It's 10:38 PM on December 31, 2024 and what better way to spend my quiet evening of New Year's Eve than reflecting on the past year! Ryan is at work and my kids are asleep and I have plenty I could do: fold laundry, mop the floors, update my calendar, put away my Christmas decorations. But those things can wait, and reflecting is how I want to spend the last hour and twenty two minutes of my year. :)
I always begin with a then and now photo of the kids, because it is just astounding how much they grow every year!
Rose:
Lucy:
Quinn:
1. What did you do on your birthday and how old did you turn?
I turned 29 this year and for my birthday Ryan and I went on our very first trip outside of the United States! We went to Cancun, Mexico for 4 days and my parents watched the kids for us. It was so so nice. I had the wild idea towards the end of 2023, and everything fell into place so perfectly for us to make it happen. I had planned to visit my parents in Texas for 2 weeks in April. Ryan was supposed to request time off for vacations and I suggested that he see if he could get the second week I would be in Texas off, since it was right after General Conference, and amazingly, he did get it off! Then we were off to see if we could actually pull this off in time. We requested our passports, I got mine back in record time, but I accidentally put some of Ryan's information in incorrectly so his was delayed, but we still got it in time. We used our Marriott credit card bonus to pay for our hotel (4 nights for $15 feels like the most amazing deal in the world!), we used a different credit card bonus to pay for our flights to Mexico, which also ended up being only about $300 for the two of us there and back. We had to find flights for Ryan to get to and from Texas before our trip to Mexico, and we had to make sure that our flight home from Mexico didn't interfere with our flight back home from Texas to Utah. It took a lot of finagling, but we made it work and it was a lot of fun! Some highlights of the trip were: swimming in the heated pools every day, eating warmed up chocolate croissants for breakfast every morning, having delicious food for our other meals at the hotel, walking along the beach, finding a few pretty seashells, going on a really cool tour where we got to swim in a cenote (practically by ourselves because our tour got mixed up and we didn't get lunch like everyone else in our tour group, so the cenote was empty when we got there and then we got out when everyone else got in after they ate. haha we were starving but it was a cool experience.), watching the sunrise over the beach and the sunset over the lagoon, being kid free for 4 days (we love our kids, but it was SO NICE to not have to deal with grumpy toddlers, nap times, changing diapers, feeding toddlers for a few days). Some lowlights: being totally unprepared by forgetting to bring cash, the long flights and super duper early mornings to catch our flights, having different ideas of what it means to relax/vacation. (Ryan wanted to just relax in the hotel room and read for half the day and I wanted to go go go and explore!)
We actually flew home from Texas to Utah on the actual day of my birthday and it was the most relaxing flight I have ever been on. Ryan flew with us (I have flown by myself with the kids 11 times) for the first time in 4 years. Since we booked our flights at different times, Ryan was at the front and I was at the back with the girls. Since I have flown with a lap baby 11 times (actually 13), he agreed to take Quinn for the whole flight, and I sat with the girls. It was a Delta flight, so we each had our own tv, and the girls watched their own movies and I watched Legally Blonde, in a seat by myself and it was amazing! Then we had dinner with my in laws and they let me pick dinner so we had yummy Thai food for dinner. All in all, a pretty wonderful birthday!
2. What are your strongest memories from this year and why?
My biggest feeling of the year is "tired" haha. I feel so tired. It has been one crazy year, and I feel exhausted. But so many good things happened this year too. We somehow managed to buy our first house! Buying a house was starting to feel like something we might never end up doing, so it still feels amazing that it happened. But it's been a lot of work. So much work. It's also been crazy that we moved from Provo to Brigham City. I never wanted to leave Provo, so I have been adjusting to life in a small town with a lot of family close by.
Strongest memories from the year:
- Buying a house
- My parents moved to Brigham City, and I get to see them whenever I want without having to buy a plane ticket!
- We got our first stamp in our passports!
- We completed our first full year of homeschool.
- Going on a trip to Washington and Oregon
- Getting to be so close to all of the grandparents
- Watching the total eclipse with my kids and my parents in Texas in April. That was an incredible experience. I've never seen anything like it! It turned into nighttime in the middle of the afternoon and then turned back. I honestly almost forgot it was the middle of the day until the sun came back out.
