2013 in Review

Wow, we had a crazy year. In fact, I doubt any year will top it anytime soon. And that is PERFECTLY fine with me.

January:

We started the year off by finishing our honeymoon, which involved cruising to Mexico.

We went to Snowbird for a few days with Brent's family, where Brent re-taught me how to ski after not having done so for about ten years. I surprised everyone, including myself!

We moved into our Wymount apartment.

February:

I started a job as a long-term substitute teacher at a charter school in Alpine, where I taught mostly art to middle-schoolers. By far the hardest job I had, but it was highly rewarding.

We celebrated our first Valentine's Day by me getting strep throat (yay). Wonderful Brent dragged our TV into our bedroom where we watched all of The Lord of the Rings movies instead of getting dinner and massages as originally planned.

We got those massages the week after V-day. We decided here to make a tradition of celebrating V-day a week late as it insures that we will always get a dinner reservation.

March:

We found out we were expecting!

I turned 25.

April:

We both graduated with our Bachelor's Degrees! I graduated in Art Education, Brent in Physics.

We found out the Brent got an internship with Los Alamos National Labs!

May:

We packed everything we could into our two cars, put everything else in storage, and hauled ourselves to New Mexico for the summer and waved goodbye to our Wymount residency forever.

Brent began his internship, while I began volunteering at the local art center.

We moved into our first family ward, and realized we didn't want to move into a student ward ever again.

June:

We decided to go all out for our 6 month anniversary since we knew we would be too busy with a newborn for our 1 year anniversary. We stayed at a cute B&B in Albuquerque (that most unfortunately had a couple cockroaches but was otherwise great), went to the zoo and aquarium, went to the mall (this was a big deal for me, since the closest mall was 2 hours away from our home), and ate tons of yummy food.

We fed the giraffe. Fortunately it didn't eat my hand off.

Trips to Bandelier National Park and Santa Fe were made.

Bandelier

We went to Colorado to attend the wedding of Brent's good friend

July:

We went to Alabama for an annual family reunion with Brent's mom's side of the family. I ate a lot of new southern foods for the first (and last) time, as well as witnessed the wonderful game of redneck shuffleboard.

It's a boy!!!

August:

I went to California to attend my cousin's wedding. I also was able to go to the Holllywood Bowl and see Steve Martin perform bluegrass music, attend the Ventura County Fair where we enjoyed Hall & Oates, and visit a gorgeous beach called Paradise Cove.

My favorite event at the fair: tiny racing pigs!

We went to my family's annual Lake Powell trip.

Little Rascals

We packed up our cars again and sadly said goodbye to our adventures in New Mexico.

We lived with my brother for a week until we could move into our new place. Thanks Dan and Barbara!

We moved for our third (and thankfully last) time. We immediately fell in love with our new apartment, even though I was admittedly a little bit sad to be back in Provo.

September:

Brent started his PhD in physics, and also went to California to do cool jet noise measurements using knowledge I will never obtain in this lifetime.

I began babysitting my sister's two adorable kids full-time, which would last until the mid-October.

We found a leaf bug on one of our walks

October:

End babysitting. I finished settling us into our new place.

I launched an art website with my sister!

November:

Caleb Owen Reichman entered the world!!!!!

My mom came and took care of us, which included making us a wonderful Thanksgiving meal! Thanks Mom!

Brent turned 26 on Thanksgiving

Brent with all his birthday presents. I think his favorite is the one he's holding.

December:

Brent's mom came and continued to take care of us. Thanks Mops!

We surprised Brent's family in Colorado for Christmas :)

We celebrated 1 very happy year of marriage!!!

We went to the annual Snowbird Reichman reunion, where I skied my first black diamond (which technically happened this year, since I did that on January 1st.)


I can't imagine that the year to come will be nearly as adventurous, as we have no intentions of moving or producing more offspring within the next twelve months. This year does start a new chapter for me--the life of a stay-at-home mom. Let me tell you, it is very strange to be living in Provo and not be a student. I have been a student since I was four and now that familiar stage has ended and a new, very unfamiliar one is beginning. Am I apprehensive? Sometimes. But I am looking forward to the adventures to come and intend to "enjoy every sandwich."