"Home" for Christmas

Some of our friends who have moved away from Utah have always said that they are going home when they travel back to visit. We have never had mixed feelings about this and feel pretty comfortable saying that our home is in North Carolina. In fact our home is really just anywhere where our little family lives. Having said this we were lucky enough to come to Utah and see many of our friends and family over a two-week vacation this past month. After our visit we decided that our goal each time we return to Utah is to spend time with our family and friends and eat at all of the places we love and miss (like the Spaghetti Factory, The Pie , Maddox's Ranch House , Nielsen's Frozen Custard and Hires.) In the midst of gorging ourselves for two weeks on the above delicacies and great food that both Karen and my mom cooked we did have time to remember what incredible families and friends we have. I wanted to personally thank all of you for the great people that you are and for the wonderful examples you are for us and our girls. We are truly blessed to have you in our lives. Specifically... Rocket and Nana, thank you for taking care of us and allowing us to take over your home. Chris and Angie, thank you for sharing your beautiful children with us and giving our girls cousins they love so much. Trevor and Jamie, thank you for letting me dig up your front yard. Just kidding. Thanks for being so much fun and teaching us great new games. Spencer, thank you for introducing us to Laura. I was so impressed with her and was especially touched by her song on Christmas Eve. I think our little family will not go another Christmas Eve without including some rendition of A poor wayfaring man of grief. Melissa and Brendan, thank you for taking care of about a million kids for us during our party and thank you for doing a beautiful job on our girls hair. Melissa, you really have found a wonderful talent. George and Valera, thank you for spending time with our girls. One of our only regrets after moving so far away is that they are not around you two as much as we would like them to be. Julie and Art, we hope you all had a great holiday and we are sorry we did not get to see your family. Bruce and Carolee, thank you for playing games with us. We love you guys and you are such great examples to us. And Bruce, thanks for helping Karen with my Christmas present. It is beautiful. Craig and Janet, we missed you and want you to know we were thinking of you and hope to see you soon. Ben and Donna, thank you for being you. We are always excited to visit with you and love your spirits. Sean and Shelly, You guys are the best. Thanks for giving us a great date without the girls. Thanks for hosting a busy party at your home. Thanks for being great examples for us. And Shelly, I am not grateful for your passion for spin class as it landed me in spin class and I thought I was going to die. Brian and Katie, Thanks for the tour of your home. You two make a great couple. Grammy and Grandpa, thank you for always being willing to visit with us and to spend time with our girls. As always, you have such great insight into our lives and we love to listen. To all of our friends, we were so happy to spend time with you. We especially appreciated the time we got to spend with the Scotts. You two may be the thing that in the end will push us to migrate back to the Salt Lake Valley. We are very blessed to know all of you and to have your influence in our lives. Once again we hope you all had a Merry Christmas and we wish you a very happy New Year.

Our resident artist

I have been married to Karen now for over 10 years (or a decade as Emma likes to tell people) and rarely does a week go by when I don't learn something new about her. When I called home this week the girls told me that Karen was painting a Nativity scene "stained-glass" window on our house. Of course I thought they were making this up. Sure enough, when I arrived home that night our front window was transformed into a beautiful scene: Joseph leading Mary (and baby Jesus) on the back of the little gray donkey. I was truly amazed. It immediately added a sweet spirit to our home to have the scene brighten our front room. We had a holiday party at our house last night and every person who attended commented on the beauty of the picture. That's my eternal companion!!! We are so grateful this time of year for the birth and life of our Savior. What a blessing it is to have a season to celebrate the gift of His life and to remember His sacrifice. It is so great to have these couple of weeks to examine our lives and re-focus and re-double our efforts to serve Him and to serve those around us.

Our new floor

We persuaded George and Valera to make the trek to North Carolina over the last couple of weeks to visit and to help us lay down ceramic tile in our kitchen and dining room. George and Karen worked sunup to sundown several days to get our floor torn-up, cleaned, glued, tiled, grouted, cleaned again, and sealed. I am grateful for their talents in fixin' things. Our house looks great. The girls loved having their grandparents here. Valera taught Emma to play solitaire on the computer and finished a quilt for Mary. Miia couldn't stop talking about having her "papa" and "grams" here. Everyone (except Jeff) even went out to the Outer Banks for a few days and played on the beach and visited the lighthouses. We had so much fun having the Pypers here and were sad to see them go. Our home is just a little bit nicer because of the hard work and love from our family. Thanks.