3. What did you do this year that you'd never done before?
- Got a passport
- Traveled to Mexico
- Got to go to Relief Society for the first time in 6 years without a baby inside or outside of me!
- Bought a house
- Miss out on strawberry picking season :'(
- Win 2nd prize in the "fun" category of the Utah Lake Photo Contest! (and a $300 check as a prize!)
- We started Family Home Evening for the first time with our kids. It's been fun to let the girls help out most Monday nights.
- I got to take the girls to the fairy tea party at the Provo Library finally!
- And oh, I almost forgot about this! I put on a suggestion form at the Provo Recreation Center that they should have a Father Daughter dance and then they had their FIRST ANNUAL Father daughter dance! I felt so proud for putting something in the suggestion box that actually turned into something cool! I loved going to the Daddy Daughter Dance when I was little with my Dad, and I'm so glad my girls get to have something like that with their Dad! ❤️
- Some new temple open houses that we got to take the kids to this year were: the Manti temple, and the Layton temple
- I got to be a leader at Girls Camp! That was a dream come true! I also did a ropes course for the first time ever. And went rappelling for the first time ever. Both things, I wasn't planning on ever doing haha.
4. What did you want and get?
Buying a house was the big thing that we both have been working toward and wanting for a long time! It needs a lot of work, but here are the things I wanted that I get with this house: a big yard for the kids to play in, a place to decorate and make our own (like painting the walls in the bedrooms), 1000 square feet more than we had previously (even if it is unfinished), a pretty kitchen, a much bigger living room with more room for the kids to run around, a wall mounted tv that isn't covered in tiny fingerprints.
Most other things that I got this year are house related: I bought tulip bulbs, grass seed for the backyard, bookshelves, fun rugs for the kids rooms, a pretty sink faucet, and a fancy shower head.
Oh, and I've been hoping for my parents to move closer for years and years, and now that we have settled down, it was enough for my dad to agree to move closer! So, a big thing that I've wanted and not had but now I do is my parents 5 minutes away from me!
I don't know how I almost forgot this: A WASHER AND DRYER. Our dryer at our Provo apartment was eating our clothes and pretty much on its very last legs, for months! Then we moved into our new home and didn't have a washer and dryer, and it wasn't a huge priority with everything else that needed to be worked on, so it took us probably 3 months to get the washer and dryer bought and set up. I took laundry to Grannie and Papa's house every week to do laundry and it was so nice that we had somewhere to go to do that, but I am SO HAPPY to have a working washer and dryer here in our home.
5. What did you want and not get?
A house with less problems haha but I'm trying to be more grateful.
For Ryan to work less.
To go camping and hiking more.
For homeschooling to be really fun. (It's a work in progress)
For Quinn to calm down 😂
Energy
Peace and quiet and a clean house (copy and pasted from 2023, Ryan says I'm going to miss this stage of life, but part of me isn't totally sure haha)
6. What would you like to have next year that you didn't have this year?
A yard for the kids to play in! We have a big yard, but it is dead dead dead. We worked really hard to get the backyard leveled and grass seed put down, so hopefully next year we can have a yard that the kids can really enjoy! I'm also hoping to get the garden set up so that we can grow some fruits and vegetables next summer!
(Here are some pictures of our yard when we moved in, so that hopefully next year I can look back and see a big difference!) ((Some things I will associate with this first summer will be: SO many grasshoppers. white praying mantis's who have changed their color to match our dead grass, hundreds of wasps. When we moved in our attic was FULL of wasps nests, then we had the roof replaced, so a lot of the nests were killed, but there are still a bunch all along the edge of the house.))
7. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions and will you make more for next year?
I did my More/Less list again for 2024 and I did... okay. 😅
I did really well at spending more time in the temple and more time reading my scriptures. I also did well at making more real meals and meal planning again. I did less well at being grateful, praying daily, going on more dates with Ryan, and looking for the good.
