit! And they are heading to England!

This trip would not have been possible this year without travel hacking.Here is the travel hacking breakdown for those that are interested! 

Marriott Points transferred to Frontier 195,000 Points + $88 in cash for taxes. (Total for 4 round trip tickets). This probably alone saved $1,000 based on the airfare prices we were seeing. Which is in line with the value of Marriott points. The schedules for Frontier are suboptimal and we did need to spend a night on the way there at MCO but one of our friends had an expiring free nights certificate we were able to use! Otherwise that would have been ~25K more Marriott points.

Embassy Suits by Hilton San Juan, 3 nights for 175,790 Hilton points

VRBO we shared cost $713 per family (I know not popular in the Chase rewards community, but we redeemed cash back to cover our portion, we had already taken a big trip in January so we needed this to be as much covered with points as possible) 

Residence Inn San Juan – Used 1 free night certificate for 1 room and the other room was 34K Marriott points. 

We did use some chase points that we had left to bring down the price of the rental car.  

So all in all our main out of pocket was the rest of the rental car/gas ~200 and food, and 2 checked bags on frontier. So I think we did it all for less than $1,000! 

If you need a referral to one of these great travel cards, you know where to find me. 🙂 

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico Part 1

We had the opportunity to travel with friends this summer to Puerto Rico!  Dustin and I had been to San Juan for a few days prior to a cruise with our friends Matt and Melissa back in 2012, which seems like forever ago! As you know we love exploring Hispanic culture and our kids are learning Spanish through Spanish immersion. We do our best to keep up by learning with Duolingo. I, Melody am definitely the worst since I took French in high school, yes Mom, I do regret it. 🙂 

This time we are exploring with our friends Glen and Rebecca and their 3 beautiful kiddos. It’s a funny story in our friendship, that they were friends with another couple we were friends with at ONU that went to church with them in the Akron area, and then when Glen came to work at Cedarville in 2011, we found them at new faculty orientation and the rest is history! The kids have not known life without them! 

We arrived in San Juan during a heat wave. San Juan is hot, but it was so hot the hotels were warning of the heat and it was basically like walking outside into a sauna, 98+ degrees. We got the shuttle to our rental car, which we ended up booking on Chase points (yay traveling hacking!). Then we headed to our hotel at the Embassy Suites San Juan Hotel and Casino. We were able to book all 3 nights on Hilton points.  It was a nice hotel that had a full breakfast included (even omelets), the pool area was super fun for the kids, but just a little hard for parents to keep a close eye on because of all the plants, waterfalls, etc. But we spent many nights following them around. These kids love to swim!

When we visited in 2012 we ate at a place called Metropol San Juan, so we headed there for an authentic Puerto Rican lunch. This was our first introduction to Mofongo Rellenos. Basically, mashed plantains stuffed with different types of meat. A little reminiscent of a Thanksgiving leftover mash ha! But very yummy for the tired travelers. We walked back to the hotel and swam at the pool the rest of the evening, and since we had a big lunch, we all enjoyed some ice cream bars  & protein bars from CVS in place of dinner.

Day 2 was our day to explore Old San Juan. I started with a coffee and while I grabbed a latte (despite the 98-degree temps), Dustin found a place to park, then the rest of the crew met Pedro who was insistent on taking us on a tour.

Pedro (and others) were impressed with our little guy’s Puerto Rican accent from his kindergarten teacher who is from PR. He told us stories about how he was related to all of these important people in PR, so we aren’t sure how true the tour was but it was entertaining. We stopped at a frozen ice place, where they basically sold juice (sugar water) frozen in cups but it didn’t take long for that to be a slushy. We saw El Capitolio de Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 and some beautiful churches. 

We made it to the  Castillo San Felipe del Morro and we were all very hot, we decided not to go in but took some pictures on the outside. I had a presentation to do virtually back at the hotel, so we split up for a bit, and our crew headed back to the hotel and some AC for a bit and they grabbed a tapas lunch. 

On our way back to the parking garage, we grabbed a snack and fresh juice from  Pilao Bakery Cafe. After my presentation, we had lunch in the hotel restaurant which was actually very good. Our waiter told us about some beaches and restaurants we needed to check out. After lunch we all walked to the beach on Isla Verde (a couple blocks away) and the kids enjoyed jumping in the water. We ended the day with pizza and more pool time. 

On Day 3 we set out to explore some of the surrounding area. The Duerrs picked up their rental car, and we headed to El Yunge National Forest. We weren’t able to secure a reservation on the park reservation system that has been in place since COVID, but some of the trails are available without going past the main entrance.

