25
November 2011
Merry Christmas!
{I
can now officially wish you holiday greetings because Thanksgiving is
over...}
It's
Black Friday. The day that many Americans are working off the
calories from all that turkey and pumpkin pie by running from store
to store in frantic hopes of getting killer deals on the items
detailed on their Christmas gift list. I think they're crazy. {No
offense intended...} I am wrapped in my bathrobe and still
sitting in bed {at noon, no less}
typing my Christmas letter rather than face the hordes of holiday
shoppers...pumpkin pie calories and killer deals be damned.
{Besides...I made a preemptive
strike against those calories by going on a 3 mile run BEFORE turkey
time. So I'm good, right?}
I
feel I should start off with an apology. Many of you know that I
write a blog. And if you've checked out that blog, you know that I am
rather prolific. Which means that anything I detail in this Christmas
letter will most likely be repeat. For those who find news of my blog
writing, well...news, I could just direct you to my blog address
{www.sarah-thebeststuff.blogspot.com}
and then leave you with a generic “Merry Christmas!” But even if
you did venture on over there...I think the 195 blog posts I have
written thus far for 2011 would likely be more than just a little
overwhelming. Which is why I am using my Black Friday to summarize
and hit the high points of my year in this letter.
I'm
finding myself feeling a little bit old this year. Not so much in a
bad way, necessarily...yes, I've been fighting those pesky gray hairs
for quite a few years now despite the fact that 38 years old still
seems way too early to be dealing with that sort of thing. No, this
is in more of a “Holy wow...time is really passing!” sort of way.
We've had quite a few markers this year that force us to acknowledge
our age, even if we don't necessarily feel it.
*Bryan
and I went to my 20 year high school reunion this year. And though I
feel like I look better now than I did then, more than one person had
to look at my name tag before exclaiming, “Sarah! I never would've
recognized you!” because the changes were, apparently, extreme.
{It's the whole hair color thing.
Oh, and probably the fact that I'm not a scrawny 95 lb, 5'1”, 17
year old anymore.}
*But
even more than a 20 year reunion for making one feel older, how about
your oldest daughter entering high school and learning to drive? Yes,
Rebekah is 15 and a sophomore at ----- High School. She challenges us
frequently with requests that leave us floundering as we try to
decide how to respond...seeing as she is our oldest and we've not
come up with a parenting plan for everything yet. She's with friends
more than she is home but she's a good, sweet girl and still somehow
finds time to get enough of her homework done to pull a 3.8 GPA. Now,
how to deal with those ever-present boys who are constantly texting
and wanting to hold her hand at parties??
*Oh,
oh! How about this? Bryan turns 40 in a couple of weeks. 40! FORTY!
The big four-oh! This is a black balloon-worthy birthday coming up.
How is it that even though he is two years older than me he still
doesn't have any gray hair?
*I've
also realized this year that when I sing Lex de Azevedo's “Gloria”
tomorrow, it will have been 13 years since I first started singing
with the Millennium Choir. Julianne was a 5-month old newborn when we
started.
*And
unlike when I played a young teenage “Mabel” falling in love with
equally young “Frederic” in Pirates of Penzance a couple
of summers ago, this year I played the part of “Ms. Susan” a wealthy,
southern plantation owner that is the mother of a teenage
daughter in the musical Harriet. Times are a'changing.
Maybe
the reasons Bryan and I don't necessarily feel our age, despite all
evidence to the contrary staring us in the face, is because of these
things:
*I
continue to run and bike in an attempt to ward of the results of my
lack of willpower in the fight with my sweet tooth and my ever
slowing metabolism. Numerous weekends this year were spent adding
race numbers to my growing collection. Sleeping in vans and gym
floors were not uncommon. Endurance races like Ragnar and LOTOJA,
among others, tend to swing you pendulum-like from miserably brutal
lows to the highest of adrenaline highs, all within one race. Which,
amazingly enough, translates to exhausted awesomeness in my book.
{Did I mention that I am the
captain of my Ragnar team for 2012?}
*I
also tried skiing this year for the first time. Ever. Worries that I
wouldn't make it off that mountain without some sort of injury were
unfounded. {Julianne came home
with a sprained wrist a few weeks earlier after attempting
snowboarding.} Apparently I bounce well...something that was
repeatedly proven to me seeing as I fell on my backside 7 times!
*Bryan
keeps himself active and young in mind and spirit by target shooting
as much as humanly possible. The man gets practically giddy when
packing all his gear. A week trip to Front Sight in Nevada, a day
trip to the desert with his brothers or just a few hours up the side
of the mountain...it matters not. He's just happy to be shooting.
Have I mentioned his up and coming “man cave” in the backyard?
