Untold Stories

Don't tell me I'm the only one who can hardly believe its the New Year already (and January is already almost over at that). Does anybody really feel that they're fully prepared for the beginning of a New Year? "Yep..it feels about right...the holidays went by with a sufficient amount of time to do everything I pleased, and I'm leisurely awaiting the beginning of a new year so that I may quickly file my taxes and do my spring cleaning right on schedule!" Pft. No way does anyone do that...I hope. (That way I won't feel bad that I don't.) But with the ending of a year and the beginning of a new one I have to stop and think about all the experiences, wonderful or painful, we had in 2011. Here are a few.

1. We had the sweet little Rusty dog for just one week. But LOVED every minute of it.


2. Brad was hit by a car while he was riding his bike to school one morning. Thankfully, he wasn't seriously hurt. In fact, he said he made a bigger dent in the hood of the car than the car made on him. He was a little sore the next day but no real emergencies. It sounds strange, but everything went as well as it could have in a situation like that. Again, I know we must be being watched over and protected. For example, the man driving that hit Brad didn't speak English, and truth be told, he was an illegal immigrant. The driver obviously didn't see Brad, but his passenger did, and Brad said it looked like he told the man to stop or it might have been worse. The passenger spoke pretty good English and was able to communicate between Brad and the driver. Brad started taking down license plate numbers and stuff like that, that you usually do in these situations. But the two men begged Brad not to call the police. And Brad didn't have the heart to do it because of their situation. He was fine - although his bike was pretty mangled, so the driver gave Brad $100 cash to get his bike fixed. Also, I would normally be in class at the time Brad was hit, but for some reason, that day I wasn't. I can't remember why. But it just worked out that I was up and ready and I was able to take him to school, and our schedules worked out just right and I was able to pick him up from school too. And that usually doesn't happen! Blessings from above, I tell you!

3. I went to Boston to stay with my sister and meet my nephew for the very first time!


4. I witnessed a robbery. Actually, I walked straight through one. I'll try to make this brief - I was going to work at 5:30 in the morning for inventory and I noticed a man kneeling down by the ATM (which is in between the parking structure and my store) with a big bag of stuff. My first thought was that he was homeless and packing up his stuff from sleeping there, I don't know why, but that was just my first thought. But then I looked at the ATM and it was cracked open. About that time a really tall, lanky kid comes speed walking around the corner looking frantic. Its hard to explain but it all happened, I swear, in slow motion. I mean, I looked directly into his face and saw the anxiety and saw that he was looking at the other man by the ATM making a hand gesture like, "Let's go!". I was literally walking right in between the two men and not one of them ever laid eyes on me. Yet, I saw both of their faces clear as day! They started running into the parking structure and I turned the corner, coming to a full realization of what I just saw, and saw a mall cop coming toward me. That's why the tall guy was so frantic. So, I quickly told the cop that the two men were in the parking structure and that the ATM was opened. What did he do? Casually walk to parking garage. Didn't ask me questions or anything. Didn't even pick up his pace. He gave me just as creepy a vibe as the other two did so I hurried into the store. It wasn't until like 2 hours later that the Anaheim police came looking around and I went out to tell them exactly what I had seen. I felt pretty important while three cops asked me all kinds of questions and if I could pick them out or testify if they needed me to. I really feel like I was protected, how could neither of those men have seen me? Or even if they did, why did they not care? I'm very grateful it didn't come out to anything more than just a weird story to tell.


5. My little brother came to Disneyland to play with his high school Jazz Band and I got to spend some time with him at the park.


6. My little sister came to visit for her Spring Break and Easter!


7. Brad played in a church softball league - our ward has a history of being awesome at softball.


8. I played in our stake's first ever Women's softball tournament. Which also happened to be the first time I've ever actually played a whole game of softball. We won the whole thing!


9.I went to girls camp for my first time as Camp Director! I got all my girls to and from camp safely and they even had a good time!


10. I went home for one of my dearest friend's wedding.


11. Brad's sister Paula, and her family came to visit and go to Disneyland. Which apparently I don't have any pictures of online. But they did come!

12. I went to my 5 year class reunion.


13.My litter sister went to the Temple in preparation for her mission. All of us but our younger brother were there.


14. All of my siblings relocated to my parent's house for a while during the summer before spreading out across the globe. So we played together while we were home.





15. We had Mormon neighbors move in directly below us! Having neighbors you know and love can make such a difference!


16. We saw the tour of Shrek the Musical in LA and were pleasantly surprised by how much we liked it!


17. I broadened my horizons and went to the Nixon Library and Museum which is really close to our house. My favorite part was seeing the actual house he was born in and, of course, air force one.


18. I saw the lights at Temple Square in Salt Lake for the first time, and the lights at the Los Angeles Temple for the first time.



19. Brad's sister Penny, and her family came to visit! That remains the most people we've ever had in our apartment at one time. There were 9 people living in our one bedroom apartment that week! Well, sleeping in our apartment is more accurate. They spend all their time at Disneyland.


20. We couldn't spend Thanksgiving with our family so we did the next best thing - we spent it with good friends!


21. Jan and Andy came to spend Christmas with us this year - and I'm so glad they did or it would have been a very lonely one for me. Brad had to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!


22. We finally went all the way up to Lehi to spend time with Brad's parents and had a blast just hanging out and doing puzzles.


If it seems like those were mostly things that happened to ME this year, then you're right. Brad and I tried, and literally could not count all the shows Brad had worked on, in some way, this year. Just to take a shot in the dark we guessed there were probably at least 20 that he worked on. Not to mention that he got hired on at Disney half way through the year.

We didn't have any luxurious vacations or incredibly earth-shattering experiences this year and we had our share of ups and downs, fights, and fits of laughter. All but one of those trips I made home, I made alone. We had lots of little experiences, so many that I could never catch up on now. But I remember saying to Brad last New Years Eve, "I have a good feeling about 2011, this is going to be a good year for us." And you know, it really was. Here's to 2012 being just as good!