We headed to a local favorite the Angelito Trail. It was a perfect spot. This short trail descends through Tabonuco trees in the lower montane forest to the federally designated “Wild and Scenic River,” the Río Mameyes. As you get closer, the river pulls you to Las Damas Pool and other favorite swimming spots. The kids and adults had a blast swimming in the water. There was a little bit of “fool’s gold” dusting in the soil and it was sparkly too. They played for a while and then we headed to the Luquillo beach area, starting with lunch at La Parilla Restaurant. This was a restaurant recommended to us by the waiter at the hotel restaurant. And it did not disappoint. I think this might have been the whole crew’s favorite meal of the trip. (my entree is pictured below)

After lunch, we spent the afternoon at Luqillio Beach which was beautiful. It was midweek and not crowded at all. (Note we did come back here on a Sunday and it was so crowded and loud it was an MTV party scene!) but the beauty of the quiet beach during the week should not be missed. It reminded me a bit of Kauai, with the crystal clear waters and El Yunge in the background.

Since we had a big lunch, we ended this part of our trip with ice cream for dinner again (you might see a theme here) but this was seriously the best gelato any of us have had in our lives at La Creme Heladeria. We tried to go back another day but it was closed on Monday and boy were we sad!

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Christmas Letter 2022

January 2022 was uneventful other than the fact it’s the month COVID finally got us! (Well me.. the rest of the crew was fine thankfully!) We did enjoy the Bengals run to the Super Bowl! Even Dustin our Brown’s fan rooted for them. The day my quarantine ended we headed right on schedule to Florida to visit Dustin’s parents in Venice. This year Dustin’s sister Ashley and her husband Brian overlapped with us a few days. It was fun, the kids haven’t been on any trips with them before and enjoyed being at the beach together. 

One day when the weather, wasn’t quite beach weather, ie it was 60-70 degrees, we headed over to Orlando for a day at Disney! We took them right before the pandemic started when Lil bro was still free, and this week was the first week that Disney removed masks, of course it was still required indoors the day we were there. We did a hopper pass and went to Magic Kingdom and Epcot and back to Magic Kingdom for the fireworks over the 50th anniversary castle! It was fun to be there for the anniversary, I had been there with my family for the 25th anniversary when I was little. On the way home I was “ad targeted” to a promotion for a Disney Cruise Giveaway on the Disney Wish. You just had to post a photo of who you would would ride the Aqua Duck with.. so of course I posted a photo of the 4 of us in front of the castle that day.. And at the end of February we got a message that we were potential winners! At first I was thinking, what does potential mean.. did we win or not! But they have to verify who you are and fill out forms. So we did win! We didn’t tell the kids right away until we knew more details. 

After getting home and a few days of work, I headed to Nashville for an integrative medicine conference with one of my colleagues. It’s funny she is a pharmacist in Montana that works with me and also has kids the same ages! Someday we’ll make it out there to visit her! We enjoyed some Live Nashville music along with our learning.

March came and it was my first year not employed by Cedarville, just serving as an Adjunct. Which was a nice change of pace to be able to lecture a few days alongside my practice, but also enjoy the Hartzler birthday month a little bit more! Sis had some girls over for her birthday and we celebrated them both with family later in the month. And celebrated Dad’s birthday with a date night (tacos of course). 

April is the month of conferences I feel like! I went to Ohio Pharmacist Association meeting for a day, spent a weekend in Dallas for a training, and got to go to Florida to speak. While in Dallas, I got to see 2 of my PharmToTable pharmacists, enjoyed spending time with them and eating yummy food, homemade curry and a Venezuelan restaurant! Then it was Easter and celebrating our nephew Jackson’s birthday! Lil bro also started soccer as a trial with one of the local clubs, they do a pre-academy just 1 hour of training per week to intro. Of course he loved it and ended up joining the team in the Fall. Spring keeps Sis dancing and preparing for her recital early June. 

Dustin and I were able to travel end of April to a functional/integrative medicine conference while his parents came to take care of the kids over a long weekend. The kids enjoy every minute with grandma and grandpa and hardly miss us. I enjoyed seeing some of my team at the conference and it was in Florida, so that’s always a great option when Spring in Ohio is still chilly. 

That brings us to May, best purchase ever.. we got a hot tub! It’s the mother’s day gift to myself for the next 10 years ha! (Dustin did the electrical and digging the trench to put it underground himself.. it was a lot of work!) But seriously I love it so much and spent a lot of evenings out there relaxing. It helps me feel like summer lasts forever too. Sis had her dance recital to kick off the summer. She did tap, ballet, and jazz during that school year. She enjoys it so much. This fall she added tumbling which means she’s constantly doing cartwheels and handstands around the house. 

Summer is my favorite season for sure! We enjoy trips to Kings Island, afternoons at the pool, swim team meets, strawberry picking, days at Grandma and Grandpa’s pool, vacation bible school, back yard smores, and cookouts with friends.

