2014, a mixed bag

Well, this is the post I think about all year, in which I remember everything that happened over the course of the last twelve months.

And what an unusual year it has been, with graduation, jobs, trips (of both the vacation and injury variety), and more. I'll let the months speak for themselves.

January. I began my final semester at BYU, taking a fairly easy load. I worked at my BYU Studies internship for credit. I also helped out on some student journals, Schwa (linguistics) and Chiasm (neuroscience) for credit. I took beginning weight training and a weekly geology seminar. I took an unusual class called the Publishing Industry, which only met once a week and had guest speakers, some of them local authors like Brandon Mull and Brandon Sanderson. My most intensive class was French 322, Advanced French 2, which I took with my roommate Jordan. We had to deal with new apartment management, which led to us having our power cut off one night. We had to walk around with flashlights, which cast interesting shadows.

February. What a crazy month. I got a little annoyed with some Facebook fads:

After applying for a job with the Joseph Smith Papers in January, I went to Salt Lake and interviewed, but I didn't get the job. On Valentine's Day, I went home to visit. When I got home, my mom told me that my dad had fainted at work and had had to go to the ER. In celebration of the day, we got Papa Murphy's pizza, and my mom was carrying it downstairs when she misstepped on the bottom step and broke her leg. Well, she didn't just break it. She massacred it. I tried not to look, but I could tell that her foot was not at the angle it was supposed to be. One of her bones was shattered; the other was intact, but it detached from all the ligaments and broke through the skin. I had to clean up the blood. I still have not seen the gory picture my sister took. I don't need to. The following week, I got a call from Reid Neilson, the managing director of the Church History Department, who had received my resume from the JSP. He wanted to hire me as his editorial assistant intern, and I accepted. I therefore had to quit working for BYU Studies.

March. I began official work for Reid. I began to see the joys of trail running, and on March 14, I got my wisdom teeth out. They were already sticking out, so it was a very uneventful procedure. All I had to do was have some gauze for a few hours. Apparently the only image I have from the month of March is one where I was amused that Jeffrey R. Holland had more Facebook likes than the other Apostles.

April. On the day after Easter, construction began on my family's basement. They tore down the old wallpaper and the flimsy ceiling and installed new lights. I went to my commencement and convocation meetings. After commencement, as I walked home in my cap and gown, thinking how I didn't have creative graduation pictures, I had a crazy idea. I had never hiked to the Y before, and here I was graduated. So what if I had my graduation pictures taken from the Y?

I was officially no longer a student. But my boss allowed me to keep working remotely through the rest of the summer, so I didn't have to move yet. My sweet-bro roommate Chad was replaced by an even bigger sweet-bro, Jon, who was rarely around. My roommate Scott at this point had decided he was too good for us, so Jordan was really my only roommate. (He hiked the Y with me.)

May. At Mother's Day, my sister's husband left them. My dad had to get a pacemaker after his Valentine's Day fainting spell. But besides these unfortunate events, May was an outdoorsy month! I fell in love with The National Parks after seeing them at Provo's Rooftop Concert. I began running to Rock Canyon; there I could identify the Mineral Fork Tillite, Tintic Quartzite, and Maxfield Limestone. Memorial Day weekend, I went to Yellowstone National Park with my grandparents, aunts and cousins. We stayed in a nice little rented cabin, and we saw six bears. I made a little joke that stopping to take pictures of buffalo in Yellowstone is like taking pictures of cactuses in the desert, so we began calling buffalos cactuses.
The following weekend, my Provo ward went to Capitol Reef National Park. The other car in our caravan hit a deer on the way there, so they had to turn around. Capitol Reef is probably Utah's least famous national park, even though it may be its best.

June. At the beginning of the month, I went to another Rooftop Concert. On a rainy, unseasonably cold day, I drove up to Salt Lake for my cousin Quin's setting apart for a mission--he was the first person to go on a mission from that side of the family since I got home. That week my family headed to California to visit my nephews and their parents. We met them in Lassen Volcanic National Park. I only got one hilarious, unflattering picture of all three nephews at the same time:

We then went to Mount Shasta before going to my brother's apartment in the Bay Area. We visited several other places in California, including Big Basin Redwood State Park, Fitzgerald Marine Reserve's tidal pools, a Petrified Forest, and the Charles M. Schulz Museum. On all these trips, Franklin (6) and Nathaniel (4) enjoyed asking me questions that got continually more bizarre, culminating in "What was your favorite leaf when you were a little baby?" My dad, sister, and I drove home, leaving my mom and niece in California. I had to prepare for my apartment to get painted.