Homeschooling

For the past two months we have been carrying out the experiment of homeschooling the girls. Okay, if I am honest, Karen has been carrying out this experiment, and I have been acting the cheerleader. You know, it is amazing the difference we have seen in our girls since starting this school year. Not only have they academically been advancing but more impressively their behavior and the spirit in our home is dramatically different. We have attributed the changes to their better rest (don't have to wake up so early to get to home school), their lack of stress (don't have to come home from school at 3:30 PM and do their homework AND clean their rooms AND have piano practice AND get ready for dance or soccer). Once or twice a week they have class or an activity with other home school kids in the neighborhood. So far their "socialization" has not been stunted by them not being in a classroom with 30 other children every day. All in all we are very happy with how things are going. I think there are days where Karen gets tired and wonders what she has gotten herself into but for the most part we are happy.

A decade with Karen

I have wondered many times in the last ten years how it was possible that I not only found Karen but managed to get her to marry me. This week is our tenth anniversary and I now can no longer remember life without my sweet wife. The best part of it all is that the better I get to know her (and I feel like I learn a little new about her every week) the more I fall in love with her. When we got married I knew I loved her. I did not understand then that I could love her so much more, but I do. Having little girls that all remind me so much of her helps compound that love even more. I hope to make her as happy as she has made me for a long, long time (maybe forever).

My date

Emma and I had a date. Well actually everytime I mentioned that I was on a date with Emma she scrunched up her nose like a little bunny and said, "I am not my daddy's date!" We went to the wedding and reception for some of my friends, now Kevin and Mary (Pressly) Garrison. It was hands down the most amazing wedding I have every been to. The wedding itself was in an old and beautiful church and the ceremony was amazing. The entire wedding party was perfect. Following the wedding we went to the reception at the country club down the road and were treated to a elegant party. I think Emma had a great time, although she twisted on her toes and turned red everytime I told someone I was with the most beautiful girl at the ball. It really did scare me though, to imagine the three princesses in my house and the weddings in my future.

ROOTS

Over the past couple of weeks we wore ourselves out on vacation in Utah. We had a great family reunion with the Art and Jan Anderson side of our family. It was so great to see everyone and spend time catching up and chatting. Karen and I both think it is amazing to be related to such incredible people. From my grandparents right down to the smallest of my cousins we just have such wonderful people in our family, such great examples to us. A great legacy to live up to. Aside from the formal Anderson reunion we got to spend some time with other family as well. Karen in fact spent several days at the first official Pyper sister retreat. Specific details of the retreat have been kept under secret wraps but I understand there was a lot of game playing, shopping, swimming, and of course talking. Karen had so much fun that I am sure this will not be the last sister retreat. We got to spend some more time with the Biggs and Pyper family too. Although we love living in North Carolina we very much miss being so close to our family......maybe enough some day to bring us back.....maybe (don't get your hopes up yet Shelly and Nana :) ) Along with the reunions we did a bunch of other things that reminded us why we love Utah. Karen and I got up one morning very early and hiked to the top of Mt. Olympus. We made it to the top befor the sun was making it too hot and had such a beatiful view of the entire valley (I of course had a double dose of beauty because I could watch my cute wife while I looked at the valley below!) We had planned on running the Deseret News Marathon but because of various injuries and illnesses during our training we got demoted to running the 10K. We had a great time running that race though. We will not give up on our quest to run a marathon together. After spending two weeks in Utah we were glad to come back home to North Carolina but we will have at least a few days of withdrawl from the mountains and our family. Our girls especially will miss all of the love showered on them by their Nana and Grandpa and cousins.

Championship swim meet

This weekend was the Durham Swim League championship meet. Both Mary and Emma swam fabulously and their team, the Parkwood Piranhas, won the meet and are now champions of the league three years running. We have been amazed at how great this swim team has been for our girls. Both of them have really become good swimmers and plan on continuing in the sport for a long time.

Soggy fireworks

We had a great day on the Fourth of July. We were lucky enough to have a picnic that evening with the Greg and Kathy Christiansen (and Reagan, Bethany, and Henry), Spencer and Brooke Cutler (and Kirsten), and Jonas and Rachel Anderson (progeny yet to be determined). We ate near the Regency Park and Amphitheater in Cary and tried hard to listen to a concert by the North Carolina Symphony while the kids all played in the streets around us. There was good food (Karen's fried chicken and cornbread), a riveting game of Perquackay, as well as a dangerous game of frisbee between Jonas and me..... .....then in a turn of events typical of circumstances familiar to us North Carolinians we found ourselves watching fireworks, through some tall trees and in the pouring rain. We laughed as the fireworks beat out the rain and exploded above the lake. What a great time. I was reading from the scriptures this morning the last words of Lehi before he died, "the Lord hath covenanted this land unto me...and also all those who should be led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord. Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom He shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity." 2 Nephi 1:6-7 This year, more than in any year we can remember, we feel blessed to be living in a land with so many freedoms and opportunities. We are aware of the sacrifices, both in the past and present, of brave men and women who fought for and are defending our liberty and freedom. Thank you so much.

