2025: Delight in Simple Contentment

After all of the change and movement and extended periods of concerted hard work of 2024, I'm looking for something different in 2025. In many ways, 2025 gets to be the fulfillment of the first half of my career. I get to enjoy the space and self-direction that I have worked hard to earn. And I am keenly aware that it will be easy to return to old habits and fill this wealth of time with "stuff to do."

In 2025 I get to be rich in unexpected ways. We'll make substantially less income, and we'll gain flexibility. And I get to decide if I'm going to be content in this new wealth or if I will pine for the old kind, with its recognition and busyness and undeniably nice accouterment. 

In 2025, my focus is to delight in simple contentment. I get to enjoy that I have enough and that having enough is lovely. 

The word I keep returning to is "chuffed" - a quirky way of expressing the experience of pleasure, satisfaction, or delight. I get to be chuffed with my life and where I'm at in 2025. 

And wouldn't you know that my Bible readings brought me to the perfect verse to focus on in the new year:

"You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought."

Matthew 5:5

2024: A Year in Motion

Mountain biking with Chewbacca

It's wild to look back over 2024 and marvel. 2024 was a year in motion! 

• We spent a full 7 weeks out of the country between trips to Mexico, Kazakhstan, and China
• I almost completed the classwork portion of my Master's in Clinical Mental Health (42 credits done!)
• Sam moved out of the house into his own apartment
• We renovated the entire main floor of our home (i.e., no kitchen or living room for 4 months)
• I closed the full-time corporate work chapter of my career
• Within a week and a half, Steve and I had completely switched roles, with him working full-time and me working none paid hours.
• I still managed to clock 1800 miles on a bike!

Receiving a Decade of Impact Award

My focus for 2024 was to attune inwards more. Even though the year was a blur of activities, I feel like I was able to ground more and handle the bumps and turns because I had specific goals to pause and look within to how I was feeling and what I wanted. I still want to learn to listen to myself better, but I've come a long way. 

Looking back on all of these changes leaves me with two big feelings: gratitude and empathy. I feel wildly grateful that time and schedules and budgets and desires all aligned for us to take three big international trips, two of which were homeland trips for the girls. As the kids grow, I recognize that these big family adventures will probably become fewer and farther between; the kids will have their own schedules and homes, and I won't be able to assume they'll come on every family trip. So I'm wildly grateful that 2024 was the year we were able to make all that travel happen and spend time together all over the globe. It was hard work and a ton of money and we made it happen.

Exploring the Forbidden City

Secondly, I feel empathy and tenderness toward myself. The anticipated and unanticipated adventures of 2024 were a lot to handle. I managed to work full time (for 11/12 months), complete 15 hours of graduate coursework, travel a ton, and stay pretty darn healthy. That's a big deal. And when I look back and remember the stress or the anxiety or the times that it all felt like a lot to carry, well it was! And I have more empathy for that gal who was coping with so much change in so little time.

Another birthday in Mexico!

So, farewell 2024 with your high highs and your low lows and all of your stressy stresses. You were a wild ride! I feel grateful for what I've learned and experienced, and I enter 2025 as a wiser (and more tired) person.

Quality time in nature with the puppers

Drinking fresh-milked mare's milk in the Kazakh steppe. I told you 2024 was an adventure!

New Year, New Focus: Inward

 Keep your heart with all vigilance,
  for from it flow the springs of life.

Proverbs 4:23

It's a whole new year. I love stepping back at the start of the year and choosing a focus for the brand new year before me. Not a resolution. Not a goal. A word or concept to hold before me as a theme and an aspiration.

As I work through my counseling degree, as I refine my vision of the next chapter of my life, as I gain age and perspective, I recognize that I have spent a lot of time and energy trying to arrange and control my emotions. Some of this is crap from both Christian and western culture about emotions being bad (and intellect being good). Some of this is that I spent a lot of years just trying to hang on and survive, and being in touch with my feelings and wants just didn't make it to the agenda. 

So this year, in a continuation of the "slowing down and simplify" themes that have permeated my new years reflections for many years, I'm focusing on going inward. Attuning to myself. Giving my emotions space to breathe inside my heart. Letting those emotions flow. Nurturing my heart. 

Hello, 2024 - I look forward to all you want to show me.

New Year Reflections

 2022 was a darn fine year. I mean, yes, there was war and economic recession and a lot of layoffs. Plus, COVID. So, perhaps I should rephrase: 2022 was a darn fine year for learning and growth. 

