End-of-the-Year Family Update 2016

5 second version: Greg is sick and will be busy this month. Danielle was busy last month but hasn't gotten physically sick yet. Victoria is learning to read and continues to enjoy school and play dates with friends. Despite the risk to our Christmas cheer, we all survived our second battle with head lice. There is much music and nerdiness in our home.

So Greg has spent the last few weekends drafting a family email to send today but he isn't feeling well. It's probably just a bad cold but he needs to rest as much as possible if he is going to keep up with his schedule this month: getting paid between semesters to do cultural consensus theory research (doing hierarchical Bayesian inference) for a Business professor, preparing for the GYSS conference in Singapore, coordinating our weekly den meetings this month, and beginning the semester late (taking his last class, TAing, as well as his doctoral thesis research.) We are grateful that he felt well enough to take the sacrament to our shut-in friends this afternoon. 

Victoria was sad to go back to school but has almost finished re-adjusting. Her love language is quality time so she especially enjoyed spending time together as a family at the end of December. She is doing well at reading but often still prefers to just be read too. Playing teachyourmonstertoread.com has really taken out the chore in teaching her letters and how to read. She recently asked me to go on a vacation to her school. I tried to tell her that going to school and going on a vacation are mutually exclusive. After some tears we finally came to the understanding that she was inviting me to be a field trip chaperone! She loves it when we can go places together. She did well in her ballet recital (she attached picture) but prefers the more relaxed dress code of her creative movements class, so she'll continue with that this semester.

On to Plan B? C? 

Our Christmas break took several unexpected turns, but once Victoria got over the initial disappointment (we both cried), she didn't seem to mind the change in plans. What am I talking about? Head lice my friends! It's back and we didn't miss it. May I never again forget another weekly lice check...I'm guessing it was from school but two of her church friends had it too so who knows. We caught it early on this time and spent Christmas Eve reading the Nativity story and singing Christmas carols while combing through all the children's hair (we were at a friends' house with another family so there were three little girls whose heads couldn't just be shaved, like Greg did to the 13 month old.) This meant foregoing Christmas day at Indianapolis with Becca and Spencer and a week with our Hansen cousins. Plus scrambling for groceries and meal plans, and back up family fun plans that meant Mom's quarantine requirements. Back up holiday plans included a trip to the Decatur Children's Museum and Urbana indoor aquatic center as well as potluck dinners like with our quarantined friends (quarantine doesn't have to equal solitary confinement.) We also learned how to make tamales. 

Music, Music, Music

Aside from my family and household duties, two things keep me busy these days: part time babysitting of a delightful almost-two-year-old and music! Peter enjoys dancing and singing with me as I practice. Thankfully, I have stayed fairly healthy this past month. On top of many solo opportunities I got to play and sing at a wedding reception. The annual Champaign stake Christmas concert went well despite not going entirely as planned.There was less variety and a few numbers fell through at the last minute, but the overall goals I set with the Stake Presidency were finally met this year. I've spent the last 4 Christmases fine tuning this tradition. I am glad to pass the baton on to someone else since we won't be in IL for Christmas 2017! 

Speaking of transitions, this semester I am hoping to take voice lessons in addition to continuing with the campus choir. This is in an effort to prepare for my audition into the Master's program in vocal performance (at Yale!) I'm both excited and terrified as I have received promptings from both sides of the veil to continue my education in this way. 

Career

Greg still has several ideas about what he wants to be and where he wants to go when he "grows up." For now we'll start that process by finishing his Ph. D. then going to Yale! They've got some wonderful benefits for working there (like free tuition for me!) and it will be nice to be closer to the Wildings and Fortneys but not too far from Becca and Spencer. We're planning to live just north of New Haven in the suburb of Hamden so Toria can be near the better schools and Greg's commute will still be reasonable. He did a phone interview with Google to evaluate his options in working there. He also did an interview with an HR person from Wizards of the Coast, and found he quite enjoyed their programming test. We've got many options open to us whenever we're done at Yale!

Gratitude

We are so grateful to see the hand of the Lord in our daily lives. We are especially grateful for his peace and comfort and the enabling power of the Atonement as we've recently been living out covenants to mourn with those that mourn, etc. We've had several friends and family members go in and out of the hospital recently and continue to pray for them. We are grateful for our own safety and good health.