On my less list I had: less instagram, less picking my split ends, less eating treats, less comparison, less judgement. I'm proud to say that I have not picked my split ends for 4 weeks. Not once. A bad habit I've had since 8th grade that I'm hoping to get rid of so I can enjoy some healthy pretty hair for at least a decade. 😂 I am not proud to say that I spent a lot of time on Instagram this year and I've been eating LOTS of yummy treats and exercising a lot less since we moved. Not a good combination, but also not the end of the world. I have been better at not comparing and not judging others.
Other goals: I made more money than ever before in my photography business.
I read 64/70 books. My goal was 70, but I won't beat myself up too much because we did move and Ryan has been working a ridiculous amount of overtime, so I've had to pick up the slack at home.
I love making goals, and this year I'm going to stick with my more/less list. But probably a simplified version of it.
More: Christ, prayer, looking for the good, fun with my kids and involving my kids, serving, painting, baking, exercising
Less: Instagram, complaining,
8. What was your biggest achievement of this year?
Surviving it. 😂
9. What was your biggest failure?
I think my biggest failure is that I haven't appreciated all the blessings that I have. Maybe it's the seasonal depression talking, but I just feel so worn out and I feel like I complain all the time. I'm hoping that 2025 will be my year for really learning how to look for the good in any situation and person.
10. What did you rely on when you were overwhelmed?
The end of the day haha
Reading, getting dressed, making time to spend with friends, spending time in the temple, listening to music, dance parties.
11. What are your strongest recommendations for entertainment from this year?
This year I've been enjoying rewatching Monk, and Ryan and I have recently started watching Leverage.
I've been trying to spend more time reading and less time on Instagram. Some of my favorite books this year were: The Outlaw Noble Salt, Good Inside, Mrs. Quinn's Rise to Fame, Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting, The Frozen River, The Seven Year Slip, The Happy Life of Isadora Bentley, The Wishing Game.
I also loved doing read aloud books with Rose and Lucy this year! We read 10 books together this year! But my favorites were: Fairest, Once Upon a Marigold, Anne of Green Gables, The Tale of Despereaux, and Princess Academy. My very favorite was Anne of Green Gables (It's my favorite book, and it just felt SO special to share it with the girls. It's definitely over their understanding level, but they loved it as well. It is just such a delightful book!)
Some movies and kids shows that we enjoyed this year: Fall Guy, The Star, The Wild Robot, Phineas and Ferb, Scooby Doo, Despicable Me 4
The songs we listened to the most: The Scrooge Soundtrack, The newest Annie soundtrack, I Was Made for Loving You (Yungblud), lots of Benson Boone songs, The Wish Soundtrack, Tarzan and Spirit soundtracks (you may be noticing a theme haha), Wicked, Mamma Mia, I Wanna Be Like You (Sid Bader), Cody Johnson, Faith Hill, Morgan Wallen, For King and Country, Clumsy (Fergie), and many more songs. There is no rhyme or reason to what songs I'll want to listen to.
We tried to spend as much time at the pool as possible all summer long, and spent a lot of time at playgrounds when the weather was nice.
12. What was your most enjoyable purchase?
I have the most fun paying for things that relate to traveling. So, I think I'd have to say my most enjoyable purchases this year were hotel and airbnb's. And food. I'm very happy to have bought a house, but I don't know that I would say it's an "enjoyable" purchase haha.
13. Did you travel? If so, where?
In January, we had the chance to stay at a hotel in Vernal, UT for Lila's baby blessing. We stayed at a Marriott hotel with the kids, swam in the pool, had dinner at Kendall and Michelle's house, ate a yummy free breakfast at the hotel (my favorite!), went to church for the baby blessing, drove past the Vernal Temple, and counted as many dinosaurs on the side of the Main Street that we could see. Then we had to leave early because there was an oncoming snow storm.
In February, we got to stay in a cabin in Wyoming with two other families, the Nanto's and the Crookshank's. Their kids are Rose's best friends so it was a blast! It was VERY cold and snowy, but also incredibly beautiful. We stayed up late playing games, the kids played from the minute they woke up until they crashed at the end of the day. We got to celebrate Autumn's 5th birthday by playing pass the parcel and eating some cake. And we saw a mom and baby moose just right outside the window! Someone had the idea to play loud moose sounds from a speaker to see what would happen, and mostly the mom just kept looking up to see what the heck was going on. On the way home, we drove past Bear Lake and saw a FOX on the side of the road. It was so cool!
