Goings on since the Honeymoon

Welp, we've kept busy since the wedding, but we've been enjoying being newlyweds. We love our ward. It was awesome to come to the ward the first few weeks and find several people that I knew-including the woman I bought my wedding dress from, some friends from the single's ward that got married a few weeks before we did, and a coworker from the ER. I am a CTR 5-6 teacher, and my kids can be a rowdy bunch, but it's still fun! Devan serves in the Elder's Quorum presidency, and keeps busy with visits, moves and other opportunities for service. In the time since we got married, my Uncle Bryce (who is special needs) got very sick, and while my parents have been away on their mission, my siblings and I took it upon ourselves to take care of him. My sister Liz and I spent quite a bit of time coordinating housing, medical and financial decisions for him. But all of my siblings went down to help him during his most critical times. I am grateful that I was able to go down to Utah several times to spend time with him, and that I had a husband who was very supportive of me going down there once or twice a month.

My visit with him before he got sick. I never tire of looking at that toothless grin!

So sad to see him so tired and weak at the hospital.

...it made me happy when he started requesting his hat again, though!

This was where he ended up staying after leaving the hospital. The staff at North Canyon Care Center in Bountiful are awesome!

So fun to see him handing out Halloween candy to the kids that came to the care center!

 

Unfortunately, he never quite fully recovered, and fell sick again with pneumonia that he could not fight off. He passed away in February. The following are links to my sister's blog-she documented the events quite well.

 

http://zaronandliz.blogspot.com/2014/02/uncle-bryce.html

http://zaronandliz.blogspot.com/2014/02/bryces-funeral.html

 

In December, we celebrated our first married Christmas. We went to a tree farm to pick out our first Christmas tree and had fun decorating it. We were able to spend Christmas Eve together, watched Elf and ate homemade pizza and went driving to go look at Christmas lights. Since I was on call Christmas night, we stayed in the area for Christmas and went to Liz's house for Christmas day. It was so much fun watching the kids open their presents!

Our first Christmas tree! Granted, not the greatest picture in the world, but you get the idea! It was a great holiday season.

 

The first part of 2014 was spent primarily with Bryce, and then we went on our big trip to Europe!! Post to follow...