Year in Review

Our Year in Review 2012

January

We start off the new year at the cabin with the Field crew, complete with snowmobiling, capture the flag, all night games of Pit, and lots of movies.

Spring semester starts.  Tyson is thinking about Civil Engineering as a major and takes two math classes at the same time.  We take a "Building an Eternal Marriage" institute class together.  Tyson is working as manager of two Cricket stores.

February

After 6 months on an imaginary waiting list, we finally get to upgrade from our tiny one-bedroom apartment to a less tiny two bedroom apartment.  Tyson's parents and Andy and William come up to help us move.  

March

Tyson has to work so Spring Break is spent at home.  Rachel turns 21.  

Tyson learns how to change the brakes on our car.

April

Easter and General Conference are spent with both families.  We seran wrap Tate's room and dye the Pearce's milk purple for April Fools' Day.  Tyson's mom includes a pineapple in our Easter basket because it is a sign of fertility.  

May

We both survive the semester and get out with good grades.  

We buy a new tent and enjoy the first camping trip of the summer with Mom and Dad Field, Kelli, Andy, William, Brady, Kai, and Alix in Logan Canyon.  We tested the strength of the rain fly and got really good at lighting fires in the rain.

Ready to hike the wind caves

We celebrate Baby Animal Days with Graci and Makenna and enjoy a family barbecue and baby shower for Trevor and Sherstin

Rachel gets a summer job at a call center called Opinionology.

Nephew Carter Scott Pearce is born! Congratulations Sherstin and Trevor.

June

Tyson's Grandma Rosie passes away.

Our first anniversary! We celebrate with a fancy dinner and pedicures for both of us.

We take a day trip up to Bear Lake with some of Tyson's old soccer friends and coach.  We take Tate rock climbing for his first time.

July

We celebrate the 4th of July in Kaysville and then head up to Bear Lake for the annual Croxford family reunion.  This year we rented a fancy cabin for the whole clan to stay in.

Rachel's Grandpa Croxford passes away shortly after Bear Lake. A bitter-sweet funeral celebrates his life and reunion with Grandma. 


August
We get to attend the wedding of two great friends, Tristan and Megan Tesch.

Robert gets home from his mission in Taiwan.  Tyson hadn't seen him for almost four years! We have to stop for gas and miss him getting off the plane.  Luckily Kelli and Andy drove separately and made it just in time.

We have the first of what we hope will be an annual Pearce family camping trip.  We camp in Logan Canyon so Tyson can drive back and forth for work.

Rachel quits her job at Opinionology.

We get hired to be Resident Assistants for USU Family Housing.  This means we get to move again, making this one our third apartment in Aggie Village within a year.  We are excited to work together and for the free rent.

School starts again.  Tyson is working on finishing his generals and is thinking about physical therapy.  Rachel will be student teaching in a 3-year-old preschool class this semester.

September
School is in full swing.  Rachel drops a class to keep up with preschool.  Tyson is taking calculus and chemistry.

Tyson runs his first marathon!  He races in the Top of Utah Marathon with brother-in-law Josh and gets a time of 4:10 with only five weeks of training.  Kelli, Andy, William, and Brady surprise him at the finish line. 

Before

During

After!

Tyson turns 23.  He still tells people he's 21 whenever he gets asked how old he is.  His parents come up and take us out to dinner.  We get to celebrate three more times later in the month with Brady, Kelli and Andy, and the Pearce's.

Nephew Truman Jace Beattie is born! Congratulations Krista and Josh and family!

Tyson quits his job at Cricket.  


October
We get tickets for the first session of General Conference.  This is Rachel's first time attending a session in the Conference Center.  Riley and his friend Avala join us.

Tyson crashes on his bicycle on his way home from class and gets to ride in an ambulance to the emergency room.  He is extremely lucky and gets out with only a broken cheekbone, torn up ear, and a concussion. He entertains the doctors and nurses by talking about how hot his wife is before Rachel can get to the hospital.  

This was AFTER the wounds were cleaned up.

A CAT Scan, couple of x-rays, and a couple dozen stitches later...

Kelli, Andy, and William joined us this year for the annual North Logan Pumpkin Walk.  We dress up as motorcycle gang members for the first couple parties, then as a mad scientist and his hunchbacked minion for the third.

November
Tyson gets hired to bus tables at a Japanese restaurant called Kabuki's.