As a family, we embarked on a bunch of new adventures - we rafted the Yampa River, visited Hawaii for the first time, Ben and I started new university programs (Ben's undergrad, Jamie's MA in Clinical Mental Health), Steve and I went to Fairbanks and saw the northern lights, we celebrated Sasha's quinceañera in Colima. We got a new dog. I biked a respectable 1,968 miles. Sam got a new job and a motorcycle, Ben went to France to the Unicycle Olympics, we bought a Mini Cooper, and Sam, Ben, and I went to Mini Cooper stunt driving school in California. The half of the family that didn't get COVID in finally 2020 got it. We skied in California, biked in St. George, camped in Nevada, rock climbed in Colorado and St. George and California, saw a show in New York City, and did a ton of mountain biking all over Utah (I have a stunning new shin scar to prove it). 

So, yeah, a good year. Lots of adventures. Lots of learning.

I love to set a focus or intention for the new year. It's not a resolution, and there's nothing magical about it, but it's healthy to step back and consider where one wants to focus in this bright new year. 

I haven't settled on a single word, but my focus is on going slow. Doing one thing at a time. Being open. Finding serenity. 

For those of you laughing at this intention, I'll remind you that this isn't about staying still. I am not good at staying still. But it's about cultivating more space even in the doing. Yes, maybe doing less, or maybe just doing less frantically. Between school, work, family, and hobbies, I have a lot going on. It's true. And all of that makes it all the more important to focus on going slow and doing with serenity. 

Here's my start-of-2023 memory verse:

Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
    don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
    he’s the one who will keep you on track. 

Proverbs 3:5-6

I love this focus. God's not saying, "don't plan," and he's not saying, "let go and let God." He's saying, "You don't have to figure everything out, and you don't have to plan for every contingency. That pressure isn't on you. Listen and watch and trust. I got you." And that is an excellent way to enter a new year.

2017's Stellar Start

The year is still young, but judging by our new year's activities, 2017 is looking pretty darn great!

Our celebration started with a friend's wedding. We dress up well...

...but the true colors do eventually shine through! WanYing and Ben in particular had a wonderful time playing a very convincing World's Tallest Man using Daddy's winter coat.

And then it was off to party with some of our dearest friends! We greeted the new year with card games, tons of food, and a big old box of poppers. It was perfect.

We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends in our lives!

New Year's Day brought snuggle naps in the coordinating Mermaid Tail blankets Daddy got us for Christmas

And New Year's Day continued brought 10" of fresh snow and a day of skiing at Deer Valley! We skied every glade and tree run we could find and had a grand time doing it.

We wish you and yours peace, grace, joy, and truth this year. And snow, lots and lots of snow.

Hope and a Future

This was a big weekend for our family - WanYing's birthday, Superbowl party, Chinese New Year celebrations, a sledding party, and our first Sunday meeting in our new church building! So much to celebrate, so much to contemplate.

Meeting in our new church building this morning was amazing. This has been such a long road for CenterPoint Church - this building is a decade in the making! Steve and I were a part of the original decision to purchase property on Sandhill Road. We've given and participated in 3 separate fundraising campaigns, dozens of work days, and countless Sundays as a church on the move as we've met in 4 different schools in Utah County. It's been a long, tough, often heartbreaking journey as we've overcome opposition and roadblocks, trusting God all the way.

And nowhere we are, worshiping as a church family in our very own church home! And I just step back in wonder and awe at what God has accomplished in us and through us. Yes, meeting in a building of our very own is glorious - it feels amazing to have space that we built, designed, and decorated to be our very own.

But what's more amazing is how God has sustained us as we have learned to trust in him day by day, Sunday by Sunday, decision by decision. I love our building, but I love even more the character we have developed as a church family. That character, that faith lasts so much longer and reaches out so much wider than the four walls of any church building.

And the funny thing is that Chinese New Year means a lot of the same things to me.

I'll level with you - regular New Year's is a complicated time for us as a family. Steve's mom passed away 4 years ago at New Year's and our family entered a despairing season that almost tore our marriage and family apart.

And after a very dark January, suddenly it was time to celebrate Chinese New Year and this bright and colorful day invaded our dark season with hope.

And so we rejoice that we are individuals, a family, a people, a church, with a hope and a future. And, yes, we revel in the happiness of a finished building, a strong family, the end results of so many miracles strung together. But what is more important than the "happily ever after" (because no story is ever done!) is the truth we've lived that God is with us in our troubles.

