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!

Happy Easter

Merry Christmas

Perhaps the best 

gift 

we can give to our Savior 

is in the way we 

receive 

the gift he has given to us.

I Actually Had to Dream of a White Christmas

As members of the LDS faith, we share a belief with many other Christians  that Jesus Christ was actually born in the springtime (April, specifically), and not in the dead of winter like we celebrate. I've heard that Christmas in December has something to do with ancient Pagan rituals and some king wanting to give Christians something un-blasphemous to do, etcetera, etcetera... But I think the REAL reason someone decided to celebrate the birth of Christ at the end of December is because winter needed a little light and joy. And oh how grateful I am to whoever made that decision! Christmas could not have come at a more perfect time this year.

After an extremely stressful semester and an extra few days of work to top it all off, I was nothing short of ecstatic to be home for the holidays. I honestly could have gotten dirt for Christmas and still have been perfectly satisfied. This Christmas, all I wanted was my home and my family and a break from the hectic life of work and school, and that's exactly what I got. My dad and the boys were off of school, Hilary and Brian were spending some time living in my parents' house while they were in-between places and Trevor and Sherstin stayed in Farmington for the holidays, meaning I got my whole family around me at nearly all times. We had the rockinest family Christmas party of all time with my mom's family (Seriously though. It was legendary.), we played lots of games, ate lots of food, made new ornaments for our over-sized Charlie Brown tree, and just enjoyed being together. I even got a bonus of being able to spend a lot of time with my best friend who is finally back in my life after two long years and his family. I didn't even mind that for the first time in my life (that I can remember anyway), the only snow on the ground was the occasional un-melted dirty black mound in a parking lot or on the side of the road. I didn't need a white Christmas--the amount of loving going on filled that void.

I will spare you the details of my winter break (at least for now) and simply state that I had one of the most wonderful and magical Christmases of my life. I probably would have (at least) come close to quitting work and school and life and resorting to being a bum for the rest of my life if it hadn't been for the perfect timing of Christmas. So thank you, Mr. King-man who put Christmas in December to show those dirty Pagans who's boss, you have made my winter a lot less bleak.

Happy Holidays!

A Little Spring, a Little Birthday, and a Whole Lot of R&R

(Pretend I wrote this last week.)

Well, I waited all semester for this, and now spring break has come and gone. It wasn't particularly eventful (no beaches, swimming suits, or sand dunes), but it was still a break and that's all I wanted. (Okay lies. I'm not going to say that I didn't want to go to Mexico or California, but a trip to Kaysville was good enough for now.) The break started off with a trip to Hale Theatre with my daddy for a production of Fiddler on the Roof. Definitely a great father-daughter show. Trevor and Sherstin came up on Sunday evening and brought Grandpa for dinner and an early birthday celebration. The nineteen mismatched candles that were crammed into my New York style cheesecake were blown out by Makenna before I got a chance to make a wish. I think that's probably a bad omen for the year. Birthday presents included a new set of scriptures, a paper cutter, and a whole jar of chocolate covered raisins! Mmm..boy! I also got a crock pot from Trevor and Sherstin (Recycled wedding gift. I was there when they opened it.) and some homemade headbands from  Hilary.

Everyone else had school all week, so the rest of the break was spent playing at home with Diva and Miss Meka. Meka is in the middle of being potty trained, so I had my share of trips to the potty, handing out lifesavers, and changing wet pats. Days were spend playing, making mints with mom, looking for jobs, digging up the garden, and being completely and blissfully lazy. Evenings were spent going to movies, wandering the neighborhood with dad, visiting wonderful friends, playing games, and staying up late watching Cake Boss. The week concluded with a trip to Provo to see my bff Jon perform in BYU's production of As You Like It. The weekend didn't end up as planned, but the show was beautiful and playing with Tressa all weekend was a blast! I finished up a blissful spring break by modeling for Hilary and playing funny, crazy games with the family.

I may not have had my turn to get sunburned over the break, but I loved being able to spend some time with friends and family, especially with my best friend Mom. Maybe next year I'll be able to afford to go somewhere adventurous.