2016: Year in Review

I often wonder if detailed journaling will be of interest to anyone in the future.  In case it's not, here are the highlights of 2016.  To sum things up, it has been a great year!  We've had a mix of adventure and change, then finally a feeling of settling.  We've logged way too many miles in our van (sorry kids!) and tried to make the most of being together as a family.

First up, we went to Disney World in February.  The kids were pretty young (ie: we wondered if we were crazy) but it turned out okay.  It was exhausting and stressful, but we also had a blast.  As a bonus, we made it to Universal Studios for Harry Potter world.  Worth it!  Ironically, 10 months down the road, Mila and Siena are obsessed with Mickey Mouse.  It was among their first 10 words each.  Maybe we planted a seed?



In March, we threw Mila and Siena their first birthday party.  And their big present was a DNA test that confirmed they were identical twins.  Simultaneously, we said goodbye to our 7-month home in South Carolina, where Hyrum was attending an Army course.



Just over a week later, we arrived in Colorado Springs and accepted a house on Fort Carson.  Goodbye, hotel life!  See you in 3 years.  Three kids in one room is not ideal.  I was thrilled to be in a 4-bedroom house where I could finally do some serious organization.  I'd say we're 90% there--I keep eyeing some drawers and piles that need to be sorted.  Colorado has been great; we've taken advantage of hiking (who'da thought) and other touristy areas like Garden of the Gods and Manitou Springs.  Not to mention a zillion trips to the park at the end of our street.

Our favorite part of Colorado might be its proximity to family!  I've visited Utah 4 times this year, for a grand total of 46 days.  Wow.  As a family we spent a week in March and a week for Thanksgiving visiting family.  Plus, I spent a weekend there celebrating my 30th birthday, and another month at the end of the summer entertaining myself with the kids while Hyrum was away at his second month-long training of the year.  You'd think everyone would have been sick of us, but we managed to have several house guests since we've moved here.  Our guest bedroom is free for the taking.



I did two rounds of Whole30 this year, and kept losing the same 10 lbs over and over.  I made a good move in September and joined the YMCA.  I've been averaging 4-5 days a week, and calculated that my gym membership averages out to about $0.50 /hr (per child) in the daycare.  The kids love it, and one of the ladies that watches them can actually tell Mila and Siena apart.  Now I just have to figure out how to combine the healthy eating with working out to actually see some results.  But at a minimum, I feel less stressed and have more muscles than before.



Opposite of our previous traveling style (several short trips, like seeing all of Rome in 2 days), we had two major trips this year.  Hyrum and I took a kid-free 10-day trip to Colombia.  It's hard to beat traveling without kids... Thanks mom!  And Hyrum spent a week in Japan to watch his favorite soccer team play in the Fifa Club World Cup.  The things he does for soccer... and the things I put up with for soccer...



On a family note, we no longer have babies in the house; everyone is looking so grown up.  The girls walk up the stairs on two feet like normal people, and already know how to push each others' buttons.  Tiago primarily learned how to talk in 2016, and now talks up a storm with imaginative games like fighting dragons in the kitchen, and calling on a pretend phone to ask if we need him to come put out a fire.  (Then never enters a pretend house on fire without first ringing a pretend doorbell and asking permission.)  Also, he learned our first names and I find it hilarious that he'll call out "Heather" or "Hyrum" if we're not responding quick enough to "Mom" and "Papa".



If 2016 has been a year of togetherness, 2017 brings a year of separation.  In January, his entire brigade will head to Europe in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve for nine months.  Specifically, Hyrum will be in Poland, then Germany and possibly Romania.  Ironically, he won't be far from some of the areas we visited (and lived) while we were stationed there.  But this time, we weren't invited along.  



Time for me to plan a few more trips to Utah, develop some new hobbies, and reach my dream of a perfectly organized house.  And as mentioned, our guest room available for any visitors.

And everyone keep your fingers crossed that Hyrum doesn't, as Tiago would put it, "freeze like a Popsicle" while he's in Poland.

Los Verdes en Japon

[roughly translated: the green ones in Japan]

Hyrum's favorite Colombian soccer team is Atletico Nacional de Medellin.  (And their color is green.)  They made it to the finals of the Fifa Club World Cup, which is apparently a super-huge deal.  And he felt like he needed to go because this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I can't speak to that, because I don't even particularly like soccer, but I'll cut out the details and just say he spent a week at the beginning of December cheering on his team in Japan.

[For those completely unfamiliar with soccer -- you have the regular World Cup, which includes national teams.  Then when those players aren't playing with their national teams, they play on club teams.  Each country has its own leagues for club teams.  They have local tournaments, then they have a World Cup for the best individual teams, regardless of which country league they usually play in.]

Hyrum first took a train from Tokyo to Osaka, where the first game was.  They lost (quite traumatic for some of the poor Colombian fans who sold everything to be there) but Hyrum was able to see some sights in the area, including the Osaka Castle.

Not far from Osaka he saw the Himeji Castle, considered to be the most beautiful surviving feudal castle in Japan.

Next stop: Kobe.  When I asked if he tried any Kobe beef there, he said, "Yeah.. I think..."  But aside from the beef, he saw a few other sites by night:

He visited the town of Nara to see it's most famous attraction, and one of Japan's most historically significant temples,  Todai-ji Temple.  It houses the world's largest bronze statue of the Buddha.  There are deer that freely wander the grounds.