Not yet? Oh. Well! This detached garage-type building will house
not only all his power tools and weight equipment but also...wait for
it...a shooting range. With a main floor that drops 6 feet down into
the ground, the building is within -------- code for personal
shooting on your own property within city limits. He can now shoot
more or less whenever he wants to. Giddy, I tell you.
But
what really keeps us feeling young is trying to keep up with our
children and their schedules. {A
contradiction, really, because their rapid growth also makes our own
years all the more obvious.} I mentioned already that Rebekah
is in high school now. What is unique about our children's schooling,
however, is that we have four children in four different schools.
Julianne is 13 and in 8th grade at the Jr. High, Brandon
is 10 and in 5th grade at the elementary school, and 4
year old Lilian is our caboose attending her 2nd year of
preschool. My brain gets a workout trying to keep all those start and
end times straight...not to mention early out Fridays and late start
Tuesdays. I drive 6 carpools! Because beyond getting the kids to and
from school there is also gymnastics, ballet and drama. I'm starting
to feel like I run a taxi service.
*Brandon's
gymnastics is the most time consuming, certainly. He is at the gym 5
days for a total of 12 hours weekly. Factor into that meet season in
the winter where one meet can take up a full day....you get the idea.
But the determination, discipline, strength, confidence, friendship
and pure joy it brings to Brandon makes it all very worth it. This
year, beyond the various local meets, we had 2 out of state meets in
Boise and Las Vegas and then the state meet in St. George. All good
excuses for mini-vacations, yes?
*Rebekah
and Julianne are involved in --------- Theatre...a youth acting
troupe here in -------. They put on a rousing rendition of Joseph
and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat {try
saying that 5 times fast} in the spring and are now in
rehearsals for Beauty and the Beast. They also performed in
the stake play Receive These Things in March...a show that I
was heavily involved with also, as a ward director. Whereas Rebekah
has embraced singing and performed often with the Choraliers
{the 9th
grade show choir} and has now fully embraced the music program
at the high school, Julianne is kind of rebelling against type.
Though she still loves the acting, I think she is tired of people
pigeon-holing her with singing...and has branched out into other
interests. She refused to take choir this year...something that made
my jaw drop Sebastian style {from
Little Mermaid} and instead, took acting, French and art.
However, she claims one of her favorite classes is history...I don't
fully know yet if she truly does love it, or if she's trying to make
peace about the choir thing by buttering up her mother who has a BA
in history...hmm.
*Besides
preschool, Lilian also takes classes at a local ballet school...a
more beautiful ballerina you've never seen. She is growing in both stature
and personality. {My favorite
Lilian quote this year? When handed an apple at Disneyland she looked
up with equal parts innocence and suspicion...and asked, “Is it
poisoned?”} Lilian seems to think that life is not complete
without a playmate and has developed some serious wanderlust in her
quest to find friends available for play. Luckily for her, we live in
a neighborhood where there is an abundance of little friends her age.
Another
thing that made me feel a little less than my years? Disneyland. The
land where the child inside reigns...often with a crown of Mickey
ears {or in my case, a Mad
Hatters hat.} While the other kids had a summer full of camps
ranging from gymnastics and science, to AFY at BYU Idaho and Retreat
for Girls at Utah State University...with girls camp and a couple of
trips with the grandparents thrown in for good measure, Lilian stayed
home. She'd help them pack, wave goodbye and help them unpack again
when the week was up. In August it was her turn. She packed her own
bag this time, waved goodbye to her siblings and, with Mom and
Grandma in tow, boarded her very first airplane. It being a
Lilian paced trip, we spent four days doing exactly what a 4-year old
desired. And if that meant we went on the Little Mermaid ride four
times in a row, so be it. We had a joyously child-like time.
Funny
enough, mine and Bryan's trip to NYC also made me feel young.
Seasoned enough to feel only slight trepidation walking around the
city on my own while Bryan worked...notwithstanding, I still turned
circles in child-like awe when I found myself in Times Square for the
first time. I pinched myself, literally pinched myself, when I sat
down to watch Anything Goes on Broadway to make sure I wasn't
dreaming. And received the ultimate compliment proving that I don't
look anywhere near as old as I sometimes feel when a native NYC
businessman struck up a conversation with me on the street and
eventually asked me out for drinks...fully admitting to hitting on me
only after I confessed that I was married.
But
realistically, feeling older is a good thing. Because it means Bryan
and I have been happily married for 18 years now. We've been rocked
this year, watching some very close friends struggle in their
marriages and contemplate divorce. Through our tears and despair
we've also found ourselves clinging to each other and our little
family ever more fiercely and thanking Heavenly Father for our
ability to plow through when we've had problems of our own over the
years and come out stronger.
We
are incredibly thankful for the relationships we have with all of
you! What a treasure family and good friends are! We hope you are
all having a glorious Christmas season!
Love,
Bryan, Sarah, Rebekah, Julianne, Brandon and Lilian
New York City: Day 2
