New home

We are moving to a new home! Blogger is trying to make us use HTML to edit everything on our blog now and we lost a lot of links to our friends blogs. Please come visit us at our new home at www.chrisandamandswonderyears.wordpress.com. If you want us to link to your blog, then please comment for us here or there leaving a web adress for your blog.

Thanks everyone,

See you soon!

Now introducing...

The last month has been full of exciting events. Amanda and I have been looking for a bigger apartment. However the scope of our search was limited because we really wanted to stay in our ward. I have been the Young Men's President for the last year and Amanda has been the Laurels advisor. Even though we were in an apartment, our ward had always made us feel welcome and like we were a part of the ward family. Not to mention the youth that we worked with were incredible. So we searched through the limited apartments available in the ward boundaries that were bigger than what we were living in. We thought that had a place secured but the land lord rented it out from under us after we told him that we would take it. So we expanded our horizons and looked elsewhere. It didn't take us long to find a bigger place, for comparable rent. So after a few tearful discussions we decided to move. We are going to miss our ward and the friends that we made there. But at least we are close enough that we will still see everyone with some regularity. (We are still setting things up, but once we are done, we will post pictures.)

In other news we have new family members to celebrate! My brother Taylor and his wife Meg who live in Arkansas just had a little boy! His name is Fielding Elias Beckstead. He was born Sunday February 21st weighing in at 7 lbs, 13 oz and was 20.5 inches long. He has a full head of long black hair. I think that he is going to be tall and skinny like his dad. You can see pictures and videos of the little guy on their blog. My parents now have 3 grandkids, Grayson, Ella, and Fielding. (Fielding could have been born on 363 different days and not shared a birthday with a cousin, but both Fiedling and Grayson share the same birthday. I am sure Gray won't mind.)

Following up with the baby news from Taylor and Meg, my cousin Phillip and his wife Amy had their baby boy also! Crue Phillip Secrist was born February 28 weighing 8 lbs, 2 oz and 20 inches long. Congrats to Phil and Amy!

Finally it's time to introduce the newest member of our family! Last week Amanda and I while we were moving had the opportunity to bring a new bundle of joy into our lives. His name is Rusty, he weighs 11 pounds and has short red hair! He enjoys taking naps and going for walks in the neighbor hood. No we didn't have a baby and no we aren't pregnant. The new apartment allows us to have small pets and so a small pet we now have! Rusty is a seven year old Dachshund that we rescued from the Hurricane Animal Shelter. They found him wandering the streets, hungry and cold. When they contacted his owners, they were told he could be adopted out. So we took him home the day we moved into our new place. He is extremely nervous and has a problem where he piddles if you look at him wrong, but he is quickly overcoming that.

Enjoy the pics of Rusty, our Sunday drive to a snowy Zion National Park and hiking to Johnson's Arch with my dad.

No, we aren't dead...yet...

The last few months have been crazy! Life has been really great and we have a lot going on. Amanda is having a lot of fun teaching, and studying. She is rocking her classes and is on schedule to complete her masters in the fall. As for me, work was CRAZY between October and December. I put on four events and helped on two others. Plus I am going to take the GMAT in march.

Trying to establish a study program for the GMAT was a bit of an adventure. No prep classes are taught in St. George (Or southern Utah for that matter). So unless I wanted to pay 1,500 dollars for an online course, I needed to come up with my own study programs. I went to Dixie college and talked to some tutors about helping me prepare. I decided not to pursue their help though when people asked me "The GMAT is for medical school right?" and "What is the GMAT?"

We had a ball during the holidays. We spent Christmas at my parents house since Alex, Heather and Ella were in town. Ella is unbelievable. She turned 2 at the end of October, but she counts to 10 in English, Spanish and German. German was our favorite because she yells when she does it. She sings songs, plays games and loves to ask you "what happened."

The best one liner from Christmas, came from our nephew Grayson. He came to my parents house that afternoon and was opening presents. (I think that he had been opening presents for three days straight.) He was about 3 gifts into his pile of boxes when he stopped and said, "I don't want to open any more presents... I don't want any more presents."

New years was phenomenal. We hung out at the Parslow's up in Monroe. The Parslow family tradition is to have a fondue feast to usher in the new year. There was shrimp, chicken, steak and lots of other stuff. Not to mention the bacon wrapped water chestnuts that are baked in BBQ sauce. KC, Amanda's baby brother came up to me, put his hands on my stomach and said "Why is your belly so big."

We appreciate what everyone has done for us during the last few months. We were spoiled during the holidays and had a lot of family support in our studies, work and callings. Thanks everyone for everything!