Merry Christmas 2015

2015 has been an eventful and happy year for the Garn family.

Elizabeth 

  

• Completed preschool at Holy Trinity Parish Preschool.  We loved her school and her teachers.  She learned some wonderful things at school.
• Turned four in June!
• Was happy to move to Utah and be close to grandparents and BYU
• Got a bike and can ride pretty well with training wheels on.
• Started another year of preschool at Chrysalis School.  She is learning so well and now can often be heard around the house singing songs that she learned at school (particularly Christmas songs that she learned for her program).

• She tries to learn as much Chinese as Matthias will teach her.
• She has been excited for Christmas for the last three months.  During that whole time she has wanted a "mermaid tail" and recently decided she also wants another doll.

Matthias

•  Completed Kindergarten at Glennwood Elementary in Decatur.  He made some great friends and is a good little reader.  He also did really well at math and his engineering brain is good at figuring out the basic math principles.
• Played soccer in the spring and had fun chasing after the ball
• Turned six in July!
• Was happy to move to Utah and sad to leave Georgia.
• Got a bike and learned how to ride without training wheels (though he sometimes needs a push to get started).
• Started first grade at Wasatch Elementary and is in the Chinese Immersion program.  He is getting better and better at reading (English) and at math.  He has also started randomly writing and speaking to me in Chinese!

• He love to write stories in English.
• He has been excited for Christmas and is looking forward to getting more legos!  (He's positive that's what Santa will bring.)

Josh

• Defended his dissertation at the beginning of March.  He was supposed to defend at the end of February, but because Atlanta was threatened with getting snow everything shut down (we didn't even get any snow!).  He did successfully defend!
• So in May he walked for graduation and was hooded.  YAY for being done with school!
• Now doing a post-doc through Emory and is continuing to study the effects of water, sanitation, and hygiene in academic and health outcomes.
• Drove the moving van with car attached the whole way from Decatur to Provo.
• Was able to go to several home BYU football games with Paul (thanks Paul!) and all of the BYU home basketball games.  He has loved being so close to BYU sports. 
• Has been working hard to renovate our new house.  He has good skills and good taste and our house is looking amazing.
• Is so kind to watch kids after school while still working.  It's a tough job, but he's able to manage.
• Plays piano in primary for the second hour and is an assistant 11-year-old scout leader in church.

Cheryl

•  Matched for internship at BYU's Counseling and Psychological Services Center.  Started working at BYU in August and it has been a dream job.  

Internship cohort from GSU

• Drove the van with the two kids in the car from Decatur to Provo.
• Helped Josh with house renovations (but doesn't really know what is going on) and is happy with how things are starting to come together.
• Has enjoyed going with the family to all the BYU home basketball games.
• Helps kids with homework after work and is having fun practicing Chinese with Matthias.
• Teaches the marriage and family relations class in Church.

More Family Pictures

Trip to Tallahassee in May

Trip to Lake Powell in June

Hiking in Provo Canyon in July

Listening to October Conference at the Mount Timpanogos Temple grounds

Yay for first snow!

We are so grateful for family and friends and the joy that you bring to our lives.  At this season, our minds and hearts also turn to our Savior's birth.  We are grateful that He was born, set the example, and atoned for each of us.  We know that through His love and grace we can return to live with him again someday.

Merry Christmas!

Hiking family

Now that we live by real mountains, we have enjoyed hiking.  We hiked the Y for Family Home Evening one Monday night in July.  The kids were able to hike by themselves the whole way.... with only a few complaints.  :)  They were very happy when we reached the top.

Lizzy got tired faster than Matthias, but they were both tough enough to make it to the top.

We made it to the very top of the Y!

A couple weeks later we went hiking around Rock Canyon.  I think the kids like that one a little better because the trail isn't too bad, but you can find other paths that are different levels--so kind of like a choose your own adventure.  They keep asking when we can go back and were disappointed to learn that Rock Canyon Park is different from the actual Rock Canyon.

Climbing up a steeper section.

Climbing up a BIG rock.

At the top of the BIG rock.

Family picture in Rock Canyon

First day of swimming lessons

Lizzy and Matthias started swimming lessons today.  They loved it and their teachers were great with them. Lizzy is in the lobster class and Matthias is in the dolphin class.

Matthias' favorite move was called the bow and arrow (he learned how to hold on to then push away from the edge). 

Getting ready to jump in.