Match Day

We found out last week, after what seemed like forever, that we really will be going to Cincinnati for my pediatric cardiology fellowship. For a long time, and for many different reasons, we have felt that Cincinnati was the best place for us and would be the place we would end up. Even though we have felt fairly confident that we would end up there, it is very nice to have it finalized. Along with the excitement of the news has come the reality of the impending hard work of fellowship. I think we both feel that I need to be at a place that will give me a solid foundation in cardiology and Cincinnati will indeed provide that. The people there are great and I am thrilled to be spending the last part of my medical training in such a great place. Aside from the great training, we are so happy to be moving closer to some of our good friends, Dave and Michelle Hooper. In fact, the girls I think are excited to be moving closer to the Hooper kids, even if their match wishes (to return home to Utah to be spoiled on a daily basis by their Nana and Grandpa Rocket) were not fufilled.

Our #2 drama queen

Our girls love to dress up just about as much as anything else in the world. Mary is certainly no exception. Here she is putting on her best model impersonation. drama queen

Graduations

This weekend marked the most recent of my graduations. I am now officially a pediatrician. From now on it will be that much easier for me to explain to people outside of the chaotic world of medicine what exactly I do. No more, "I am a pediatric resident....no, not a medical student....well, yes I am a doctor but.....no I cannot write you a prescription for a Z-pak! Finally, I can just say I am a pediatrician. Well, of course if I am honest I have to continue to confuse people with my new role as "chief resident", which may be the most confusing thing ever to explain, or the fact that even though I am finished I am not really finished because I want to do a fellowship in pediatric cardiology. Oh well, maybe someday it will all be clear...to me and everyone else. Not to change the subject but I have decided that graduations really are no fun. Don't get me wrong, it is nice to get together and celebrate this accomplishment with the people who have gone through this with me and my family who has supported me for the last three years. The thing that is painful for me is that I feel like my life is a series of periods of time where I meet, get to know, become friends with, and get attached to a group of people, only to have them all go away after "graduation", after which I most likely never see them again. High school, undergraduate, medical school, and now residency. It is really hard to come to care about people then to lose touch with them. Hopefully I can do a better job keeping in touch this time around.

Swim meet (Parkwood vs. Duke)

Yesterday I had a swim meet. I did freestyle and backstroke. Mary only did freestyle. In the swim meet I was fifth place in freestyle and second place in backstroke. -Emma

Uncle Trevor and the kids at the aquarium 

Aidan and Miia at the beach 

Andersons, the Andersons, and the Andersons

This past week has been very eventful for us. Trevor, Jamie, Aidan, and "little" Jonas came to visit. I say "little" Jonas because my cousin "big" Jonas and Rachel moved here from New Haven this past week as well. We have been busy going to the beach, visiting museums, playing lots of games (Jamie would have won Settlers of Catan for the first time if not for a crucial error that left the door open for Trevor to steal the game from her), and just talking. Although I think Aidan was a little overwhelmed at first with all the attention from the girls, and most likely frightened by their rooms filled with dolls and dress-up clothes, he finally settled in. It did not take long before he and the girls (especially Miia) were best friends. Karen and I certainly loved seeing Trevor and Jamie and staying up too late every night talking and playing. I think all of us by the end needed a day or so to rest from our sleep deprivation. We are so thankful that they were able to come visit us. We are also thankful that Jonas and Rachel have moved down for law school. Having been away from family for the last few years has really made us miss being able just to call our family and have dinner or talk or play games. Hopefully they will not get tired of us during the next year that we are all here together because we really love being with them.

12 Miles

"Jogging is very beneficial. It's good for your legs and your feet. It's also very good for the ground. It makes it feel needed." -Charles Schultz As many of you know Karen and I are training for a marathon this summer (www.deseretnews.com/run). Yesterday we met another milestone by running 12 miles. We both felt very good through about 9 miles and actually probably started the run with a pace that was a little too fast. For the last 3 miles we both were tired and had to push ourselves to finish. We finished the 12 miles in 1:58. As always we were happy with our efforts when we were done. It was the first week that neither of us felt sick for the entire day after our run.

End of school

Yesterday was the last day of school at Southwest Elementary. Both of our wonderkids were promoted, Mary to first grade and Emma to third grade. They proved to us once again that they are unique and individual and completely different from each other by virtue of the end-of-year awards they each received. Emma took home the "Best test taker" award for her second grade class, showing off her diligence in studying, doing all of her homework, and preparing for her tests. Mary, our artist, was given the "Best creative writing" award. We love them both very much and are very proud of their accomplishments.

Happy face Miia

Happy face

"Best test taker"