Hi, this is Monica Packer from About Progress and you're listening to The Messy Middle,

a monthly series where I share some of my own messy middle. So you can see what progress looks like

for a real woman in real time. I always begin this episode with the what's happening segment where I share what's been happening

around the Packer household. This has been a whirlwind of a month. April was,

April was a whirlwind of a month. We kicked it off with spring break and we decided to go up

to Logan for our spring break. That's up in northern

Utah. We were so lucky to have beautiful weather there. The locals in Logan were telling me

that the week before was their spring break and had been raining all week. So we got lucky we had

beautiful spring weather. Brad was working during that time, but he was able to come up with

us. We stayed in an Airbnb and it was a beautiful beautiful Airbnb at this old house that was so beautifully decorated and maintained. And he worked during the day. And in the morning, I would take my kids on some kind of a hike or walk and then to a park or some kind of treat. And then we would come home and do something more fun in the afternoon, like maybe go to a movie or they just get to rest and play games or watch a movie at home while I tried to work a bit.

And we had dinner together.

And it was it was lovely.

Our favorite thing we did was, thanks to the tip of our Airbnb host, we would ride the free bus up the hill to campus because we stayed near Utah State's campus and then get Aggie ice cream and then walk

through the campus to a park that was on campus for the kids and then walk home because it was

just a couple miles from campus was where we were staying. So I really enjoyed my time there and I would

definitely spend spring break there again. Now, leading up to spring

break, I knew that I needed to get my household in order. So I basically did spring cleaning

all leading up to spring break and for the few days after it because Brad and I were heading

on a trip to Nashville just two days after we returned from spring break. This is the first time I have joined

Brad on a work trip. About every year or so, he has the ability to go to this work conference

and learn more about a particular part of his job. And in years past, I have joined him a few times,

I think two or three times. Our last time was 2019. So honestly,

...