And this year we got to spend 3 nights on the Brand New Disney Wish! Sis wrote a bit about the trip

There was a kids club. When your dad or mom dropped you off at the top and you went down a slide 🛝. In the kids club bathrooms, each bathroom stall had a different Disney characters. They did not have Regular sinks they had fancy hand washers when you put your hands in the water swirled around. Each dinner 🍽️ had a theme there was and Arendalle Frozen experience, Marvel , and a 1923 dinner. Each dinner had a special Sundae I enjoyed. The food was so good we could not make it to dessert 🧁. We enjoyed the beach stop at the Disney private island, and enjoyed the Incredibles Inflatable obstacle course. Our room was on the stern (back of the ship) and we had a nice balcony. We also enjoyed the evening shows.

This summer was also bittersweet. I decided to transition out of the practice I had been in for the last 6 years. I was so grateful to my time there to grow as a provider and especially being able to serve patients with functional medicine in a collaborative practice model.  But as my business was growing, I really needed more flexibility. Dustin hadn’t traveled at all from Fall 2019 to this point for work, and had 3 trips lined up for fall. With our kids needing school transport, I needed to be able to do what I love, teaching other pharmacist and patients about functional medicine and serving patients while also being Mom.  So I transitioned to fully working for myself! I own PharmToTable, LLC and we also have a website called https://functionalmedicinece.com.  I also work closely with other business partners at Profero Team to build out other clinical pharmacy services.  I currently oversee our clinical practices and we do insulin pump trainings for two of the pump companies. In August I also started practicing one day a week at Elite Medicine with a physician I had worked with previously. While doing a lot of different things may seem sort of crazy, it works for us because it’s flexible. I still get to do what I love and have always done, and I get to take kids to school and pick them up throughout the week. Trying to savor these years when they are little as best I can while also still growing professionally and helping others grow their practices too. 

Soon after my last day, Dustin and headed to Hawaii, I put that in a quick separate post here!

We flew home and Lil Bro had learned to ride a bike with Aunt Ashley Gasser! The next day we attended Dustin’s 20 year high school reunion. We headed back to Dayton to enjoy our last month of summer! We enjoyed time with friends, and I got to attend the global leadership summit in Chicago with colleagues. We fit in a few more trips to Kings Island and Dustin and I got to enjoy a Reds Game with the Profero Team. Then somehow it was back to school! And we had a kindergartener and a 3rd grader. How did that happen? Lil Bro is in Spanish immersion 5 days a week, with an English class once a week. And Sis is going to the Spanish immersion for homeschool/3rd grade 2 days a week and a home school hybrid school 3 days a week. She has one day of electives there and is loving art and drama class! 

Bro started club soccer (I know we might be crazy) but we decided if he’s going to do it, let’s do something with structure and good foundational skills to start. He’s come such a long way in the 5 months he’s been playing it’s amazing to watch. I’m excited for spring season! Soccer Mom life is fun! I tend to yell a lot even though Dustin tells me they can’t hear me. 🙂 

In September I hosted a continuing education conference in Nashville, TN and held a retreat for my team there the 2 days prior which was a blast! It was so good to see them in person and hug them, laugh, enjoy good food together, and set goals! We ended the trip with a night at the Grand Ole Opry, which I just felt like Papa and Grandma were there with me enjoying it or at least smiling from Heaven. 

Dustin actually went on his first business trip in September since 2019 he was excited for a work trip and seeing all his WordPress people in person. This fall I also did some photography which is a bit of side gig/extension of the business and in the fall I do some outdoor family sessions and Christmas Mini sessions. Our schedule didn’t match up with our normal photographers, so one of my new neighbors does photography too, so we were able to swap sessions this year which was fun! 

In October we did all the fall things. Apple Picking, Harvest fests, Trunk or Treat, and a visit to Lexington to celebrate Aunt Ashley Hornback’s birthday. My dad also had a big birthday this year and we celebrated at his favorite restaurant in Cincinnati, Montgomery Inn. Dustin headed off to Denver for a meet-up with his team at the end of the month.

November we had our last FxMedCE Virtual conference of the year, celebrated Thanksgiving early with the Hartzler side, and then enjoyed a long weekend in Tennessee again on Thanksgiving thanks to my mom and her timeshare deals! We explored the Smokey Mountain National Park, saw bears, a waterfall, and a snake! I haven’t done anything with pictures from my big girl camera but here are some fun shots from my phone. The kids also loved the resort we stayed in, it had an indoor water park and ice skating outside. It was nice to be outside and enjoyed some time away for the holiday. 

And now we are here in December, it hasn’t been all rosy, some ups and downs with sickness in the house, and some scary events but all in all we enjoyed celebrating my birthday with the kids and friends at Table 33 and Dustin and I enjoyed Sueno on our first date night since Hawaii.  I’m pretty sure I could eat there every day for the rest of my life. It would get a tad expensive though! Sis wanted to add we ate a Chipotle on my actual birthday and they were out of everything ha! (You can see a theme here, we basically should move to Mexico). We also celebrated our nephew turning 6 the following weekend where the kids got their first chance to try rock climbing! 