In March, Ryan went to Las Vegas for a Spartan Race with Tressa and Preston and Matt. I don't remember what I did, but I probably stayed home or visited Grannie and Papa. It's been fun to see pictures and videos of all of them doing the different obstacles required at the Spartan races.
In April, the kids and I flew to Texas. And then Ryan and I flew to Cancun. The kids and I had so much fun the week that I was in Texas. The bluebonnets were blooming, so I took the kids to take some pictures in the bluebonnets. We also went on a search to find a big Troll art sculpture in Austin at Pease Park. It turned out to be a really fun adventure. The park was so pretty with this giant treehouse thingamajig and a cool "playground" made out of tree trunks, and a river, and of course the giant troll. Of course we also ate Round Rock Donuts, Chuy's jalapeño ranch dip, and Velvet Tacos. I think the neighborhood pool was open too, so I think we went to the pool a few times also, but it may have been cold.
Then for the second week, the kids stayed with my parents and kept them on their toes so that they would send me messages like "I forgot how nice bedtime is when you have toddlers." 😂 And Ryan and I took off to Cancun, Mexico! I wrote about that earlier. It was such a fun trip! I'd love to go back!
In May, we traveled to Oregon for my family reunion on the Oregon Coast. We made a big trip of it and stopped in Idaho and Washington along the way. We were able to get hotels for 3 nights for only $100 + some points, so we did that and ended up having so much fun with the kids each time. We stayed in Boise, Idaho for one night, and then Tacoma, Washington for two nights. And we stopped at the funnest playgrounds we could find along the way. And the kids had so much fun every time that we stayed in a hotel. I was really hoping to see the wild flowers in bloom at Mount Rainier National Park. But we did not plan correctly haha. We went to the wrong entrance, so we went on this hike that was incredible. It was very Rainforest-y with ginormous trees covered in moss. It felt like we were in a fairy forest. There was a sign that said "1.3 miles to waterfall" and I was like "we can totally do 1.3 miles!" So we walked, and walked, and walked, and walked and it was uphill the whole way, and after about 45 minutes of endless walking up the side of a mountain, the kids were DONE. One was crying, one was whining, and Quinn on our backs was probably asleep. It was also a little wet and drizzly, as Washington does. Since we still couldn't see or hear any waterfalls nearby, we gave up and walked back down. I would love to go back again and try it out without toddlers, but honestly it was still a really beautiful hike. I thought the kids did really well in spite of it being a very intense hike! When we had service again we found out that there was a 1,320 ft elevation gain. 😂 That's a lot to ask of some little kids! That was all we ended up seeing of Mount Rainier. We never actually saw the Mount, and we never saw wildflowers. But it was still a good time!
The next day we drove to Tumwater Falls in Olympia, then drove through Elma and stopped to get Raspberry shakes (like I used to get as a missionary), then we drove along the coast of Washington to get to Oregon. We made a quick detour to find some old growth Cedar trees. The location seemed kind of sketchy, but then we found the trees and it was totally worth it! Maybe the biggest trees I've ever seen!
I loved driving over the bridge from Washington into Oregon next. We made it to our airbnb that afternoon and then spent a week in Warrenton Oregon (near Astoria). Our airbnb was so pretty! It was a huge house on the coast. We had deer that hung out in the backyard as well as some falcons. We had fun hanging out with my family, eating yummy food, hanging out on the beach, taking family pictures (this was potentially only fun for me, but oh well.), we took a day trip to Cape Disappointment to see a lighthouse, and we also got to explore a super duper cool cove that looks like a pirate cove to me. We had another day trip to Cannon Beach where we got to walk around Haystack rock and look inside the tide pools where we found so many starfish and other cool creatures. We had some seafood while on cannon beach, but it wasn't quite as good as the last time we went, so we probably won't go again since it cost a whopping $500 to feed our group! 😳 On the way home we stopped in Boise to stay with our friends, the Watsons, for a couple days so our kids could play with their kids. They are THE best hosts ever.
