play with us. literally.

Click here and wait for the game to load. Epcot was pretty cool... more to come.

(the game is only available until jan 5th)

A Christmas Mix

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.

Finally

I get to see these guys live:

Phoenix - Lizstomania / One time too many - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Leah's First Visit to Disney World

I made this video for the family and as a contribution to my friends blog. Enjoy:

not sure why we haven't blogged lately

I think we don't blog because we haven't been taking pictures. Really, the last pictures we took were from camping this summer. I think we still do fun things??? Instead of showing pictures from our exciting life, I thought I'd tell you about our favorite shows... and as I thought about that, I realized another theory for not blogging is because we've been watching too much tv.

Really, we watch way less than the average 30 somethings (not something, just 30 - Rob's almost 30 too, ps.). We watch 5 shows..

1. The Office: These days it's pretty bad, but we can't help but be die hard.

2. 30 Rock: Are these characters not the best (2nd best after Arrested Development)!? This show is so ridiculous/fantastic. Example.

3. Top Chef: This has become our new fav reality/competition show. On pins and needles about who is going to win... who could it be!? We love Kevin.

jerk store called:

4. Project Runway: now that the season is over we only have 4 shows that we watch. It wasn't even that great of a season and I'm still sad it's over

Season 6 was this good

5. Friday Night Lights: Ob-sessed.

Team Riggins

Missing from this list:
- Community: didn't like it, wasn't interested
- Glee: wanted to like it, and almost did. plus, it was too sketchy too early on (I watch 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights, so I have no right to say Glee is too sketchy. I get that.)
- everything else. Generally speaking.

letters to friends

Dear Monica,

I bought new boots (in brown, and I fold them higher than shown here).



Dear Lindsay,

You have another reason to visit us.