We are slowing down a bit this week, the kids had 3 days of school this week, and our dancer had a Christmas Show on Wednesday. Most of our presents are wrapped or shipped, and we are counting our blessings. We are thankful for the year of growth and opportunities, and thankful for all the people that build into our kiddos. It’s truly a village that we couldn’t do this without. 

As we move forward into the new year, we pray that each of you would know the love of Jesus, and that your year would be full of lasting memories and your family would thrive!

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14
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Maui, Hawaii 2022

We did some new adventures and also hit some spots we had gone to in 2011 on our last trip there. We stayed at the Westin Maui Resort & Spa Ka’anapali and we had the best Ocean view room! We had breakfast included every morning so we worked out (enjoyed having a peloton bike!) and ate an Acai bowl on the balcony each morning. We explored upcountry one of our first days, enjoyed the view from a lavender farm, stopped in Makewo and checked out the Komodo Store and bakery (it was good but not as good we remembered!) what was better was the Maui Cookie Lady which a local let us know about!   We also checked out the pineapple wine at Maui Wine.  We had dinner twice at a restaurant we could walk to called Monkey Pod Kitchen, it was so good!  

Another day we hiked a costal trail Nakalele Point, Blowhole & “Acid War Zone” which was beautiful! Another family got there at the same time as us so we enjoyed their company and told them about the Gazebo restaurant to hit up for macadamia nut pancakes on the way back. They also had an extra reservation for sunrise at Haleakala. We hadn’t planned to do that again partially because we weren’t planning ahead on reservations, but then we had one ,so we went and the sunrise was amazing! The last time we were there we biked down but the sunrise was super cloudy, this time it was perfect! Somewhat chilly but worth it! 

We did make it to Wailea area and went to Makena Beach. It’s such a beautiful beach but lots of rough waves! We thought about the road to Hana again but since I had been twice and Dustin had done it last time, we decided to spend our last day relaxing at the hotel. Maybe we’ll take the kids on it someday! 

Family Life

Christmas Letter 2021

Somehow it’s Christmas time again! Ever since life is back to a “new normal,” (which I really hate that phrase but here I am using it), time has seemed to fly faster than ever.

January was spent at home enjoying some downtime and somewhat of a slower pace. Princess K (sis) had her cast for a few weeks from the break over Christmas 2020 and after several ortho follow-ups she’s done and has no issues with the fracture at her growth plate! Praise Jesus!

Photo Credit above: Nikki James Photography

In February we hit the road again to visit Dustin’s parents in Vero Beach, FL. They have been going there for the winter the last several years. I keep telling myself we’ll own a place somewhere in FL at some point as a rental/place they can go but we’ll see how fast we can make that dream come true. As I write this I’m flying from West Palm Beach to Las Vegas for a conference. My day in West Palm Beach in December with temps of 85 made me acutely aware of the desire to have more sunshine in my life in the winter. 🙂 We enjoyed the Florida February sunshine, got to see some friends there as well. It was a little cooler this year than in past years, but overall a great trip! 

March is always birthday extravaganza month and busy with teaching on my end, but this was my last year part-time with Cedarville. I’m looking forward to being able to enjoy March more next year with the kids. I am still adjunct and will do a couple sessions next March teaching functional medicine approach to diabetes and about insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors, which I love to talk about all three! For birthdays, we had a warm front and had a great outdoor pizza party with our neighbors to celebrate the kids late March near Prince K’s (lil bro) birthday! He turned 4 which is hard to believe. Every day this year, he is losing any amount of toddler he has left and growing up way too fast. 

April was uneventful but in May we surprised the kids with a trip to Mexico! It was the first international trip as a family of 4, our princess had gone to Spain with us in 2016 but both of the kids first time in Mexico. Since they go to an amazing Spanish immersion program at home, they loved using their Spanish with the staff. Sis is doing so well and even has a Spanish accent when she speaks since she has learned from native Spanish speakers from Mexico and Puerto Rico. I love listening to her talk and roll her R’s! I think the Mexican people we’ve encountered on travels are a little bit shocked when they hear her talk! The people of Mexico are wonderful and we had a blast enjoying the resort and the sun. We stayed at the Planet Hollywood Cancun. There was so much to do at the resort we didn’t venture out. With lil bro still being in a car seat it makes leaving the resort a little bit more challenging, but when they are bigger hopefully safety in the country will improve too. We could see Isla Muejeres from the resort across the water and would love to take them there someday. 

June was swim team and VBS month! The kids enjoyed swim team and both improved so much. Lil bro was a little bit of a stinker, he can swim very well for his age, but when he was put on the block he acted like he didn’t know how to swim, haha! One day I threw him in to the teacher, hopefully better luck next year. I kept reminding myself he’s only 4.. sometimes I forget because he can swim so well thanks to ISR and lots of practice. 

This summer was also basement finishing time (well from April thru October)! Dustin spent most of the summer working hard on the basement. In June/July we had a crew doing drywall after Dustin finished electrical and plumbing (with help from his Dad).

