Happy Holidays!
Getting married over the Thanksgiving break last year meant we get to kick off this holiday season with our anniversary. It's been a wonderful year and we're happy to have so many loved ones in our lives with whom we've been able to share it. Thank you for being a part of our lives and thank you for your love and support!
So, let's see where we've been this year. It all started with our wedding. For those who might have missed all the exciting back story.... we met in our singles ward in the spring of 2008. Our first date came in the summer and after that we kept going out once a week. Eventually we wound up seeing each other for about five out of the seven days. He invited me to his family's big reunion at Aspen Grove in the summer of 2009 and finally, in October, we decided to get married. My mother was so excited to hear the good news that she had the wedding planed in one weekend and our engagement lasted 30 days, just enough time for me to give notice to the school district that I was quitting. With the help of talented and kind family and friends it all came together perfectly.
Bret's birthday came soon afterward, so he celebrated by opening more wedding gifts.
Christmas morning we created a tradition for our new family by having green smoothies and pie for breakfast. I learned you need to drink those things carefully as they tend to come at you all at once.
New Year's Eve was spent with Bret's brother and wife, Seth and Mallory, making sushi. We enjoyed inviting some of our new friends from our new ward over to help make and eat sushi.
In February my sisters all came to Utah to have a "Sisters' Weekend." It was planned before I was engaged and Bret was kind enough to make-do by visiting his parents, allowing me freedom to play. We had a shopping competition, and then hung out on BYU campus, visiting my oldest niece. The weekend ended with a family dinner at Mom's that included everyone. Marshall, my brother living in New Hampshire, had to join the family photo by phone.
I decided February was also a good time to invite many of our long time friends over for a BBQ. Don't worry, we did the grilling outside, but the eating inside. It was fun, especially since we don't get to see them often enough.
We decided to celebrate our six month anniversary with a trip to Moab. We had never been to Utah's most famous arch, so we figured that would be a good destination. We enjoyed camping alongside the Colorado River and eating tinfoil dinners. This is the view that greeted us when we woke up. As you can tell, it was a beautiful vacation.
Summer brought a trip to Wyoming to celebrate Bret's grandfather being inducted into the city's hall of fame. I got to meet and visit with his many cousins and aunts and uncles whom I had only met in passing on our wedding day. It was fun to actually get to visit with so many good people and hear their stories of growing up together. I failed to take any photos on that trip (curses) but we enjoyed watching a parade go down Main Street and hiking up to a debris-covered glacier in the canyon. I finally remembered to break out the camera on our drive home and took this one of Bret in front of one of the many "historical markers" along the roadside. I would have liked to stop at all of them (there are many) but we both wanted to get home before dark.
Another little road trip that summer took us to Lava Hot Springs for a family reunion with my Great Grandfather's descendants (my dad's dad's dad). It was fun to introduce Bret to some of my cousins, as well as Dad's cousins. We spent the night at the local KOA with my brother Stephen and his family. This is a photo of us at breakfast with Stephen's youngest daughter. Again, it is our only photo of the weekend, and we didn't even take it. Some day we'll get better at using the camera.
One of the best things that happened over the summer was selling Bret's condo. Friends and family helped us paint it at the start of the year. We bought a fairly new range (not pictured) for it sometime in the spring, and again friends and family helped us get it up there and installed. The buyer offered cash, making the deal go through smoothly.
Fall brought the return of one of our favorite holidays, Marktoberfest, an event we celebrate with friends at the end of September by eating hamburgers and hot dogs and drinking homemade root beer. We are blessed to live so close to friends and family.
Besides regular gatherings with friends we'd like to note that we are very grateful to have both of our families' "home bases" within driving distance. Once a month we gather at each one where at least half of our siblings are able to come together for dinner and Family Home Evening. Our gatherings aren't exactly picture worthy but I do have a photo from October that documents my family gathering. It's not normal that we wear funny hats, this just happened to be a night where the activity required a bit of dressing up.
To celebrate our anniversary, and in an effort to spend time with some family members that live too far away to attend the monthly Family Home Evenings, we took a trip back east. The first leg of the trip was spent with Bret's brother, Nate and his girls. We arrived in the middle of a rain storm and were lucky to find that school was canceled the next day due to flooding, which allowed us more time to play with our nieces. This is me with Nate and his girls, Bret was doing the photo taking - just in case you were worried where he was.
After enjoying General Conference with them we went to visit my sister Risa's family, who live right outside of D.C. We spent a day downtown seeing the sights, but mostly just touring the Holocaust Museum. Most of the fun we had was playing with their little girls. This is a photo of their dad, Collins, reading to them, but when Collins was at work Bret was their first choice as reader.
Our last leg was spent with my brother Marshall and his wife Kirsten in New Hampshire. I always wanted to visit Maine so we borrowed their car one day to take a quick trip up there. Marshall was taking finals for med school, so when he finally had a break we drove down to Boston with them one day to attend the temple and pick some apples with Kirsten's sister. Some might say we were "leaf peepers" as we definitely enjoyed the beautiful New England scenery all around. In other touristy activities we walked around Dartmouth campus visiting its amazing library and art museum, visited Joseph Smith's birth site memorial, stopped at the spot where Joseph Smith supposedly had his leg operated on (now a KFC), and peered down into the Quechee River Gorge - amazing! We also went to a farm and helped Marshall and Kirsten pick out pumpkins. We feasted on apples and squash while there.
That brings us up to date. As for our general activities, we keep busy, Bret with work at the pharmacy and me with the local neighborhood watch and volunteering at the elementary school next door, besides the usual homemaking activities. In our free time we like to attend the temple, hang out with family, and have friends over. Bret serves as Executive Secretary in our ward and I am a counselor in Relief Society as well as an assistant ward organist. That means many meetings for both of us. We love our ward and find ourselves learning much from the good people there. Our chapel features a beautiful stained glass window, which takes up most of a wall, depicting Joseph Smith's first vision. Behind the pulpit is a 1910 reproduction of da Vinci's "Last Supper." We couldn't ask for a more beautiful place to worship.
It seems appropriate to end our "year in review" with such an image, since it is because of Christ that we reach out to each of you at this time of year. We pray that you will be touched by the spirit of Christmas and you will feel not only of our love, but also that of our Savior's. He lives and we are all blessed because of that.
