Friday, December 24, 2010

Christmas Letter 2010

Dear Friends and Family

Once again, it’s that time of year when you wish you’d have moved and “forgotten” to give me your new address. I suppose you can always stick this letter back in the envelope, and mark it “return to sender”. In any case, now you have a New Year’s Resolution already picked out, right?


This year has been one of the least boring to date. I usually start by telling you about the youngest members of the family first… This year we have a new arrival on the way – and the doctor said after the last ultrasound it’s 90% likely to be a boy. I told him that it’s 90% likely that this baby will likely be his supreme dictator in about 40 years, but he just stared at me blankly.


Regardless, there’s a greater than 90% chance that we don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl – we’re just ecstatic to have a baby on the way after five years of waiting. We are trying to come up with new names, but nothing seems to be working for us. Becca likes family names – I like names related to the Army. I submitted for Becca’s review the following names: Colt (like the Colt M4 carbine), Ranger, Creighton (as in the General Creighton Abrams, for whom the M1A1 and M1A2 series battle tank is named), Browning (as in the M2 Browning Heavy Machine Gun)… Somehow, I don’t think she’s on board with any of those.


Anyways, Eli is showing Machiavellian ruthlessness at an early age, by teaming up with me against his mom. On a daily basis, he clarifies this in front of the entire family – “Dad, we’re allies against mom – I’m on YOUR side, right?” Usually I can’t reply because I’m so choked up, and my eyes are brimming with tears – so we just tackle Becca to the ground and Eli bites her toes until she gives up.


Eli’s goals of world domination have taken a twist now that he has an unforeseen sibling in his future. Rather than “weeding out the weak”, he intends to mentor his younger brother (90% chance that it won’t be a sister) in the ways of ruling with an iron fist. Likewise, they can focus on different areas of dictatorship – Eli will concern himself primarily with the impending Zombie Threat, and little “Knox” (as in Fort Knox, Kentucky – home of the 15th Cavalry Regiment) will concern himself with determining whether pirates or ninjas constitute a greater threat to their dominion. (FYI, it’s ninjas, and the best way to fight off zombies is to get to a second floor of a building, and block the stairs).


Becca has been enjoying having her own house – it’s about time too. When we consider that Eli has attended three elementary schools and he’s only in the first grade, and he’s lived in seven different apartments/homes over the last seven years… It’s about time we settled down. Becca has been a trooper, keeping herself and Eli together until I was able to safely return from Afghanistan, and then putting up with me as I adjusted to being back home again.


We’ve been living in our new (to us) home in Bountiful since the middle of September, and have loved it. It’s a strange thing to go from living in relatively austere conditions that require body armor and gun, to living the “cushy” life we enjoy here in the United States. I am grateful for the opportunity I had to serve our country, and grateful to be back home again. Somehow, every day is a little bit sweeter now.

We hope you all have a Merry Christmas, and that you can fully enjoy this coming year with your families.

Love,

The Broughs

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

St Patty's day.

Eli was visited by a leprechaun. He is still talking about it 2 hours later.

Eli was planning on catching a leprechaun and keeping it for a slave so I think it's good Eli got some tricks played on him!

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Winner

My cousin is an amazing seamstress and she had a giveaway. All I had to do was leave a comment to win. So I did and then didn't spread the word because I didn't want to hurt my chances at winning. My selfishness paid off and I won! Look how cute this apron is! It's reversible and so fun to wear. If you like it you can buy the pattern or a kit to make yourself. Here is her Etsy shop. When you go there you will see many other amazing things that she has made. She makes the cutest baby shoes and Mei Tai baby carriers. (Sorry for the poor photo quality. I was too lazy to go find my camera.)

Thanks Danielle!

Friday, March 12, 2010

Finishing the Race

Quite a few years ago Stewart and I ran a 5k. It was kinda pathetic because I hadn't trained at all and if you know me you know I'm not a natural runner. Anyway, we were near the end of the race and the finish line was in sight and Stewart told me that we needed to sprint. I couldn't sprint! I could barely keep shuffling. Stewart told me that there is always energy to run because it's anaerobic or something else that I didn't understand. I just remember that it seemed impossible to run faster than I was running. I think I managed to run a little faster the last 100 yards or so.

Fast forward to now and I feel like I'm nearing the end of a race and I have to sprint to the end. I still feel like it's impossible and I can't do it anymore!

I know that people go through things that are hard and they realize that they are stronger than they thought. After going through this deployment I have realized that I'm not as strong as I thought. I'm so glad that it's almost over and I will have my husband back where he belongs.

I think that with support even the weak can be as strong as they NEED to be. I'm thankful for the support that I have had while he's been gone from family and friends.

But most of all I'm thankful for him:

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Pirate Treasure

Eli's grandpa Brough is so nice and set up a treasure hunt. Eli knew what the treasure was before he started but any excuse to act like a pirate is ok with Eli. The treasure was some polished rocks. Eli and his grandpa like to collect rocks on every trip and then Grandpa tumbles them and gets them pretty err...I mean cool! Don't tell Eli I said pretty. Now Eli will have a treasure box to contain the hoards of rocks that are going to be coming into the house. *sigh*

Here is Eli with his Grandma and Grandpa Brough. He didn't recently have a stroke, he's doing some sort of pirate face.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Grandma

This is my grandma. Beautiful, right? And amazing. Grandma was someone that you could look up to and follow her example. She went back to school at the age of 40 and got a Bachelors and Masters degree. She taught school for 17 years. (To my dismay. I was jealous of the children in her class. I don't like competition for affection.) She was a master seamstress. More importantly she was loving and kind to everyone.

We love her so much and are going to miss her a lot but we are glad that she is going to be able to be together with her sweetheart. I was able to have a few sweet moments with her the last few months, especially the last few days, and I will treasure them ALWAYS.

I'm glad that I was able to care for her a little bit the last few months.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Chatting

Eli has taken to chatting online. I have always believed that children need as much free access to the Internet as possible at the age of six. OK that's not really true. If I chat Eli likes to sneak in and take over. The first time was with my brother and Eli did it without any prompting from me. Today he chatted with Stewart for a few minutes but I did tip him off that Stewart was online.

9:59 AM me: hi mi name is eli
10:00 AM Stewart: hi eli!
my name is daddy
10:01 AM me: hi i mistu
Stewart: I miss you too
I love you so much
10:04 AM me: no i love you so much
10:05 AM Stewart: are you going to school today?
10:07 AM me: ok I'm back


Eli is pretty much awesome...in my humble opinion. ;)


Next up: get Eli his own email account.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Let's try this again.

I was reading my blog from 2 years ago and it made me think I should keep blogging because in 2 more years I might wonder what I was doing 2 years ago. Get it? In Twenty-ten I looked to see what was going on in Two thousand and eight. But in 2012 I might wonder what is happening in 2010.

And yes I think it should be called twenty-ten because I like it better but I'll admit that I still sometimes call it two-thousand and 10.

This year has not been that great so far. I know! sad!

~I miss Stewart BAD!

~My grandma is very ill.

~My little boy misses his daddy.

~I stay in the house all day.

~I'm jealous of people who get what they want.

Did I mention I miss Stewart. This pic is from when he was on leave. We pretty much had the BEST time ever...but it has made Eli and miss Stewart too much. It was worth it though.

I think it's funny how I thought that I was really tough and deployment wouldn't be THAT hard for me. funny-ha ha...ha?

Here are some good things though.

~I got a bike trainer.

~We are debt free.

~I'm planning on buying some cute earrings.

Well that's a good start. I'm going to try to blog more even if I really have nothing to say. So sorry about that in advance but it might do me good.