God's provision and love for us is most strongly demonstrated in the dark times when he sustains us step by step.

Over the years, I've come to deeply love Lamentations 3. In the middle of unspeakable horrors, deep depression, and a seemingly hopeless situation, the author bursts out with:

I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—
the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there’s one other thing I remember,
and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!

God's faithfulness sustained the author of Lamentations before anything changed about his situation. And that's the source of my deep joy this weekend - not that everything has or will ended up "happily ever after" but that God's loyal and merciful love is new every morning, and that my faithful God is more than enough.

New Year of Good Living

2015 has been a heck of a year. Our family has grown together. Jobs have been good. Kids are doing well. Our new church building is almost complete. We've had a killer December for snow. I biked a respectable 2600 miles. We've been snowshoeing or cross country skiing every day this week. We had no major car issues or home repairs. We went camping every 2nd or 3rd week this summer.

It's a lot to be grateful for. A whole lot to be grateful for.

We've seen and been affected by heartache in our friends and family and it's our privilege to walk alongside those who are hurting. And we are grateful for the healing that God is cultivating in their hearts.

But for us it's been a beautifully unremarkable year. A year when we've hunkered down and enjoyed the blessing of time together as a family.

It is a remarkable thing to realize that we are our favorite people to be with. The very idea makes me grin from ear to ear.

We're not into New Year's resolutions around here. But this morning I was reading in Philippians and found a fantastic theme verse for 2016:

Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God.

Philippians 2:15

I like it. I think that if we can live 2016 with a generosity of spirit and an infectious love for this precious life that provides everyone around us a glimpse of good living and of the living God, we'll have done a-ok in this new year.

Cheers to new beginnings, steadfast love, and new mercies every morning.

Best of 2014

New Year's is a bittersweet time for us - a time of new beginnings and also a time when we say goodbye again and mourn our losses, especially the passing of Steve's mom on New Year's Eve 2011. We tend to get a little wistful around New Year's.

2014 was a great year for us. A year of further rebuilding our family and really enjoying our time together. A year with a lot of camping, a lot of cycling, and a lot of skiing (our three favorite activities!). A year of transitions with WanYing starting kindergarten, Ben starting middle school, and me starting work at Qualtrics. It was a blessed year.

To celebrate the new year, we each chose our favorite picture of ourselves from 2014. Here they are!

Steve: Dinner at Sundance at the Bearclaw Supper Club.

Amazing food. Amazing hike up. Amazing views. Amazing company (if I do say so myself).

Jamie: Riding in the MS 150.

I had a great early cycling season and this ride was a highlight. There were 20+ of us riding for Team C4C and it was a time of great camaraderie and strong riding.

A few weeks after this picture tore the membrane between my tib and fib mountain biking and spent most of the summer trying to repair. It was a super lame injury and even now 6 months later it still swells up and hurts after an active day. Groan. It's a good reminder to be grateful for healthy riding days!

Sam: Skiing on Christmas Day

Nothing says Merry Christmas like 7" of powder on Christmas Day!

Ben: Drinking Icing

Our Picky Pizza Posters pizza reviews have been a simultaneous highlight and lowlight of 2014. Hungry Howie's was not on the highlight side of that spectrum. I can only imagine Ben chose this picture to punish the rest of us for allowing him to dine with us.

Sasha: Yurttastic

We celebrated Sasha's 5th Gotcha Day by camping for 2 nights in a yurt in the wilds of Utah. It was a fantastic family adventure.

WanYing: Bouncing at Snowbird

This summer we enjoyed a mini staycation at Snowbird, volunteering for the Tour of Utah and playing endlessly on the bouncy, spinny, roller-coastery toys. WanYing was thrilled by how high she was able to bounce and flip and spin on the trampolines and chose this as her favorite picture of 2014.

We had a fast and fun 2014 and hope that 2015 finds you happy and well and just the right amount of busy doing all of your favorite things with your very favorite people. Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Gong Xi Fa Cai!

It's one of our very favorite times of the year - Chinese New Year! I love having another clean slate, another new beginning, and another chance to celebrate. And combine all that goodness with a chance to enjoy our littlest gal's birth culture and we have a heck of a reason to party!

Every year a local group of families with Chinese children puts on a pot luck and new year's party and it's always a ton of fun.  Celebrating New Year with 40 or 50 local families with kids from China is such a joy!  Being around mixed-culture families where folks who look like us are the norm just feels great.

Our older Asian gal gets in on the action - this girl never misses a chance to look like a princess!