July. My nephews, niece, mom, and sister-in-law and her niece came in from California just in time to celebrate the Fourth of July. Did you see the above link to Reid Neilson's Wikipedia page? I made it in July. My apartment got all out of order from the painting, but I was gone from it a lot. I would go to my apartment on the weekends but spend time at home, visiting my nephews, during the week. On one occasion, I prevented Ya-ping's niece from going out in public wearing a shirt that said "Pervert." Nathaniel loved telling us about his hundreds of moms and dads, who lived in a variety of houses, including jello and candy houses. I was released from my calling as ward clerk, and on a weekend when the rest of my family went to Yellowstone without me (since there wasn't any more room in the vehicle), I climbed Mount Timpanogos with my Provo ward.

Being afraid of heights and not in as good of shape as I thought, I don't have a great need to hike Timp again. My nephews left the day after Pioneer Day, and I returned to Provo. But they were doing more renovations on our apartment, so Jordan and I had to stay in a hotel for a week (they paid for our stay there). The timing worked out nicely, because that was a time when I needed to work in BYU's Harold B. Lee Library.

August. On August 1, I went to a Cherie Call concert and my final Rooftop Concert. On August 2, we were allowed to move back in our apartment. There was an incredibly rainy day that caused a landslide in North Salt Lake, and I cooked up some fresh vegetables from the Jensen family (the first counselor in my Provo ward). My final fling in my Provo ward was a trip to our Bishop's cabin near Yellowstone. This trip was much more enjoyable than the one with my relatives because there was no bickering; we boated on a Montana lake and I went into the park twice (with different people). We attended the West Yellowstone ward. Then I had to leave Provo and the apartment where I had lived for more than two and a half years. I moved back home, and I got my own cubicle in the Church History Library, no longer working remotely. I began attending the North Park YSA Ward. At the end of the month, my parents and I took a trip up to Idaho to see where Lake Bonneville drained out.

September. On September 1, I went running by the North Salt Lake landslide (since it's not far from my house).

I also discovered the Wild Rose Trail for running, and I went to the Utah State Fair. I helped out with a service project for the North Park Ward (remodeling a house) the same week that my grandparents moved from Salt Lake to Centerville. We see them a lot more now that they are closer. At the end of the month, I turned 26 and therefore had to get health insurance.

October. I attended general conference in the Conference Center with my friend Emily, and also taught her third-graders about the Mesozoic Era. We also went to a Lower Lights concert. I viewed a partial solar eclipse and examined the springs in Warm Springs Park in northern Salt Lake (but not quite in North Salt Lake). My parents took me on a trip to Capitol Reef and Goblin Valley State Park, my first time visiting Goblin Valley.

I had a satisfying Halloween, listening to a Dracula audiobook and running on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail on a cool, spooky evening.

November. I had fun putting my Thanksgiving decorations out in the yard, even though I didn't really decorate for Thanksgiving. I didn't want to decorate because we weren't going to be home for Thanksgiving, since my parents and I were driving to California again to see my nephews for the holiday. It was an enjoyable trip, although I left my pumpkin pie dish (meaning a pie dish that looks like a pumpkin) there. The boys loved having us there, and Nathaniel especially seemed to like it. He loves climbing things, a hobby that made me a little nervous. 

We went to Six Flags and to the Point Reyes National Seashore.

December. I went to lots of Christmas events--first a work Christmas devotional/lunch, then four concerts: Cherie Call, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Lower Lights, and Piano Guys. We simply had a wonderful Christmastime on a snowy December 25, and I got some awesomely random Christmas gifts.

"The unicorn of the sea helps at home."

I got to hear President Henry B. Eyring speak twice in my ward. It was an unusually warm and dry December until Christmas. 

I hope 2015 has no broken bones or broken relationships, but I would be just fine with new jobs and more trips!

Happy New Year!