Merry Christmas!

I always enjoy reading my friends' Christmas letters and though it's too late to mail out letters, I thought I would share ours on the blog.  To all of our friends and family reading, we love you, we're thankful for you, and wish you the very best Christmas wishes.

2012 has been a wonderful year for us.  Daniel and I met at the beginning of the year in our singles ward in Ogden.  I was living with my brother up there on the weekends and Daniel had just moved home to save money for graduate school. 

This past summer was a great one.  We got engaged and we ran our first marathon together (Daniel's first marathon ever).  We also spent lots of time with family, watching Monk (the T.V. Series), enjoying the outdoors, and visiting the temple. 

In August, Daniel started his first year of a Ph.D. program in clinical psychology at the University of Utah and he is well on his way to achieving his dreams.

In October, we experienced the best day of our lives as we were married for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple.  We honeymooned in Florida and have settled in Holladay, Utah.

I have been working at Pearson Butler for about 10 months now and it has been going really well.  I like this lawyer job better than the two previous jobs and it is a great environment to work in.  I manage my own caseload and am still specializing in bankruptcy.  I am also starting to branch out into estate planning, probate, guardianships, and social security disability (elder law in a nutshell). 

A couple of weeks ago, Daniel and I were called as team primary teachers at our church and we are excited to serve together and teach little children.

On December , 2012, we had the opportunity to go to the Conference Center in Salt Lake City and see the First Presidency Christmas Devotional of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This was a wonderful event and the words of President Thomas S. Monson have stayed with me:

"Christmas isn't just tinsel and ribbon, unless we have made it so in our lives. Christmas is the spirit of giving without a thought of getting.  It is happiness because we see joy in people.  It is forgetting self and finding time for others.  It is discarding the meaningless and stressing the true values.  It is peace because we have found peace in the Savior's teachings.  It is the time we realize most deeply that the more love is expended, the more there is of it for others."

We hope that you will feel the true spirit of Christmas and enjoy this beautiful season.  Merry Christmas!

Love,

The Brides



Our first Christmas tree