The last stop of the region was Kyoto, to see the Imperial Palace.

Finally at the end of his trip he made it back to Tokyo, where he'd watch Nacional play their last game of the World Cup.  This time, they won!  Glad he didn't come back from Japan completely deflated.  Overall their team took 3rd place.  

One thing Hyrum experimented with in Tokyo was a capsule hotel.  Here's how it works: you walk in and store your stuff. You get your capsule key. They give you slippers and essentially pajamas to change into before you go into the rest of the hotel.  There are several common areas that can be used, including pristine bathroom areas with any amenity you could want, like hair gel or toothbrushes.  (I should mention he was staying in a nice one.. I'm sure not all provide everything.)  Connected to the shower areas are giant hot tubs you can soak in (without any clothes... almost like being in Germany again.)   And apart from the common areas are long corridors lined with hundreds of capsule beds.  You climb in to an over-sized mattress room, and pull the door down, trapping you inside.  There are personal TV's to listen to with headphones.  It's an interesting model for a hotel, and we were saying it would work great in certain situations, like being in the city for a really short period of time.  Hyrum did mention how much he appreciated the cleanliness of the Japanese.  (You could say it ranked a little higher than the experiences he had in Afghanistan).  

Here are some of the other things he saw when he wasn't in the capsule.

While Hyrum was in Japan, I kept craving sushi  (and eventually went and bought some.)  Meanwhile, Hyrum detests all sea food and most Asian food, so he found gems like this:

After 7 days, it was home again to a wife who was anxious to have a helping hand with the kids.  Hyrum left Japan at 4 pm on Monday, and arrived home to Colorado Monday night, just in time to put the kids in bed.  What a world we live in!

Christmas 2016

Last Christmas, I knew we'd be living in Colorado this year, and invited Jenna and my parents to come celebrate Christmas with us in 2016.  Many of my other siblings were spending the holiday with their in-laws.  It all worked out great, and I received two main benefits:I didn't have to travel with my kids or their presents, and I got to spend the holiday with family.

Their stay was much shorter than I'd originally had in mine, but I can't complain, so we just filled Friday, Saturday and Sunday with a lot of relaxing, eating, and some shopping because we just can't help ourselves.  Fortunately, it was just a little.

I loved having 4 extra adults around, and so did the kids. Plenty of song-singing and book-reading.

One afternoon, during the girls' nap, Tiago got out his playdough.  I think that's one of his favorite toys to play with.  Pretty soon there was quite the group sitting around the table playing with it.

On Christmas Eve we got the kids ready for bed and performed the Christmas Nativity.  A naked Tiago refused to participate, so Hyrum put on the too-small shepherd costume and covered both Joseph and the shepherds.   Siena was an angelic angel for about 2 seconds, and Mila was the most cooperative as Mary.

After the kids were in bed, we ENJOYED Christmas Eve dinner... eaten on great-Grandma's china (and no table cloth... somehow forgot to buy any after getting a new rectangle table last year.) Some of these pictures make me laugh because they're not pretty, but show reality: a kitchen full of people and counters full of stuff.  The prime rib my mom made was delicious, and we had an endless supply of bubbly to drink because the grocery store was selling it for $.75/bottle.  We loaded up big time.

My parents were kind enough to do most of the dishes while we hauled down presents.

About a week before Christmas our tree started to dry up and die.  We just kept hoping it would hang on til the big day, which it kind of did.  But it was pretty sad looking and dropping needles everywhere.  Sunday, after unwrapping all the gifts, we took off the ornaments and hauled it outside.  The whole room just felt better (cleaner!), and there was zero sadness in getting rid of it, even though it was technically still Christmas. 

Jenna had a goal to finish the Book of Mormon by Christmas... which left her several hours of reading wherever she could fit it in.  Pretty sure that's what she's doing here.

 Stuffing Stockings:

We started watching White Christmas, then half-way through decided it wasn't worth finishing.  (Although everyone seemed to enjoy singing "Sisters Sisters".)  Instead, we opened all the adult gifts.  Here they are showing off a beautifully wrapped present, obviously from my mom because I never even managed to buy ribbon this year.  Some highlights (for me) were a new set of frying pans, a suitcase (we threw out all of ours with broken wheels), and a ginormous blanket scarf.

The kids still didn't really "get" Christmas.  Tiago woke up pretty early, but I gave him my phone to watch a movie and we didn't start Christmas until about 7:30 when we told him he should go see what Santa brought.  Church was at 10, so we opened some gifts (like this huge train set), ate breakfast, and got fancy for church.  We volunteered to sing as a family, so we pulled out the "Noel Chorus" which we've sung about a million times.  

This helicopter was a big hit with Tiago... and it was a $3 yard sale find.

Suarez family 2016!  Next year's goal: 1 kid looking at the camera

We came home and opened the rest of the gifts before the girls' nap.  My mom gave the kids a bunch of costumes.  (Siena is the princess above).  Below, all the kids wanted to try on the Elmo costume.  (He's one of their favorites.)  The first two are of Tiago, followed by Siena, then Mila.

both girls drinking a smoothie

It was a very merry Christmas indeed.

Early the next morning our house guests snuck out and closed the door behind them.  My parents dropped Jenna off at the airport before driving home.  Despite good weather conditions, i-80 was closed and they had to wait a few hours before getting on (wind-related issues).  But they made it.