We had an incentive to finish by August 15, as a couple that is building a house in our neighborhood needed a place to stay while their build completed and he spent most waking hours in the basement (and many hours he should have been sleeping too!).

The drywalling was quite the messy process and he was proud of getting all the materials delivered and queued up to be ready to be installed without delay, except for the flooring. After it sat in the garage for three weeks, he opened the carton when it was time to do the flooring and it was the wrong material, ugh. So there were some delays getting that shipped back and getting the right material in.

Our new friend came in early so he could start taking classes at Wright State and lived in our spare bedroom and moved down on October 1st when his wife came to join us.

We still have some trim work, painting fixes, and a fireplace to add. I (Melody) painted a lot and let’s just say we need a professional. They deserve what they charge — man my body was so sore after days of staying up late priming and painting! But the real hero of the basement is Dustin he spend so many hours and did an amazing tile job on the shower and bathroom. More projects to come to fully complete when our guests move out. 

Along with the craziness of trying to project manage a basement, plus do the majority of the work, Dustin also got a new job at Automattic. He’s been in customer support for the last 7.5 years and his dream is to be a developer, writing code and fixing bugs every day. Last year Automattic started a year long developer apprenticeship program and he was able to study enough in the beginning of the year to get in.

It’s been a huge shift in his already flexible work. He no longer has to work on weekends (was 8 hours every 4 weeks) and no longer has to have scheduled hours throughout the day. He’s now working in the WordPress VIP division, which is the part of the company that hosts some big name sites you might have heard of like NBC Olympics, Facebook 360, UPS, CBS Local, Men’s Journal and many more!

In August, Dustin and I traveled to Hilton Head for a weekend. I was supposed to speak at a conference near Charleston, SC but it got postponed. We had already set up childcare and had direct flights on the new Breeze Airways from Akron Canton.. so we cashed in some Marriott points and headed there for the weekend. Dustin’s sister Ashley and her husband were finishing up their annual summer trip there that week so we got to enjoy some time on the beach with them and dinner with them before they headed out. We actually have never had a meal together just the 4 of us, so that was fun! 

The next weekend sis and I hit the skies to visit her BFF that is now in Texas. The military has brought so many amazing families into our lives living here in Dayton near the Air Force base. M and K were friends at Spanish Immersion School and her mom and I became close friends as well. We miss them dearly so it was fun to have a girls trip and show K around San Antonio. I also got to see another one of our friends that is also stationed there right now that were previously in our house church and meet one of my PharmToTable Pharmacist in person. It was a great way to spend labor day weekend.(and hot!) 

A few weeks later, I headed to Chicago to help run a functional medicine conference for pharmacists. And we added a day retreat with my PharmToTable team that were in attendance. This was an amazing time to meet these ladies face to face, set goals, hear visions, and plan for the upcoming year. The highlight of our trip was dinner at Locovore Farm. We had a farm to table dinner together about 40 miles south of Chicago. The weather was perfect, the sunset was perfect. We couldn’t have asked for a better time. I’m so grateful these women are on this journey with me of bringing functional medicine care to more people across the US and making it convenient via telehealth. We want our patients to thrive in everything they do! If you know anyone struggling getting answers to their chronic symptoms. Please send them our way!  

PhotoCredit Above: Marcin Myslinski Photography

In October we had planned for a quick trip to the Destin area since we skipped out in the summer. I know it seems like we vacation a lot but we work hard a lot too. 🙂 Creating the memories with the kids and being in places that take us away from busy schedules and putting our feet in the sand helps keep us healthy too. Someone once told me you only have 18 summers with your kids and while 18 years seems like a long time for some reason 18 summers seems like it’s such a small number.

So I make lot of effort to enjoy these moments with tiny toes and feet in the sand and pools. 🙂 As we were trying to decide where to stay in the panhandle I got a email from my trusty friend Scott at Scott’s Cheap flights saying there was a DTW to CUN deal that day. So I logged in and found we could all go to Cancun on points on a direct flight. And thought I wonder if we should switch our plans up to there again..and then that same day I got a Marriott email saying you can now use points to book all inclusive and guess what resort is now part of the Marriott Autograph collection? …

…If you guessed Planet Hollywood you were right. So we quickly booked our plane tickets on points, a night at the Detroit airport, and our hotel on points, just had to pay $600 total for the kiddos, me and Dustin were completely free for 5 nights! So we did Cancun again! The kids were ecstatic to go back and we again had a blast and they talk about going back all the time. I’m praying for Mexico and that they can help continue to keep safety in check. It’s such a beautiful place with a beautiful culture we want to continue to visit. 

This fall I ended up doing a little more photography which was so fun! I’m not doing it very often but fall photos & Christmas photos have my heart and I wanted to share my new skills with others. I love meeting families and helping them capture memories. You can join my Facebook group to see my work and find out about future sessions if interested.