In June, I got to go camping in Spanish Fork Canyon, twice! The first time was for girls camp. I've always wanted to be a Girl's Camp Leader, so it was a dream come true for me! We got to go rappelling (my first time ever!) and do a ropes course (also my first time ever!). I don't know if I'll ever do the rappelling or the ropes course again. I'm not much of a thrill seeker. It was also fun to just hang out, camp with my friend Kendra, and spend time with the young women. We had some journaling time, made friendship bracelets, and hung out by the creek.
Later in June, we went camping in the same campground with Ryan's dad, and Tressa and Preston, and Wesley and Wyatt. We explored the nature trail, played in the creek, and enjoyed being in a beautiful location while camping.
In August, we had a 4 day weekend in St. George. We had 3 hotel nights that we had to use up and the best deal was at this sort of resort near Zion. It was a little tricky since we had just moved into our new house and there were so many projects to be done, but it lined up really nicely with Ryan's days off, so we went and had a really great time! The sunsets were amazing, the pool was really fun, the gym had a pretty view, so I walked on the treadmill every day. The breakfast was yummy and had so many options. And then we spent the two evenings we were there hanging out with the Crookshank's who live in St. George. They have this amazing community pool, so we swam at the pool, played some games, and ate dinner with them. On the way back to the hotel we got to watch some insane lightning strikes across the valley. On our last day we made some stops in Springdale at the candy shop and a shirt shop. We also stopped at a tourist trap and a rock shop where we bought several very pretty rocks.
In October, we went to Park City with Jason and Lisa, and Tressa and Preston. The hotel was so nice, and the pools were heated perfectly so that we could have fun even though it was quite cold outside. We had an excursion to Main Street Park City where Lisa bought all of the grandkids a piece of chocolate. And then the museum of the history of Park City was open for free for the first time I've ever seen it! That was cool to visit. On our last day we went to the park. The girls favorite part was probably the pool and Quinn's favorite part was taking the bus to Main Street. My favorite part was playing games and hanging out in the hot tub. And having a gym to use again.
I wish we had gone hiking and camping more. Especially in Northern Utah, I wish we had found some new favorite spots to walk around in nature with our kids. One of the things I miss the most about Provo is Provo Canyon and all of our favorite spots to go on little nature walks with our kids or skipping rocks in the Provo river. But there is always next year, and I'm looking forward to the different places we may find nearby.
I wish we had spent less time watching tv and on our phones. It seems to be all we ever have the energy for when we are in survival mode, and I feel like we have been in survival mode for a while!
I also wish I had argued with Rose less about school work. I'm hoping to figure out a new strategy in 2025 that makes school more fun and sustainable for everyone.
I don't feel like I changed very much this year. Looking at some of my answers to these questions from last year makes me feel like maybe not very much has changed. And hopefully in 2025 I can work on having a better attitude about my life. 😅
See answer to number 17. 😅
Maybe my last two answers aren't entirely true. I wonder if I'm becoming better at letting go and at slowing down. And part of the process of slowing down, involves accepting that I might still feel like I'm not doing enough because the world tells us we should be doing SO MUCH all the time. So, maybe I am changing, but it feels slow-going, because I'm learning to do what is good for me and my family but the world is going to view those small accomplishments as not being accomplishments at all. Part of what made our move to Brigham City feel like it was the right thing to do was that I would be able to clear my schedule and my plans and only put back in the things that really serve our family. I wanted to spend more mornings at home, I wanted our school lessons to feel less rushed, I want to spend more time outside, and I want to spend more time together as a family. But the pull to fill my calendar with all the things is still so strong that stepping back and slowing down feels really hard, and learning how to say "not today" to things that may be fun but will only add to the chaos, is also tricky.
Other life lessons I've learned:
- little boys are exhausting, but if you give them enough dirt or water to play with, everything is going to be okay. (Unfortunately, winter is making that kind of difficult.)
- Just because I feel like I'm doing the worst job in the world, doesn't mean that it's true.
- Things work out, if you just keep chugging along and doing the best you can.
- When you think everyone has everything going right for them, they probably have a lot they are struggling with. And on the flip side, when you think nothing is going right and everything is so hard, someone is probably looking at you thinking you have it all.
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