Author: Melody

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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! Kenley 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 

Uncategorized

Next Adventure..Building a Home!

Short Story… We are building a new house in Washington Township (about 20 min from our current home)!

Long Story… Last fall the Lord was moving us to try to live closer to most of the places we do life, closer to our church, closer to Dayton International School, etc. We looked at a lot of properties and found one we fell in LOVE with. We saw every aspect of our ministry and our jobs fit perfectly in that space. Unfortunately there was a crazy situation and lawsuit pending on the property where we waited 3 months to see if there would be resolution. During this time we learned so much about prayer and spent more time praying together and with our children than ever before. We really began to understand what it means to pray without ceasing. Dustin drove to the property every day for 3 months except for a few days we weren’t in town. He walked the property and prayed, and sat in the drive and prayed over the home. Kenley would pray at the dinner table, “Jesus…don’t let the bully goat get our house.”
As we continued to wait and pray, we started to look at other options too.  Dustin has always wanted to build and we thought it was out of reach, but we found a place that is a great neighborhood that will be a good investment.  Also instead of remodeling an older home over the next 4-5 years we will have a low maintenance property and can spend more time with our children and our ministry. We started realizing the unknowns about the other property, and things that could be issues with an almost 40 year old home. God is good even though his answer wasn’t what we thought we were praying for. Thankful that He cares about the small things in life. 🙂
Today when we visited the neighborhood to look at some already completed homes to take a closer look at the kitchens and bathroom selections, we met 3 different families, all of which had children near ours in age. Our neighbors across the pond have a girl and boy about the same ages as ours. They were all so nice..Again God is good and we are excited for this new adventure!

“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written, “He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.” 2 Corintians 9:8-11

PS: Next step.. we have to pick out all the interior finishes.. ekk! If you have an eye for design and want to send us links to your favorite kitchen and bathrooms feel free!

Family Life

Christmas Letter 2017

It can’t be December again right? Somehow we now have an 8 month old boy who is on the move and a 3.5 year old princess. This year has been full of blessings. January and February were pretty quiet as we prepared to transition to a family of four. In March we celebrated Princess K’s birthday and awaited baby brother’s arrival. We are so very thankful that he arrived in his own timing with no induction necessary and no epidural needed for momma. I know some of you think I’m crazy but the recovery was so much easier! If we want to do it again is still to be determined. 🙂

I was able to be off from work for 8 weeks, and Dustin’s company has amazing benefits and he was able to be home with the kids for 12 weeks before returning to work. All completely paid for him. I seriously need to figure out how I can be a pharmacist/wellness coach or something for Automattic. 🙂 During this time I was able to launch my new blog PharmToTable. If you haven’t followed me over there please go check it out and share it with your friends and family. You can also find me on facebook and instagram.

June and July were also pretty low key, but I didn’t get much sleep because buddy boy liked to eat all night.  We did get to head to Nashville in early July to visit our good friends Bethany and Josh. Bethany and I went to pharmacy school together. Princess K and their daughter had a blast together. Wish we could see them more.

Late July we had a bridal shower for my youngest sister Ashley in preparation for the big day in September. We also spent a weekend in early August at Grandma and Grandpa Hartzler enjoying the pool and catching up with Dustin’s cousin and friends from high school that he has stayed in touch with. It was a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed playing together. Hopefully we can make it an annual event.

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September is sort of a blur, we headed to Daytona Beach for a week of vacation the week of Labor day. We took Dustin’s parents with us as they enjoy Florida and enjoy being with us and the kiddos for a week. Unfortunately despite us traveling to Florida the last several years in September, this year hurricane season was in full force and we had to evacuate due to Hurricane Irma. It was a little bit of a stressful end to our trip but we made the trek to Atlanta and took a flight back to Cincinnati. Daytona ended up not  really getting hit much but they didn’t really know which way Irma was going.

After we got home, Dustin turned around and headed to Whistler, Canada for the Automattic Grand Meetup. He really enjoys this week of learning and engaging with his colleagues that he typically only chats with text based. I held down the fort for 8 days and went to work (let’s just say i’m not doing that again… if I can help it!).  Then the last week of September we celebrated my youngest sister’s wedding to Ryan our new brother- in-law. Our kids have two Aunt Ashley’s, and now one is married to a Ryan and one to a Brian. Not confusing at all. 🙂 We love them all. Check out our post and some of the wedding photos here. I’m a little biased but my nephew and my kids were so cute all dressed up.

October also went quickly. Dustin had a WordCamp in Michigan, and we also took a weekend to travel to DC to visit our good friends Rebecca and Glen who were living there while Glen was teaching in the Cedarville DC semester. Dustin hadn’t been to DC and I haven’t been since the 8th grade trip. It was fun to go and stay with them and see real DC living. Princess K and their little boy have literally been buds since they were born.