November we enjoyed Thanksgiving celebrations with our families, with the Hartzlers in Orrville and then spent Thanksgiving weekend with my family in Tenneesse. It was a little colder than we had hoped, but we enjoyed the indoor pools and outdoor hot tubs and a walk in the national park along with good family time! 

That brings us to December, we celebrated my birthday with family and friends and I’m back to writing my Christmas Letter on a plane to Vegas like past years. I’m doing the A4M fellowship in anti-aging and functional medicine. I’m excited to use all of this information to continue to help my patients, my team, and further the education we provide to pharmacists across the country at FxMedCE.com. 

We are enjoying Advent and putting our focus on Jesus this season and looking forward to celebrating with our family in the coming weeks.

Other updates on the kids.. Sis is still dancing and is such a graceful ballerina, she enjoys tap and jazz too. Lil bro is loving playing sports in our backyard and as he turns 5 in the spring he may start a sport! Both kids did soccer shots last spring and enjoyed learning the sport. He also loves to play tennis at the park. Sis is also taking piano lessons and it’s been fun to help her with that and  spend time practicing with her. Many of the songs have a “teacher” duet part so playing Christmas music together fills my soul with Joy! We hope the sights and sounds of the holiday season bring you Joy as you celebrate our Savior’s birth! 

Sending our blessings for a joyous New Year as well! 

The Hartzlers 

Christmas Photo Credit: Tara Lewis Photography

Family Life

Christmas Letter 2020

Well we all know 2020 didn’t go as planned. We’ve had some big losses and some beautiful times this year as well. January did start out “normal” and we got to have a perfect trip to Disneyworld before everything changed.  We were blessed with sunshine and 80 degree days in January! My typical December trips to Orlando have been in 50-60’s occasional 70’s so this caused us to have to repack our bags but was amazing! Dustin’s parents joined us for the parks and then we went over to where they stay in Venice Beach for a few days & also made it down to Naples one evening for a photoshoot with one of our amazing Dayton photographers who spends her winters there. 

A few weeks after we came home the kids had the flu, but they rebounded and February was pretty uneventful. Although all the news of what was happening with the cruise ship and over in China started to come out. Never would we have thought that situation would have turned into what it did. In March we did get to have a visit from friends that were transferred from Wright Patt AFB to San Antonio. Their daughter and princess K were very close at their school and she called K on the iPad from the front porch to surprise her! Not sure I can pull off anything better than that for awhile! They spent a few days here and we were able to still eat lunch out with friends and do some pottery painting before things shut down. We hope to be able to visit them next summer. 

The rest of March we celebrated birthdays via Zoom like the rest of the world. We decorated anyways, one day Unicorn and one day Paw Patrol and had a cake for each! Grandma and Grandpa Hartzler came as our only in-person party guests on their way home from Florida. In April and May, Dustin spent a lot of time working on our mudroom. We, like the rest of the country, were also challenged with how to work our jobs while schooling and caring for kids 24-7. Thankfully our nanny was still able to come 2 days a week because Dustin’s company’s business picked up with everyone converting to online sales and I still had patients to take care of at the office. We did telehealth mostly from March-June, and slowly eased back into seeing patients in person. Now we are able to offer a mix.   


I also had some big exciting changes with my business PharmToTable. In April/May we finished the development of a telehealth platform and started networking and contracting with functional medicine pharmacists across the country.  My goal is to have a pharmacist licensed in every state on our team. 🙂 Please check out our website and share with your friends or family that aren’t getting answers and need someone to help address the root causes of their chronic symptoms! 

In June we got concrete for our patio (Dustin says, “wasn’t that so much nicer than going to Italy”).. umm I don’t know how to respond to that.. I LOVE our new patio and swing under our deck but it was a bummer not to get across the ocean together this year.  His team was supposed to meet all the Happiness Engineers in Veinna, Austria the last week of May and I was going to meet up with him afterward and we had our hearts set on the Amalfi Coast.  Someday we will travel again abroad. 🙂 

June we did get to travel with my family to Myrtle Beach, there is nostalgia there since it was a location that the Hall Family frequently spent the same week in June for many years of our childhood.  We bought groceries and spent the rest of the time at the beach/pool. The kids had a blast, we had 2 condos right next door to each other and especially the 3 y/o boys spent a lot of time together! Great memories.

July was also mostly uneventful, but we soaked up the sun at the pool as much as possible. Princess K did swim team this summer which ended in July. They didn’t have meets, which was actually great for her first year of learning. They did have a meet with just our team at the end, which was fun for her to see how it goes! The kids also got to go to day camp at their school which was fun for them to be back in person. 

August brought some more normalcy as school headed back in session. Both kids are at Spanish immersion school 3 days a week and Princess K is also spending the other 2 days in an amazing homeschool hybrid school that allows her to do 1st grade in English while also doing it in Spanish! Sort of fun to see both schools use the same book but presented in the different languages. We are excited to see how this school may allow us to continue her at the immersion school a few days per week at least during elementary. Such a blessing! 