We have Thanksgiving dinner with the Pearce family on Wednesday and the Field family on Thursday. 

Ready to run the Thanksgiving relay!

Rachel successfully finishes her preschool student teaching.


December
We survive the end of the semester.  Tyson gets 100% on his calculus final and ends up with all A's and a B in chemistry.  Now he is thinking he likes the idea of Occupational Therapy more than Physical Therapy and registers for OT pre-requisites for spring semester. Rachel has easy finals and ends up with all A's.  

Rachel plans the program for the Ward Christmas Party. 

We inherit Grandma Rosy's Christmas tree and decorations and enjoy having a fully-decorated apartment for the month.

We enjoy a relaxing Christmas break full of family, including lots of games, a crazy nativity play, a powerful family testimony meeting, trips to the Road Home, Temple Square, and City Creek, and we actually took pictures this year!

Pearce Family Nativity

Brady and Robert came up to Logan to celebrate New Year's Eve with us.  We played games, watched TV, ate pizza, drank apple beer and sparkling cider, and counted down to midnight.


And thus it was.

Happy New Year!

I Appreciate the Warning.

Once upon a time...

I came home to find my refrigerator blocking my kitchen.

Behind my refrigerator was a man. Now this was no ordinary man doing ordinary things that any ordinary person would ordinarily do behind an ordinary fridge. No, this man was a fix-it man, and he was drilling a very large hole into my perfectly lovely cinder-block wall.

Now, having a large hole drilled into my kitchen wall not only made it completely inconvenient to prepare a meal, it was also obnoxiously loud and filled my apartment with a thick--and let's face it, probably toxic--dust (it was built in the 50s, after all).

The reason for this disaster? A leak in the pipes that has been causing nice puddles in both my apartment and the apartment next door. 

From the mouth of Fix-it Man:

"I really hope this is where the leak is or else I just made a really big mess!"

You instill such confidence in people. Way to be.

Oh Hey, Mr. Hamilton! How Do You Like My Pants?

Today, I pretty much got paid it spin around in my chair for 7 hours at work. It was really boring.

Highlight of my day: finding a ten dollar bill in the back pocket of my jeans when I got dressed this morning. 

I wonder if any of my other clothes have money hiding in them...

Holiday Wrap-Up

'Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la...

This holiday season was wonderful. Let's recap:

*Note: My camera broke, so pictures are a little limited. Trust me, I'm much more disappointed than you are.

Christmas break started off with a princess tea party and a private premier viewing of Disney's The Princess and the Frog with the girls. It was so fun to see dozens of little girls dressed as princesses running around as they met Princess Tiana, had a magical tea party, and saw a movie they had all been waiting for in a theater reserved just for them.

I came home from school to discover that my bedroom had been turned into Santa's workshop/storage room. One night I was getting ready for bed while my mom was wrapping presents in my room. She made me keep my eyes closed so I wouldn't know what everyone was getting.

Mom had surgery on both of her wrists the Monday before Christmas, meaning she couldn't use her hands very much for a couple of weeks. My dad was great at stepping in as Mommy, but I got plenty of babysitting time of my own. I actually enjoyed it though. I liked being able to take care of my mom a little bit for a change because she is always taking care of me. We also got lots of talking time and movie watching time together which is always wonderful.

You can't have Christmas without the annual family Christmas parties. The 23rd was, as always, spent with the Croxfords. Bryce and Mary hosted this year at their church building. There were so many babies! The party was crazy, out of control, full of delicious food (including my aunt Surang's famous wontons! Mmmm boy!), and perfect. I love my crazy family. Christmas Eve involved a trip to my Grandma Pearce's house where we had dinner with the whole family. More great food followed by a short "talent show" in the basement. Grandma gave us all gift cards for movie tickets.

My family did the impossible last year and killed our artificial Christmas tree. This meant we had a small tree in the living room, but no Santa tree in the basement. This problem was solved with the purchase of a live tree on Christmas Eve which we decorated by putting hooks in candy and hanging it on the tree. It was the first time we've ever had a live tree in my life. It smelled soooo good! We made gingerbread cookies, opened our new pajamas, and took the traditional pictures by the tree. Graci and Makenna were so hyper and wound up! It was way fun to see them so excited and into all of the magic of Christmas. Well, fun until I was given the impossible task of getting them to sleep, and then keeping them that way. Hilary and Brian spent the night so everyone was there when we woke up in the morning.

