Dear
Friends,
2015
has been a year of change. After seven years and many memories, we said
“Goodbye” to Provo, leaving behind friendships we hope to renew someday.
In order to shorten Brett’s commute to work from three hours to 30 minutes, we
moved to Bountiful in June. We have been welcomed with love and new
friendships, and we are excited for this new era of our life.
Brett
enjoys being back at Zions Bank, working as a commercial portfolio manager in
the bank’s private services group. He has had the opportunity to work on
some exciting deals this year, including for a ski resort in Jackson Hole and
an urgent care clinic on Kaua’i (sadly, though, we were not able to visit any
of these places). After years of spending Sunday afternoons and midweek
evenings at the church as the ward secretary, Brett was happy for a change in
church assignment brought about by the move. He has been teaching a youth
Sunday School class every other week, and now gets to be home on Sunday
afternoons (much to our family’s delight).
Wendy
continues working at the urgent care clinic in Salt Lake a couple times a
month. She also enjoys a much shorter commute, though she is glad she
doesn’t have to commute to work that often—instead she enjoys working at
home. It has been a lot of work this year as she has carried the bulk of
the load in preparing to sell a house (including tornado cleaning every time we
had a showing) as well as getting our family put back together in our new
home. We still aren’t fully settled in as Wendy continues to work with
contractors to get some repairs done on our new home—six months later and
Rachel still doesn’t have her nursery put together.
 |
| Katie, 9 |
Katie (9)
and Amanda (7) were both excited and anxious for our move, because it meant a
new school with no friends (at least to start). As it turns out, there
was little reason for anxiety and lots of reasons for excitement. Cousins
who have lived in Las Vegas for 10 years also moved to Bountiful (independent
of our move) and now live just four blocks east of us. Katie and Amanda
get to see them at school every day. We also found friends who we knew
from Provo (including one family who lived just a few houses from us in
Provo). New friendships and the continuation and renewal of old
friendships have made moving to a new school much easier.
 |
| Amanda, 7 |
Katie and
Amanda also get to continue to learn Mandarin Chinese since our new school is
also part of Utah’s dual immersion language program— 圣诞节快乐 (Shèngdàn
jié kuàilè)!
Both girls opted to play soccer this year instead of gymnastics.
It has been fun watching both girls develop their soccer skills and grow
into goal-scorers. Katie has the added benefit of playing on the same
team with her cousin, Andrea; Brett and his brother, Jeff, get to coach.
 |
| Ellie, 5 |
Ellie
(almost 5) loved being a WizKid preschooler in Provo. We were sad to
leave it behind since she had one more year of preschool before
kindergarten. Bountiful has been good to us in this regard as well.
We found a preschool that prepares kids for Chinese dual immersion so Ellie is
also now learning Mandarin. Her favorite color to say in Chinese is
红色
(hóng sè, meaning red),
but we are working on 蓝色(lán sè, meaning
blue). She loves being a Happy Panda. She is also learning to read
and loves having her turn to read during family scripture study.
 |
| Rachel, 1 |
Rachel (1),
it goes without saying, has changed the most. Last Christmas she was just
learning to sit up and roll over. Now, she is running (or at least trying
to), talking, and playing along with her sisters. She loves to sing—just
turn on Katy Perry’s “Roar” and she’ll start singing along the best she
can. We took our first family vacation with Rachel, going to San Diego
and SeaWorld. It was so much fun to watch her experience the beauty and
magnificence of the ocean creatures. Her favorite stuffed animal is her
dolphin, Skimmer. Her latest favorite games include removing ornaments
from the Christmas tree and un-cleaning the house in varying degrees—she
especially likes to pull out what we have just put away.
Love,
The Nichols
Family