November was a bit more low key, Dustin attended WordCamp Cincinnati where he was the Keynote speaker!  And I went to Charlotte, NC for a few days to speak. We enjoyed Thanksgiving at the Hartzler’s this year and got to see Brian and Ashley’s brand new beautiful home they built down the street from Dustin’s parents.

December is off to a great start. Princess K had her first dance holiday show and both sets of grandparents were able to attend. And we celebrated my nephew’s (Jaclyn’s little one) 1st birthday a little bit early.  As in the past, I’m writing this letter on my flight to the American Society of Health System Pharmacists Meeting. This year it’s in sunny Orlando. Excited for a possible dip in the pool tomorrow morning for my exercise. It’s supposed to be 80 and and sunny tomorrow. It’s a quick trip this time since baby boy is at home with Daddy.

We are looking forward to our first Christmas as a family of four and are excited to spend time with our family and friends this holiday season. We hope our home can reflect the true meaning of Christmas and celebrate our Savior’s birth.

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” ~Luke 2:11-14

Washington DC

Washington, DC

Our friends Glen and Rebecca had the opportunity to spend a semester teaching in Washington DC this year. I haven’t been there since my 8th grade trip, and Dustin had never been there, so it was a perfect time not only to visit them but also for us to visit the city.

We were going to drive, but we got a great deal on tickets. We got the flights there for $97 round trip each! Travel deal of the century that saved us so much time in the car. They already had an extra double stroller so we didn’t need to bring that, and public transit allowed us to travel as light as we could with the two kiddos in tow (ie no car seats). We arrived late afternoon on Wednesday and Glen met us at the airport and we made our way via the metro to Union Station and picked up dinner. We enjoyed great conversation and dinner together.

Glen prepared to start teaching that evening in the basement of the home, but prior to that we had a slight “emergency.” Kenley and Declan locked Reese (Kenley’s favorite doll)  in the master bedroom of the house. Kenley was hysterical, students were arriving. This house was built in the 70’s and the safety unlock screw was stripped. So after about 30 minutes of attempting to get in the room, Dustin got lucky with a combination of a hammer and screwdriver and got the door open. Reese was saved and Glen was able to start teaching downstairs while most of us went to bed early after the trek with the kiddos. Dustin and Glen took a walk after class was over to see the Capitol at night.

On Thursday one of Glen’s students took us on a tour of the Capitol Building. The kids loved the “subway” that the congressman use to get from their offices to the Capital building. We had yummy burgers for lunch at a place called Good Eats. Super good, but they need gluten free buns in the future. The rosemary fries were AMAZING. That afternoon I think we actually got all five kids to take a nap! (win!) During this time Glen and Dustin checked out the Library of Congress. We cooked dinner that night at home, and we had fun taking the kids pictures on the Capitol lawn that night. Afterward Dustin and I splurged on a little walk to get gelato!

On Friday we had planned on going to the National Museum of American history, but when we got there it was closed for a big event. So we came up with plan B and headed to the white house next just to see it since Dustin hadn’t been there before, unfortunately all the tickets we could request in advance for the tours weren’t available for that day from our congressman’s office.

We had lunch and unfortunately I wasn’t clear enough with instructions on Princess K’s smoothie and I think she got a vegan protein powder with lentil and pea (which are the only two things she’s allergic to now) so we had to make a CVS run (thankfully it was around the corner) for some benadryl. Thankful as well it didn’t knock her out and she was still able to enjoy the rest of our day.

We headed to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. They had the actual Wright brothers first plane. That was really cool and Dustin wishes we could have spent some kid free time there to enjoy the place :). And the most random crazy part of the trip was that Princess K had told us on the way to the airport that two of her friends from school were coming to Washington DC that weekend, we thought no way, she probably just said she was going and they said oh me too. But we turned around and K was shouting look mom there is M! We were all shocked out of all the places in DC and the limited number of people K knows at 3.5 years old that we were in the same place at the same time. Fun memories.

In front of the White House!

We stopped at the Native American History Museum which had a great kids area. They got to stamp their “passports” at all the stations. We ended the night trying out &Pizza, the gluten free pizza was great. The next day Rebecca and I enjoyed a latte and everyone headed to the park while Prince K napped and I packed up. We headed out late Saturday morning. Since the traffic wasn’t bad Glen was able to drive us to the airport which was a bit easier than the public transit with both kids in tow.  Crazy small world as someone Dustin knew from the WordPress community was in line right behind us at security.

Such a fun trip with great friends and wonderful memories with the kiddos.