This year we helped out with the Chinese Zodiac play - we couldn't find an ox costume so Totoro filled in and Sasha loved being the snake.  WanYing was a kitty cat (who came in 13th so didn't get a chance to be one of the Zodiac animals) and Sam rounded out then ensemble as the Emperor.

Everybody's favorite part of the evening (well, after cake) - the Lion Parade!

From all of us to all of you, a very happy Chinese New Year!  Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Tragedy-averted Tuesday

"Mom! I'm all ready to welcome our New Year's Eve guests!"

Great, great, I can't see how this could possibly go wrong.  For everybody who, like me, formerly scoffed at Utah's rule that minors can't buy any fireworks, even poppers, this is why.

Coasting into 2014

New year, blue skies, and clear roads - must be time for a bike ride!

2013 was a wonderful year on 2 wheels and I enjoyed lots of individual firsts.  I clocked over 3,700 miles, completed my first 3 century (100-mile) rides, and welcomed 2 new bikes to the family!  Wahoo!

Cycling has been such a joy and unexpectedly fab new hobby for me.  When Steve bought me a bike for my birthday 2 years ago, I don't think either of us had any idea what he was starting! I'm so grateful he took the chance on a very surprising birthday present - way to go, babe! It's been a life-changing new adventure.

Hopefully 2014 is a year with even more miles, fewer new bikes (for budget's sake!) and lots more riding with friends. 4,000 miles this year?  Yeah, we can totally do that.

'Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving."

- Albert Einstein

2013 - Figs with a Future

2013 has been a year of new beginnings for us - a year of hope. And on this bittersweet day when we mourn Steve's mom's passing from this world two years ago and celebrate her true homecoming into Jesus' arms it seems a good time for reflection on tough times, hope, and how God combines those two in such surprising ways.

My Bible study this morning (you know, the one-year chronological study that I'm one year and halfway through - oops!) brought me to Jeremiah and the often quoted Jeremiah 29:11:

For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

This is a verse that's easy to agree with. I mean, who doesn't want God planning a good, hopeful future for them?  I'm in!

But it's easy (convenient?) to forget that these words were for exiles.  Conquered people.  Losers. Sinners.

Jeremiah 29:11 isn't a rose-colored glasses verse about God making every road level and straight and easy for me, it doesn't promise constant happiness and satisfaction and popularity and wealth.  Jeremiah 29:11 is about hope in the struggle.  Hope in the turmoil. Hope in the hard place.

Back 5 chapters from this iconic verse, Jeremiah talks about an interesting vision God gave him about these same exiles:

The Lord gave me this vision. I saw two baskets of figs placed in front of the Temple in Jerusalem. In one basket there were fresh, just-ripened figs, but in the other the figs were spoiled and moldy—too rotten to eat. Then the Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”

I replied, “Figs, some very good and some very bad.”

Then the Lord said: “The good figs represent the exiles sent to Babylon. I have done it for their good. I will see that they are well treated, and I will bring them back here again. I will help them and not hurt them; I will plant them and not pull them up. I will give them hearts that respond to me. They shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with great joy."

Woah. So let me get this straight.  The good figs, the blessed figs, the figs with "a future and a hope" are the prisoners of war in a foreign country? Not the path I would have chosen.  Yet for those figs in exile, it was directly through their experiences in a hard place at a hard time that God was planning to plant them, to make them his, and to give them great joy.

And this has been our 2013 experience. 

2013 has been a year where because of our challenges, not despite them, our family has been more firmly, more deeply planted in Christ and in each other.  Our hearts respond more readily to God.  And we return to Him and home day by day, week by week with great joy.

So we welcome the new year as figs with a future. Because we all need new starts - new years, new mornings, new lives - all found in the least expected, and often the hardest, places. Thanks you, Jesus, for providing as many new mercies and new compassions as I need!

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for him.

Lamentations 3:22-24

December - Christmas Tie Dyes

March - Bryce Canyon

February - Lunar New Year

May - Goblin Valley

August - Mt. Timpanogos

November - Solitude Resort

March - Bryce Canyon

October - Halloween

June - Colima, Mexico

April - Sasha's Birthday Party

February - Soldier Hollow

October - Dead Horse Point

July - The Narrows

April - U-Dig Fossils

May - Little Wild Horse Canyon

October - Halloween

February - WanYing's 2nd Gotcha Day Anniversary

June - Colima, Mexico

October - Moab

August - Wildflower Pedalfest

October - Dead Horse Point