Christmas Letter
Hello Friends and Family
Christian and Kellie hope and pray that this letter finds everyone well and happy. This year has been crazy for us and both sets of parents.
Let's start at the beginning of the year. Kellie spent the week of New Year's in Colorado (oh how beautiful the mountains are with sow on them) with Christian and his parents. Diamond came out with Kellie and she was like what's that cold wet white stuff falling from the sky? She was okay with the drive up but hated the flight back to Oklahoma, she couldn't ride in Kellie's (momma's) lap on the flight.
At the end of January Kellie got a phone call from the place were were getting married at, and there was a schedling conflict and we couldn't get married on March 7. It was a mad scramble to get new invitations made and sent out in time for everyone to make arrangements.
Christian flew in the week before the wedding to help finish up with last-minute prep for the wedding. We got married in a beautiful ceremony at the Oklahoma City Temple. We then exchanged rings and had a wonderful reception that evening. After the wedding we went to Walt Disney World for our honeymoon. It was Kellie's first time. While we were there in Florida, we went to Cape Canaveral for a night-time rocket launch (also Kellie's first time). We were about 4 miles from the launch site and had VIP tickets, Christian got them from work for free. Christian works for the University of Colorado at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). He's a rocket engineer and while he didn't work directly with this rocket, his lab did.
Kellie isn't much of a Roller Coaster girl but Christian got her on a few. However, it cost him a stuffed animal per ride, so we came back with about a dozen new stuffed animals. Christian was warned by Kellie's parents and was given the advice not to let her bring back any. As you can see, that warning didn't do Christian any good. Florida was a good trip even though Kellie found out that she is allergic to Florida.
After the honeymoon we flew back to Oklahoma to get Kellie's stuff and then on March 24, we started the drive to Colorado. We stayed that night somewhere near the Kansas-Colorado border. On March 25 around 4pm Colorado Time, Kellie got a tornado warning for her old home town of Moore, OK, saying there was a tornado on the ground. Kellie looked over ath Christian saying "we left at the right time".
On March 28 we had another wedding reception in Colorado. We did this so that the people Christian works with and goes to church with didn't need to take time off or to worry about traveling to Oklahoma. We knew that his parents and grandma were coming in from Utah, but we had no clue that Kellie's parents would come up, so Kellie was surprised when her parents stepped out of the kitchen. Christian's mom knew that they would make the trip up to Nebraska on friday and spent the night at one of her aunt's house so they were able to meet up on I-25 in Colorado and her parents followed Christian's parents to the house.
Kellie was put to work immediately at the church, teaching six-year-olds along with Chris. On Kellie's birthday, we had a party at church with our class. In November we had another (slightly late) party for Chris. One of the highlights for us was the treat jar. Our students helped us come up with this when we were new. It is a jar with all their names on it, along with pictures of some of Chris's favorite treats. The really cool thing is that the names on the jar were actually written by the students, then transferred to the jar.
After the craziness settled down in about mid-april our sister-in-law asked Kellie to be a Mary Kay consultant so we signed the paperwork and ordered inventory. In July Kellie made her first business trip to Dallas, TX for the Mary Kay seminar and was able to see Jordan Sparks sing.
It turns out that Kellie is a good luck charm, especially for the missionaries who taught her. So far seven of them have already gotten married. We received invitations from two of them on the same weekend, in different states. Decisions, decisions. Go to the Salt Lake temple, or go out to California? We ended up going to Utah for Mackenzie (Sister Roberts) and Jameson's wedding. About two months later, we went back for Sister Nielson's wedding reception. We were able to count that one as a business trip, because Kellie was able to meet with her direcotr, and sold to Chris' parents.
In June, Chris participated in a robot bulding comtest. His robot had to drive itself around a track in a parking lot, without any human controlling it. After failing twice to even turn the first corner, Chris finally figured out what was wrong and was able to make the turn in practice, seven consecutive times. Unfortunately, during the final heat, the robot turned too late and hit the fence before scoring any points. Oh well, maybe next year. Kellie was looking forward to attending and cheering on Chris and Yukari (the robot), but came down with bronchitis the night before, and had to miss the event. (Who comes down with bronchitis in June?)
In July, Kellie was able to see her parents again, but on a sad note, as it was at her uncle John's funeral. This was only a week before Mary Kay Seminar. This counted as a business trip, too. Thanks, Mom!
After the crazy summer traveling, things were starting to settle down. Chris' long-time roommate finally found a place of his own, so we finally had the house to ourselves, for about a week. We were able to serve a member of the Church by providing a place for her to stay temporarily.
We went to Oklahoma to Kellie's parents for Thanksgiving week. Kellie wanted Diamond to be able to see all her friends ("sisters") back at her parents' place, so we decided to drive. Going out to Oklahoma was easy (although we had a bit of snow when we left at 4:30am), but getting back to Colorado ended up being a bit more of an adventure. While we were out in Oklahoma, we saw lots of Kellie's friends. We had Thanksgiving dinner at her parents' place, with her family and Chris's sister Elisa. We made about 4 batches of Chex Mix, which vanished as fast as we could make them. We had lots of fun playing cards and board games. One day we went to the Oklahoma Museum of Osteology (skeleton museum) which Kellie really liked. We had lunch that day at Pop's, a gas station and roadside diner on the old Route 66. They had just about every kind of soda that has ever been made (over 700 varieties!).