August also brought the loss of my grandmother, for those of you who know our family, my side is fairly small, and my grandparents (mom’s parents) were a big part of our life. She had suffered the last several years, especially over the last 12 months of her life, and while it is so hard to goodbye, thinking about her at the feet of Jesus and out of pain is comforting.

September and October got us back into a routine, the kids thrived back in school. Prince K loves it even though he whines a bit when he learns in the morning, he can’t stay home and play all day. 🙂 We enjoyed time with family and friends and lived up summer until the last minute of warm weather. We are thankful for friends with heated pools for September! We finally let summer pass and started to celebrate fall and enjoy this colorful fall season we were given! The colors this year were so bright and long lasting compared to the last several years. Such a beautiful time. 

November marked the 1 year anniversary of us starting FxMedCE a functional medicine education website for pharmacists, and we held our fourth online symposium. I always joke that were were doing virtual education before it was the cool thing to do! Also in November sadly we lost our last grandparent, Dustin’s Grandpa Bauman to COVID-19 would have been 98 this month. It definitely makes the pandemic all the more real. 

This year is a constant reminder that we aren’t promised tomorrow, which makes you want to spend every moment with the ones you love. I pray that 2021 brings more hugs, more smiles seen on faces as you pass by, and restoration for our country. And of course more travel! 🙂  Merry Christmas from the bottom of our hearts, may you and your family feel the peace that surpasses all understanding, as we worship our Savior this Christmas!

Family Life, Uncategorized

Christmas Letter 2019

Holiday Greetings to our family and friends. 2019 has been a fabulous year. We moved in our new home the last few weeks of 2018, so 2019 has been much less chaotic with regards to moving! We are feeling more settled, but still lots of things to do.

January snowfall before our window treatments but still beautiful!

January and February were fairly uneventful other than surviving the typical winter in Ohio. In March we have our trifecta of birthdays to celebrate Princess K turned 5 and Prince K turned 2, and Daddy had his birthday as well. (30 plus one of the kids ages, I’ll let you guess which one. 🙂  So we had a princess party and a construction party. We did a photo shoot in March for their birthdays too.

Moving into May, Dustin enjoyed a week with his teammates in Canada prior to starting his sabbatical for 3 months. During the 3 months the plan was to finish the deck and start the basement. Unfortunately the crew we had doing the structure was held up by county permits and wasn’t able to start until end of June so it slowed the project a bit.

Prior to the start of the deck, we enjoyed a week in Hilton Head Island in early May with Dustin’s parents. It was theirs and the kids first visit to HHI and it was a success! Perfect weather and good food! I wrote a post on PharmToTable.Life with some of our favorites and about our vacation meal planning process!

In June, Princess K had her dance recital. She’s been in dance for the last few years, but this was the first time she took tap and ballet. She performed with just one other little girl a ballet number to Fly to Your Heart, and she and small group of tap dances performed to Party in the USA. She loves dance! In the fall she started jazz instead of tap, and is continuing ballet. During the last week of June she also went to gymnastics camp with one of her besties that moved to Texas in July. We have a few friends in San Antonio now that we need to visit in 2020.

We had a super rainy June so it was a little bit of a blur, but July came and Dustin had most of the deck completed except the stairs, his dad came towards the end a couple weekends and helped him with the stairs!

This summer was also super fun because our little prince did ISR swim lessons and he was loving the pool. We had a local pool membership and swam as much as we could. Even into Sept this year, the pool was closed but thankfully some of our friends had their pool still open on Sept 30th when it was 85 degrees!

In early August we also did a photo shoot in our new kitchen for my blog, but we haven’t gotten it updated yet. 🙂

School started back in mid August, Princess K started kindergarten and Prince K started Little Explorers just a couple hours a week. We absolutely love Spanish Immersion and wish the school went beyond 1st grade. I’m pretty sure I’m going to cry when they have to go to another school. I’ve contemplated moving somewhere they do have a full Spanish immersion program but after moving 3 times last year, I remind myself I don’t want to do that again for a long time! It’s so amazing though to listen to her communicate in Spanish.

Dustin and I took a trip, just us, to St. John in October which was wonderful.  The USVI are beautiful and swimming in the ocean there seemed like we were in a dream. I’m a little behind on life, but maybe when I catch up, I’ll do a post with our St. John favorites. This blog has a been a little neglected this year because of other adventures.

One of those adventures is we launched a new website called FunctionalMedicineCE.com to help share the good news about a functional medicine approach to disease with other pharmacists looking to learn more. We had our first virtual conference in November and it went very well. We are looking forward to the next one on Leap Day 2020.

Fall pictures are our fav! We created a colleague on our wall recently with fall photos form the last several years.

We had Thanksgiving celebrations with both sides and our neighbors. We have been so blessed to have such a great community in our neighborhood.

December has been a bit more low key than normal, because Kellen needed an ISR refresher, I stayed home from Midyear so I could help transport him there since it’s 10 min every day of the week. But it was fun to be here for my birthday and spend more time decorating for Christmas with the kiddos.