Christmas morning was full of the usual excitement. Makenna was terrified by the fact that Santa had been in our house, (My parents took her to meet Santa earlier in the month. Apparently it wasn't a very good experience.) but as soon as she saw the presents she was thrilled. This was the first time in several years that I haven't known every single present that everyone was getting, including myself. In fact, I was COMPLETELY surprised. Santa brought me a new keyboard, complete with customized headphones so I can play at school! Woot woot! I also got a nice new down coat to keep me warm in Logan.
Over the break I actually completed one thing off of my to-do list, which was to learn how to crochet hats. I've been wanting to make some for a long time now because it's so much cheaper than buying them. So far I have made four hats, flowers, and a scarf, with more to come.

New Year's Eve was spent at home with my family. I watched High School Musical 3 with my mom and my little sisters, went to bed early, and listened to the neighbors light fireworks at midnight while lying in bed.

So basically, my break was spent doing lots of sleeping, playing with the girls, crocheting, driving back and forth to relatives' houses, reading, enjoying not having anything to do with school, reunions with old friends, and a whole lot of chillaxin. It wasn't very eventful, but you know what? I loved every minute of it.

Quotes heard around the house (that would probably ONLY be heard at my house):

"Um... there's a pickle on the back porch."

"Woops! I just sat on Cinderella."

"Sounds like someone's got the headless duck."

And... Graci's new favorite word: Knucklehead.

Welp. There you go. Hope your break was as wonderful as mine!

Finding Neverland

A few months ago, I had the magical experience of being in J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. It truly was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. I won't get into details, but the main concept or theme behind our show was that of rediscovering your inner child and letting that part of you play a role in your life. Throughout our rehearsal process and the actual production, the whole cast planned and participated in "inner child activities" where we indulged in fun playtimes of our past. The experience was definitely a fun one, but not entirely unique. It was unique in the fact that I was getting to do it every day with a wonderful group of people who I love dearly, but unoriginal in the sense that I've always held on to that aspect of myself. I've never been afraid to allow myself to be a child-- to play silly games, color with crayons, carry around coloring books and play-doh, and use my imagination.

Through my experiences with Peter Pan, I was reminded of how to find Neverland, but the best adventures I have there are when Neverland finds me. Let me explain.

Yesterday when I came home from work, I ended up in the backyard with my two little sisters-- Graci who is almost 4 and Makenna who is 2 1/2. I pushed them in the swings for a while and sat in the grass, but pretty soon I found myself chasing hyenas and dinosaurs, fighting pirates, and flying through the sky as Graci's imagination worked freely and quickly. We were Peter Pan, Wendy, and Michael for one minute, then pirates or Indians the next. A soccer net quickly became a cave when we were being chased by rampaging hippopotamuses, and the grass transformed into the ocean as we flipped our mermaid tails and sang "Part of Your World." We fought off monsters and beasts of every variety, and even had a brief Spiderman sighting. I was saved my magic drops of potion more than once, with Graci as Peter Pan (or sometimes Wendy) leading the way. The adventures went on and on, and only paused when it was time for dinner.

It didn't take an organized activity to take me away to far off places. Instead, all it took was my little playmate allowing me to have a peek into her constantly moving, creative mind. Thank you, Graci, for always bringing me back to Neverland.

-hiding in the cave-

-killed by pirates-

-fighting the dinosaurs-

-being a lion-

-flying through Neverland-

Blogstalking

So I have this obnoxious passtime where I like to read people's blogs. Most of the time I'm pretty sure the people whose blogs I read have no idea that I even knew it existed because they weren't personally the one to tell me about it (I usually find their blog through a link on somebody else's page). That's actually a big reason why I started this blog. To soothe my conscience. I figured if I'm going to be reading other people's blogs (which I thoroughly enjoy, by the way), they should have the chance to read mine if they want. Not that I have anything interesting to write about. (Even if I did, it would sound stupid because I am definitely NOT a writer.) The only problem is that I've yet to tell anyone that I started a blog. But hey, they didn't tell me about theirs, did they? So if you happen to stumble across this... please leave a comment. I would love to know if anyone has read any of this. And if you are reading this, congratulations on reading clear to the end. You rock. Annnd.. you probably need a life.
:)