Nyland Christmas Letter 2009

Merry Christmas from the Nylands

This has been a year marked by blessings in many forms. We are grateful for all that we've been able to learn, experience, and for the friends and family that have shared it all with us.

We thought we'd post our Christmas letter on our blog this year - no way would it had ever gotten to you by tradition means (in the mail, and on time). Since this is our first Christmas letter, we'll start back in August 2008, when we became the Nylands.

Rob and I were married August 2008 in the Seattle LDS Temple after our 17 month courtship + engagement. Rob was working at a market research firm, and I was graduating from the University of Washington (I finished up a week early to get married). We headed off to San Diego and Disneyland for our honeymoon. We celebrated our first anniversary in 2009. Our truthful answer to those who asked us about our first year of marriage has been "It was so... easy!"

Right away after we returned from our honeymoon to our apartment in Kirkland, Washington I began my career as a Speech Language Pathologist in the local school district. Rob accepted a job teaching Video Production at Lake Washington Technical College (scroll down to check out his bio!). It was a lot of exciting life changes all at once for the two of us!

Our first years at our jobs have been both challenging and rewarding, which was expected. Rob teaches four classes per quarter, and the best way to describe what he does is to show what his students have made. I provide language therapy to 45+ kindergarten-6th grade students from two elementary schools.

Our extended family grew by five this year - my sister, Alicia, got married in March, adding one brother-in-law and two nephews. Also, a nephew and niece were born this year. We feel very blessed to live near both sides our family and have had many fun times our parents, siblings, nieces and nephews.

We've been able to enjoy a handful of trips in 2009 - made possible by school schedules with breaks that overlap. We thoroughly enjoyed Portland, Victoria, BC, and Las Vegas. In June, we road-tripped it down to Utah at the beginning of our Summer Break. Rob and I both lived in Utah while attending BYU, we both love and miss Provo and our friends who are living in the area. Provo was the main destination, but on the way there and back we visited family, friends, and interesting sites in Spokane, Yellowstone, Rexburg, SLC, Roosevelt and Fruitland.

Between trips, our summer was filled with camping, biking and hiking. We're not intense outdoors-men by any means, but it was so great to enjoy the area and each other by spending most of our days doing these activities.

We stay busy year-round with our church responsibilities. Currently, Rob is Elder's Quorum President, which means he directs the group of men that are around 20-40 years old and assists in the day-to-day running of the ward (congregation). I work with the 12-13 year old girls as the 2nd Counselor in the Young Women Presidency. We really love our first family ward after enjoying many years in University wards.

Rob's podcast met it's demise in August after 100 episodes. It was a bit of a change to Rob's weekly schedule after almost two years of weekly trips into Seattle to do the podcast with his good friend Nathaniel.

During the year, we found that our little apartment does a fine job at being home to out-of-town-visitors, even with just one bathroom and an air mattress on the floor (at least, we hope our guests felt the same!). So, whether you're making a trip to visit us, the city, or are just stopping mid-band tour - feel free to stay with us in 2010. Thanks to our 2009 house guests: Lady Danbury, Drew Danburry, Sycamore Street Press, Love is Chemicals, Desert Noises, and Florida Farrars.

We'll start out the new year looking forward to strengthening new friendships and reconnecting with old. We hope to be even more a part of our nieces and nephews' lives this year, excited to watch them grow one year older. We'll take a few more trips: Orlando for Christmas-New Years, Disneyland in February, and maybe even San Francisco for Spring Break (crossing fingers!). With anything that new year will bring, we will be happy and grateful to be experiencing it with one another and with the Lord watching over us.