Here we go!

Front Float

And a back float!

Lizzy's favorite move was the rocket (she jumped in and swam to the moon). 

Rocket ship and a tree (they did two different moves).

Lizzy said she was in the car and kicking to make it go.

She did a back float too!

Jumping in again.

It was super cute and my kids were so brave to try new things.

The BIG Move

Moving across country is hard work and a lot of preparation.  We rented our truck early.  We were a little worried because we rented the same size truck as when we were moving to Georgia and we thought for sure that we would no longer fit with all of our stuff.  Therefore, we decided to down size before moving.  Esen was nice to come and help us take some of our old stuff away.  I was okay with getting rid of some of our stuff, but was a little sad to see our dining room table go.  I don't know why, but I felt more sentimental about that.



Once that stuff was gone, we had a lot less furniture for about 10 days.  The kids figured out ways to make do and had fun doing it.



We also started packing up boxes early.  Just like in our move out to Georgia, we had a mountain of boxes ready to go before we moved back to Utah.  It was a lot of work, but I was glad that we started early.

They made a fort out of boxes

Truck loading day arrived.  Our biggest concern was moving the piano.  We wrapped it up carefully in bubble wrap, shrink wrap, and blankets.  Somehow Josh and I were able to load the piano into the truck by ourselves.  We're crazy, but we get things done. :)  And we only heard one popping sound when we pushed it into place in the truck (lots of prayers were said about moving this piano safely).  We got it strapped in and the rest was easy.  We got everything loaded in one day.  We finished cleaning up that night and had a sleep over in our front room and dining room.

Wrapping up the piano.

More wrapping.  It's sort of a big deal.

Matthias does good posing, but Lizzy does better photography!

Almost in... it's about here that we heard a little bit of a pop... not a good sound to hear.

Everything fit!  Closing it up for the night.

We woke up early the next day, packed up our overnight stuff, and started driving.  Josh drove the truck with the car in tow the whole way and I drove the kids in the van.  Grandma Lewis had sent the kids packages with lots of wrapped presents which helped keep them occupied on the long drive.  It was so helpful to have this distraction along with our portable DVD player!  We drove about 13 hours the first day and were able to stay with Jess and Isaac in Oklahoma.  They were so nice to let us crash there after a long day in the car.  The next day we drove 8 hours and made it to Albuquerque and stayed with Jared and Richelle.  It was so fun to see my new niece Eden and they were also nice to let us stay there.  Finally on Sunday we drove the rest of our 9 hours and made it to Provo.  We were so happy to be done driving.  We stopped by our new house and walked around the yard.  We were able to stay with my mom for the next couple of days before we officially bought our new house.

Sorry it's blurry, but we all look pretty good at the start of this long drive.

Josh is leading the way.

Yay for toys from Grandma!

We said hi to A and C as we drove through Texas!

Almost to New Mexico!

Matthias with cousin E

Lizzy with cousin E

Yay!  We are so close!

We made it and love the view from our front yard!

While I still feel a little sad thinking about our lives and the friends we left in Georgia, we are really happy to be back in Utah.  And we are glad that the move is complete!

Dr. Joshua V. Garn

We were lucky to have Josh's parents and my mom come celebrate Josh's graduation with us.  It's such a huge accomplishment to finish your PhD and I am so proud of my husband.  I think this is the only graduation he has wanted to walk in and I definitely wanted to have the pictures.

We started the graduation day by going to the big commencement on campus.  We were able to sit on the same side Josh was sitting on (which allowed us to see him better) even though we were still far away.  The talk by Salman Rushdie was disappointing, but we didn't let it put a damper on the whole day.

Keeping ourselves entertained before Graduation starts.

He found us!

We then walked over to the convocation.  Matthias's kindergarten teacher was actually one of the performers to lead in all of the graduates.  Josh was easy to spot in the crowd, as he seemed to be a whole head taller than everyone else.  The kids were so good to keep themselves entertained and to wave at daddy as he came in.  I hope they have memories of this!

My fruit ninja

Blowing kisses to her dad

It was so awesome to see Josh get hooded; totally worth the wait (both in years and how long we waited before it was his turn at convocation).

HOODED!

Afterwards we were able to walk over and get a few pictures by the Emory sign.

Josh's parents were so nice to take us out to eat afterwards.  We had a fun lunch at Red Lobster.  Such a fun celebration and I am so proud of my husband.