Taylor Christmas Greeting

Last year was the first time and only time we have ever sent out Christmas cards. We had good intentions of sending some out this year, but unfortunately we just never found the time. So this simple blog Christmas greeting will have to do for now even though many of you reading this who are regular readers already have a general idea of what's been going on in our lives.

We can't believe another year has passed so quickly. And so much has happened and changed in our lives. Here's a quick update about our family from this past year.


Christopher completely changed direction as far as his career choice. He decided to leave behind his past ambition of working in the medical field, and decided to combine his other interests of business and baking. Last December we began looking into purchasing a Great Harvest bakery, which included a major move for our little family to Washington state. I remember when Chris made the first phone call to the owner inquiring about the bakery, I knew then and there that it would soon be ours. Although we knew it would not be easy, we have felt good about our decision since that day. We feel completely at home here in this beautiful state. Chris spent a couple weeks in Montana for training, and then spent about two months apart from Sam and me getting our business started while I finished teaching French for the rest of the school year. Being apart for so long was hard for all of us, but living in my parent's basement for that time and being able to enjoy their company made it easier for Sam and me. With our current work situation, we have so much more time for each other as a family. And since moving away from our families, we have grown closer to each other and depend and trust each other more than we ever have before.

Like I mentioned before, I finished teaching my first year of school. I loved teaching and I loved my kids, and I plan on eventually going back to teaching when the time is right. While I was finishing my degree, Chris sacrificed so much to support me in my goal to graduate: he postponed his education and worked horribly long days between his part-time and full-time jobs while still taking a couple classes each semester. Since I have graduated, it is my turn to sacrifice for him to reach his goals and dreams, and I am so happy to do it. Chris and I make a good team and luckily we work well together as small-business owners. I have learned so much about bread in the past few months. Maybe one of these days I'll actually get around to baking some myself (isn't that awful--I own a bakery, and I have never baked anything more than banana bread in my life! Shameful, I know! :) But baking is Chris' department--I just sell it!). I have recently taken on a full-time job as a leasing consultant at our apartment complex, but I am still very much involved in our bakery. In our ward up here, I am the primary chorister, and Chris is a scout leader for the 11 year olds.

Sam is now almost 2 1/2. He is still such a sweet and happy little guy. His laugh is so contagious and he is friendly to everyone including random strangers. In the past year his vocabulary has grown immensely including several words and phrases in French. Some of his interests include cars, trucks, construction vehicles, airplanes, motorcycles--basically anything with wheels. His favorite movie by far is Cars. He loves animals, books, and going to nursery. He is in the process of potty-training, but we haven't gotten too serious about it yet. He has adjusted well to our move up here and has made many new friends.

We completely feel the Lord's hand in our lives and are continually grateful for his direction and guidance. We are grateful for this time of year to focus on the our Savior's humble entrance into this world and feel so blessed to have the peace and confidence the gospel brings to our lives. We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season and happy new year!

Santa and Sam

This was Sam last year meeting Santa for the first time.

This is Sam yesterday with Santa.

To say the least, this encounter was much more amicable. He walked right up to him, shook his hand, jumped on to his lap and jabbered his ear off. Unfortunately we missed the free Santa at the ward Christmas party, and had to pay a pretty penny for this picture at the mall.

I also wanted to include some of the cute things Sam says these days.

• He knows that his full name is Samuel Christopher Taylor. He calls Chris Daddy Christopher Taylor, and me Mommy Christopher Taylor. To him it makes sense. He also will yell my real first name when I'm not paying enough attention to him.
• Whenever we say the words "guess what" he immediately answers, "I love you so much!"
  
• When he wants something really bad that I'm not letting him have, he'll say "please!" and when I continue to say no he says "nice word, mom. Nice word!" meaning that since he said the nice word please, he can have whatever he wants.
• He doesn't fully understand the word "promise." He thinks it means that he wants something really bad. For example, at the store if he sees a toy he wants, you'll often hear him say, "Promise to take it mom! Promise!"

Oh, what a funny little guy! I love this age!

A Bit of This and That

This part of the country doesn't usually get a whole lot of snow, but we got some over the weekend. In fact, it was so much that they canceled part of church. Everyone was contacted and told that we would be having Sacrament meeting, but the rest was canceled, and if we didn't feel safe driving to church to just stay home. Well, it really didn't snow that much--we think people up here are wimps. Though I guess if they're not used to driving in this stuff it could get scary. In any case, we went to church. I heard by the end of the meeting, about 75 people showed up, several of whom were investigators. My primary kids were supposed to sing a special musical number for sacrament meeting, but under the circumstances, their song was indefinitely postponed (which is totally fine because they didn't know all the verses to the song--I was given one week's notice to teach it to them).

Later that day we ventured outside to play in the snow. As a kid I used to be fine playing outside in the cold for a long time, but I've somehow turned into a wimp and hate being cold. We tried to make a snowman, but it was too powdery. We decided to call up some friends who live down the road and invite them to have some hot coco at our store. We had a good time. They are moving to Texas next month, and we will miss them.Last week we hired and had to fire the same guy. He was from Nepal, and during his interview his English was great. However, in front of customers he froze up, and it just wasn't going to work out. So we have since hired back an old employee who left us for Subway and then decided she wanted to come back. We'll have two other girls leaving us the end of January, so if anyone out there wants a job, let us know!

As for my new job (leasing consultant), it's going well. Our apartment complex is relatively small, so we don't get a lot of traffic. I've shown apartments a handful of times, and then the rest of the time I do paperwork, marketing stuff, and help current residents. It's pretty easy, and the perks are great! We get $255 off our rent each month, we don't have to pay water/sewer/garbage at all, I eventually get medical, dental, and vision insurance, and we get a really good deal on internet and cable (we didn't really want cable, but they had to come together. It's weird having so many stations! We've really grown to love PBS in the past four years of marriage since we have never had cable before now). It's so convenient just being downstairs of our apartment, and so I can pop upstairs and see Chris and Sam pretty easily during breaks. I'm learning to balance all the aspects of my life: mom, wife, business owner, and full-time employee. Chris has been great and has been doing most of the cleaning and cooking. Chris has arranged his schedule so that on the days I start work at 9am, he gets off at 9am, so Sam doesn't have to be watched by anyone else.

Anyway, that's a general update for us. We hope you all have a great Christmas! We'll see some of you very soon!

Civic Duty

So Camilla said I could take over her blog since it's been so long since I logged into mine I can't remember the password.
Coming away from the last election I wondered how many people really know how their country works and a little bit about how it was founded. Fortunately, I found a little quiz that will test your civic and historical knowledge of our great country, the US of A. How did you fare? Camilla and I both scored above average, 64% for Camilla and 85% for me, but that really was not too difficult considering the average was a 49% for Joe Shmoe and 55%!! for our college educators. It did help a little bit that we have been watching the HBO series John Adams (would recommend it to everyone). Well, good luck and happy test taking.
Chris