Last December we were in our house for about 4 days, and this year we are only taking about 4 days away to spend at Grandma and Grandpa’s.

Definitely a contrast but both were great! We are looking forward to Disney World in January and crossing our fingers for warm enough weather to have some beach time too.

Praying your home is filled with the true purpose of Christmas, and that as you reflect on 2019 that you see God’s blessings even through hard times. We also pray that 2020 fills your home with peace, love, joy, along with lots of laughter and smiles!

The Hartzlers

Family Life

Christmas Letter 2018

I’m actually getting a slight head start on writing our Christmas Letter this year. Instead of writing on the a plane, I’m writing as we drive to Harrison for our Thanksgiving meal.

This year has been a whirlwind to say it lightly. All good, but lots of change. We started out the year under contract to buy a house that had a crazy lawsuit & contingency on it. A previous interested buyer was suing the homeowner. We tried to wait it out because for some reason we felt really strongly about living there and the opportunity it had for our family and ministry. But often when God stirs your heart, it isn’t necessarily the first thing that you see is the next step. That door was closed and thankfully another door was opened.

One afternoon when we were out and about looking at houses during the Open Houses on the weekends, we stumbled into a brand new model home. We got talking with the sales representative about our situation and he said that we could build on a desirable lot right down the street. There were a couple homes already completed in the neighborhood for sale, but both two stories backed up to each other and the empty lot had wooded trees behind it which we prefer. We have been spoiled with no close back neighbors before. The lot is also a walk-out lot!

Dustin says the best thing he told us all day was that because of the other models in the neighborhood and the size of the lot, there was only one model we could put there. So it made the choices easy! Luckily we liked that model and they had a completed home of that model in West Chester for us to view. It’s been a much slower process than anticipated, but it will be done in mid-December! Almost 1 year from the point where we felt that moving closer to Centerville was what we were supposed to do. You can follow the progress at Dustin.blog. We are excited to have many of you visit in the New Year.

In March we did celebrate all the birthdays for Dustin, Princess K, and Prince K! But up until May, we didn’t have much action in the traveling category, other than me traveling a few weekends for work. Dustin went to Montreal in May for a team meet-up and returned at midnight the day before we moved out of the house we’ve lived in for almost 8 years. We could have timed that a little better! 😜 Thankfully Dustin’s parents came and we did it! We are also thankful that our friend Kyle, who we sold our home to was ok with us storing our big furniture in a few rooms of his home until ours is ready.

Some tears were shed by this momma as we packed up the rooms where we brought our babies home and were Dustin and I have lived the longest in our marriage.  I also shed a few tears at losing our stellar interest rate 😂 , and I wish we could have locked something in early in the year when we decided to build! But oh well.. we think more space and closer to the school for the kids will be worth it.

The summer was somewhat low-key, we rented a house from June to mid October from a sweet military family that was stationed in Florida during that time. Princess K did swim lessons and we spent time at the pool when we could. We also spent a few weekends at Grandma and Grandpa Hartzlers.

In August, Dustin and I took a quick anniversary trip to Cancun. This was 11 years in July but we were calling it our 10 year trip since baby boy was only 4 months old for the 10 year leaving the country wasn’t an  option.

Some how summer weather extended into October here in Ohio, and then we had about 2 weeks of fall weather before it felt like January outside. Makes us even more thankful for the trips we have coming up in December to warmer places.  
In mid-October since our house was not completed in the time frame we anticipated, we moved in with our amazing neighbors from our old house. They have really lived out Christ like hospitality and we are so thankful for them. It’s been so much less stressful despite the fact we have our “things” in about 4 different places right now.

If the year hasn’t been a whirlwind, December sure will be. I am heading to Anaheim to speak at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Meeting on my birthday! Since I have never been to Disneyland, I really wanted to bring the family. Dustin obliged and we are all headed to CA! We told the kids 1 week prior to us leaving and let’s just say our Princess is SO excited!

As soon as we get back (literally), Dustin is heading to WordCamp US in Nashville, and then we have one week to do our final walk-through, work a few days, and move! Then the following weekend we are heading to Key Largo with my family for our yearly beach trip with the kids! We are excited that our kids will be able to spend time with my family and the boys (ours and my nephew) will have lots of play time. We’ll return just before Christmas and hopefully will spend that week getting somewhat settled.

We are so thankful for all the people God has put in our life, if you are reading this, know that you are loved and God has plans and a purpose for your life. Merry Christmas!

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14

*Special Thanks to Tara Lewis Photography for our awesome Fall photos! And for letting me borrow her studio to snag some Christmas shots! 🙂

Family Life

Happy Easter & Birthday Pictures!

Today we are thankful for our Risen Savior, that he concurred death and gives us new life! We also got back our family photos from a few weeks ago and they turned out so good. Thanks Tara Lewis Photography for capturing our family so well!

“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Romans 6:8-11