Wow, it's 2015! I know it's cliche to look back at the beginning of a new year and review all the happenings of the old, but I would like to indulge in reminiscing along with the rest of the world, or at least the rest of the facebook world!
January 2014 brought a new adventure to my life: a full time job. For 6 months I had the privilege of being the Associate Children's Librarian at the Orem Public Library. I started out more than a little apprehensive about this huge responsibility. It pushed me out of my comfort zone and I surprised myself when I was able to do it! It helped that Brian and I both felt it was a blessing from above and I definitely felt I had help beyond my own to accomplish the task. We had health insurance for the first time in a long time, which turned out to be a much needed item! January is a month of celebrations in our family, Lauren turned 19, Audrey turned 21, and Brian and I celebrated 23 years of wedded bliss!
February started out with a bang as Palmer came in 5th in region wrestling and Mountain View High School took region. My kids adjusted to me being gone and picked up the slack at home, cooking dinners, and cleaning. In an attempt to be at home on Fridays afternoons when my kids had early out I decided to work a 13 hour day on Tuesdays. Whoa, that was harder than I anticipated! Emma and I started to go to spinning at the rec center on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 5:30am. Although I loved that time with Emma and I like spinning, on Tuesdays I would leave the house at 5:15am and sometimes not be back home until 10:00pm.
March was Brian's birthday, 49 years young. It was also the much anticipated Girl Scout Cookie fest! I fear I ate way too many thin mints. This marked the month we first heard of a city called Worland in Wyoming. A head hunter firm that Brian had worked with in the past called him up and told him about a job he may be interested in. Brian didn't think much about it until they called again and again and finally we decided we needed to see where this city was and if he should apply for the job. St. Patrick's Day we drove up to Wyoming for the first time. I was very skeptical on the drive up. There is a lot of ugly Wyoming around I-80! About an hour south of Worland we hit Wind River Canyon. It's beautiful. I started to think maybe this would be a good place. We drove around Worland, stopped in at the museum to learn more about the town, and stopped in at the store Brian would be managing as well. I still wasn't completely sold. The next day was Sunday and we went to church. We only had time to go to Sacrament Meeting because we needed to get back home to the kids. It's amazing to be miles away from anything familiar and sitting in a chapel everything is familiar. The people were kind and friendly. After Sacrament Meeting the stake president who happened to be there invited us to talk with him in his office. That talk lasted 45 minutes or so and we left with a completely different feeling than we came with. On the drive home the Wyoming landscape looked much different to me, I didn't know it then, but it was beginning to look and feel like home.
April came and Lauren moved home from the dorms at BYU. Audrey was home for a short time and then left for her internship in Topeka Kansas. Palmer broke his wrist on the last wrestling meet of the year. Pretty good timing on his part, but he still had to play the drums in the jazz band at the high school and with a cast it made it difficult. He preserved and drummed one handed on some of the songs! What a rock star he is! We felt like Brian should throw his hat in and apply for the job. They flew him out for an interview to Torrington Wyoming. By the time he got back to his hotel room that night he had an offer. We thought about it and prayed about it and talked about it for a few days and then Brian accepted the offer. He was to start on May 31st.
May was full of preparations! The end of school is always busy as well. Emma had her dance concert at BYU and looked beautiful. Lucy also had her end of the year dance concert at BYU and was baptized in the same week! She got to be baptized on a separate date than was scheduled for our stake since Brian was leaving and wouldn't be here for the date in June. She looked happy and sweet on her special day. It was a strange thing for me and the kids to say goodbye to Mountain View High School. There are so many good memories for our family there and many wonderful teachers that we love. Brian and I took another drive to Worland to look at houses this time. We found one that we liked and put an offer on it. Since I didn't have too much on my plate at this time, I decided to have my gall bladder out three days before my birthday on the 22nd. It had been bothering me for a long time (years) and now that I had insurance I could get it out. Brian left a week after my surgery and naive me scheduled myself to be back at work 5 days after the surgery! Not a very smart move on my part! I didn't recover as quickly as I would have liked, but the fact that I had a full time job, a husband who was gone, and had to pack up an entire house to move a state away didn't help! At the same time all of this was going on Audrey got in an accident (not her fault) on the freeway in Kansas and totaled her car! She was fine, but she had to go through the entire process of finding and buying a car by herself without our help. One bright spot in all of this was we were able to sell our home quickly. And finally Peter turned 6 at the end of the month! Whew!
