The Williams' Family: And it all settles down from here

Since I last blogged, MUCH has happened.

1. Jon completed his undergrad!!! YAY! I, as well as all of his family, is extremely proud and happy for him! In May, we will be going back to Salt Lake to celebrate Jon's graduation from the University of Utah with a major in geography. And guess what! Jon did it with HONORS! He is one super smart cookie!

2. Jon was accepted into Penn State for graduate school! Jon will start working towards his masters in the spring. We are extremely blessed to be able to have Jon further his education even more, especially because his employer is paying for all of his graduate schooling.

3. I had a birthday. Yes, it's true. It seems to come every year! I turned 24 and it was spent mostly in the car, driving towards Missouri. I will remember this birthday as the one we started our new phase of life with. It was made special with phone calls from family and special birthday wishes. :)

4. We moved to St. Louis, Missouri. We made the trip in two days. We live in an apartment good for our family. We have a brick wall that I very much love having! This week, I plan to be using it as a photo backdrop with Koen. :) We are neighbors to a railroad track that is quite active with trains throughout the day and night. (Amazingly, we can all usually sleep through the loud, blaring horn at night.) Koen LOVES seeing a train pass by often, this and the not too high rent makes it bearable. ;) Our ward has many, many, many more children than our last. Koen should be able to easily find many new friends. :) We are liking our ward and believe we'll enjoy it here.

5. Jon started work at the NGA (a part of the Dept. of Defense.) Jon's first day at work was four days after we moved into our new place. He is enjoying it and has said it seems a little weird that he's now started his "career." He works 9 hours each day so that he can have every other Friday off and is starting a Fitness Program they have that allows him to workout in their gym one hour, three days a week, and still be paid for that time. I am so happy that Jon really enjoys where he is and feels that he will enjoy it for a very long time. I feel so blessed that he has a job that provides security for our family and should allow Jon to still be able to spend a lot of time with his family. We are blessed and so appreciative of this job.

6. We celebrated our Savior's birthday! This was the warmest Christmas I've ever had. Koen would say, "Merry Christmas Tree!" to us and simply loved the whole day. We tried to teach Koen about it being Jesus' birthday and how special Jesus is. When we asked whose birthday it was, he knew it was Jesus'. But I think he found the Christmas tree more exciting and definitely loved opening those presents. I really enjoyed going to church that Sunday and hearing the beautiful music that was prepared. I really love Christmas time and I really loved taking some moments to remind myself what Christmas is for and why we celebrate it. I loved thinking about the incredible time when Jesus was born and how greatly his birth has affected my life, as well as the entire world's.

7. We celebrated 5 years of marriage! It doesn't seem like 5 years ago. I still feel like we're newly married and we are definitely still learning so much about married life! But in the last five years, we have come so far together and things are wonderful. I am grateful to have Jon by my side and to have the kind of husband that I do. He is an amazing person. We celebrated as a family by going to a new restaurant together and getting dessert at Cold Stone. It was yummy and fun.

8. We casually celebrated the end of one year and the start of a new. We spent our New Years Eve spending gift card money to get some new movies. Watched our new Tarzan movie with Koen as we ate lunch. Did a little football bowl game watching while I worked on a project I'm doing for Koen's bedroom. Jon and I ate junky food as we watched True Grit. We were both a little, or a lot, sleepy while watching the movie. I tried finding a countdown online (we don't have tv to watch it on). I found one thinking we had 16 seconds to spare (Oh what great timing! We were cutting it close!). And then I found out... we missed it and were 16 seconds into 2012. This is actually somewhat similar to last year when we spent the New Year at my parents and missed it by I think 9 seconds. ... Maybe next year we'll make it! haha :) We of coursed still kissed and then went straight to bed. No more partying for us two tired people, especially with 9:00 church in the morning!

Koen likes to put this plastic "crown" on his head and it makes me smile every time. Its really from the inside of a toy construction hat. Koen also likes to wear our shoes.