!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE’RE EXPECTING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
. . . you to be wondering why we don’t have kids yet. As a Mormon couple coming up on four years of marriage, the eyebrows around us are starting to rise. Case in point: When we arrived in Fort Collins for Christmas vacation, there were ten stockings hung on the fireplace. Weird, seeing as how my parents + their kids + Brock only equals nine. The tenth one was a tiny baby stocking hung up as a “hint.” Also, my mom is already buying outfits for a baby girl. Complete with bonnets. You think I am making this up.
There are, however, plenty of things we’ve been doing in the meantime that prepare us for parenthood in various and sundry ways . . .
o We started the year off by running the Boston Marathon together. As Boston takes place at the end of April during BYU’s finals week, we were somewhat mentally frazzled. This may account for why we spent the entire day before the race on our feet seeing the sights of Boston—including walking up the 294 steps of the Bunker Hill Monument—and why we thought fish and oysters constituted a suitable pre-race dinner. All of this, coupled with the fact that we literally had not trained a single mile for the marathon, led to a finishing time that Oprah has beaten (sadly, I am not exaggerating). But in retrospect, the lessons we learned that day were invaluable. During the race, I felt like a total fatty and Brock was a huge support and great liar (“You’re lookin’ awesome, honey!”). If that doesn’t prepare us for nine months of pregnancy, I don’t know what does.
o In an effort to repair my wounded pride post-Boston, I trained for and ran a 50-mile race in the mountains of Steamboat Springs, CO. With an average elevation of 10,000 feet and 9,000 feet of total climbing, it was definitely a force to be reckoned with. But 13 ½ hours and ten ibuprofen later, I crossed the finish line with a fist pump. The take-away lesson of this race had great maternal application: Drugs are wonderful, wonderful things. Be they ibuprofen or epidurals.
o Speaking of endurance, we are ALMOST DONE WITH OUR UNDERGRADS. In April, Brock will graduate with a B.S. in mathematics and a B.A. in communications, with a minor in business thrown in there, too. At that point, we’ll move to Washington D.C., where I’ll finish up the last of my political science credits with an internship on Capitol Hill for Congressman Jason Chaffetz. After that, we’re off to Cairo for four months while I complete my Arabic minor in an intense language study program. As you might imagine, footing the bill for all of this does not bode well for our bank account. Although we nearly have aneurysms just thinking about the cost, it’s actually great mental preparation for parenthood: What mother or father doesn’t have an aneurysm when trying to pay for hospital bills, diapers, formula, shots, a new car (because the only way a baby seat would fit in our two-person Tacoma would be if we threw it in truck bed), more diapers, more formPQ@#(URP$^OIJFOPS?!?!?!? (sorry . . . aneurysm).
o Brock keeps busy studying things like advanced probability, Bayesian statistics, cryptography, and financial derivatives on top of a rigorous LSAT study schedule (he takes the test in June). I spend a considerable chunk of my days لعربية اللغة تعلم and teaching 90 freshmen a course on American history, government, and economics. Between Brock’s mathy-lawyer speak and my Arabic-George Washington ت كلما, I’d be lying if I said we didn’t have communication issues every now and then. Consequently, if anybody is equipped to interpret the googoo-gaga-babble of a young child, WE ARE, PEOPLE.
o I dyed my hair purple. I don’t know how this prepares us to be parents, but it was rad.
Maybe next year we’ll have some baby news for you. Actually, don’t get your hopes up. J Until we do, we’re enjoying this time we have to grow as a couple while we both figure out who we are, where we’re going, and how to get there. The Lord has truly been instrumental in that process, and we are so grateful for the abundant blessings that He continually grants us
May that same abundance pour into your life this upcoming year, the year after, and always.
Merry Christmas!
Brock and Kristi Boyce (and Mojo)
P.S. For year-round Boyce coverage, follow our blog: kristiandbrock.blogspot.com
P.P.S. . . . Yeah, I totally just plugged my blog in a Christmas letter. Go ahead. JUDGE ME.
Photography compliments of Tiffany Rebecca.
Not fair. I totally thought you were preggo at first...
ReplyDeleteCan I just say that I LOVE the way you started this? Your Christmas letters have always cracked me up, but I had to read this one out loud to my husband. I thought I was just going to read the funny beginning to him, and then ended up reading it all out loud. You rock!
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