June was a complete blur! I still don't know how I did everything! To start things off, Andy had scout camp, then Palmer and Emma and Lauren went on trek, and then Palmer and the priests and laurels went to Havasupi in the Grand Canyon! Poor little Andy was in charge of everything for a week while the older kids were on the trek, he did great! I had given my notice to the library that I was leaving and said my last day would be July 5th. The person they hired to replace me was on vacation then and wouldn't be back until the next week in July! So I had to postpone my last day another week and a half so I could train her. Palmer, in the meantime, performed with his drum teachers band at the Orem Summerfest, it was so fun to watch him. I spent every spare moment going through everything we owned and getting rid of a lot of stuff and tried not to lift anything over 10 pounds so that I wouldn't tear anything from my surgery!
July came and I could see a light at the end of the tunnel! Brian came home for the 4th of July weekend--yay! My last day of work finally came! I was overwhelmed with the kindnesses of everyone on my last day. They threw me a party and so many people said so many kind things! My wonderful children's staff donated money for me to have a porch swing for my new home in Wyoming! They are wonderful people that I love and miss! It was an incredible journey for those short 6 months! I can truly say I am glad I had the opportunity to work at the library! Meanwhile, Emma had girls camp and I was hurriedly getting everything ready for the movers to come. Amidst this we celebrated Eric's 11th birthday. Then, because things happen in life, Brian called to tell me that the people whose house we were going to buy pulled out at the last minute! So we had no where to live, and the movers wanted to know the address of our home so they could deliver all our possessions! Brian scrambled and a very kind member of the church said we could use his storage pods free of charge. Everything went in there except for my harp and piano which went into Brian's office. Brian drove down and we had a last family vacation with my mom and sister and her husband at the Homestead in Midway. Then on the 29th of July we started our trek to our new home state! We had to stay in the Days Inn, of course, since we were homeless.
August brought Mount Rushmore, Days Inn, school starting, and finally our very own home! What a blessing to have this wonderful place to live! It was definitely worth the wait! One of the first things we did in our new home was celebrate Emma's birthday-sweet 16!
September was the start of our new routine. I unpacked everything and started to really enjoy being home again. The kids made friends, Brian's store continued to do well, and we felt settled.
October was so nice in Worland. It wasn't cold, I was optimistic about the horror stories of freezing weather! Emma and I made a quick overnight run to Utah for her appointment with her doctor at Primary Children's. Palmer and Emma enjoyed the Homecoming Dance and Palmer celebrated his 18th birthday in Green River Wyoming playing football. And Halloween was actually enjoyable with the wards trunk or treat!
November was cruel! The cold weather hit with such force, -30 degrees! I've never felt that kind of cold! It's amazing how quickly we all adjusted to it! Now when it's in the single digits it doesn't seem that cold! We went to Utah for Thanksgiving and enjoyed the warm weather and our family and friends and stores, and radio stations, and cheaper gas! Andy turned 14 and was ordained a teacher.
December was here and it was fun to decorate our new home for the holidays. We cut two of our own Christmas trees down and even though they were very Charlie Browninsh, we loved them. Audrey and Lauren flew in for Christmas and we had a quiet wonderful holiday. We left on the 27th to go to Utah and had a nice relaxing time with them.
It's been an exceptional year, full of milestones and new things. Change always rejuvenates me and helps me to make goals to improve and be better. This year we will see lots of new things as well. Palmer started his mission application today! Audrey and Palmer will graduate from college and high school. We will be down to only 5 children at home in the fall. I'm excited to see the new adventures my children will have and amid all the changes one thing I know will be constant-the love of my Father in Heaven and His Son Jesus Christ. Words cannot express how much I rely on Them and how my life is so good because of Them. I can weather anything with my "head held high" as Jimmy Stewart says in Mr. Krueger's Christmas, because I know God lives.
God bless all of you that read these ramblings of mine! Know that I love you and miss you and I am a better person because of all of you!
