The Long and the Short of it: Christmas Letter 2012

Dear Family & Friends,

This year has been an eventful one. Here’s an attempt to get everyone up to speed on what has been happening in our lives. A few days after Christmas last year, Keith was offered an Actuary position at Humana for the De Pere, Wisconsin location and started the beginning of February. He does projections for Small Business medical insurance. We were very excited and ended up living with my parents for the month of January. We really enjoyed spending that time with them and having them there to help us pack (my dad is a master packer, I don’t think anything moved). The move was quite the experience, between Wyoming not clearing their roads and a lot of blowing snow it made the move very stressful. We eventually made it to Wisconsin and settled into our cute little apartment. Our apartment has a garage, dishwasher, and a washer and dryer. We are in heaven compared to our former apartments. Keith started work and has loved his job, he loves his boss and the people he works with.

We live in De Pere, Wisconsin which is a suburb south of Green Bay—ever heard of it? I expected the Packers to be big, but I did not anticipate this large of an obsession. Really, the obsessions here are the Packers and alcohol—very different from Utah.

We attend a LDS branch that is located on the Oneida Reservation. Our branch is pretty small and our building is tiny. Keith and I were called to be Primary teachers for the 4-8 year olds, but somehow our Primary is large for a Branch, and about 75% of the kids are in our class. We have a lot of fun and our kids are very cute (our class is full of girls with two boys). Being in a branch and not having many people to fill callings got us both second calling, Keith as Branch Clerk and I as Stake Young Women Secretary. In June we had Elder Bednar visit for Stake Conference and it was a wonderful experience.

I was able to find some ladies to play doubles with during the winter months at a local tennis club. It was a lot of fun but it hasn’t been set up this year so I am in danger of not playing until it warms up again. This past summer I taught some girls from the Branch tennis and it was so much fun. Keith has a basketball league he plays in during the winter with his co-workers, they aren’t very good but he still has fun.

Even though Keith graduated in December we decided to make a trip back to Utah in April for him to walk. It was a short trip but a lot of fun. Keith’s graduation was really nice and he got to meet up with college friends and former professors. We were excited to see family, Gus (the dog), and play with the new baby horses.

Before my new job started I wanted to take advantage of my free time so I went and visited Linda’s cute family in Virginia, which was a lot of fun and her boys were adorable. Keith and I also went and spent a couple of weekends with Mark’s family in the Wisconsin Dells (if you don’t know what it is, look it up), it is the Las Vegas of water parks.

I started my job in June as an Underwriting Specialist in Humana’s Specialty benefits; I help quote dental and vision insurance for companies. I love my job and my department is so much fun! I was able to be released from training in 5 months which is faster than normal and I’m able to work from home two days a week.

In August we had the Richins’ Reunion and went on a week-long trip to Disney World. We were able to go to several different parks and spend a lot of time with family. I think our favorite was Animal Kingdom; Keith was our expert on getting fast passes and knowing which places had the shortest lines.

We joined a BYU alumni chapter and are the Young alumni Representatives; we are working on planning some activities for that this upcoming year. It has been a great way to meet more people and make friends.

In October Keith’s best friend from high school (Levi) and his youngest brother (Adam) came and visited, we had a lot of fun showing them around. Then for Thanksgiving Keith’s mom and Adam came and visited and we put on our first Thanksgiving dinner. It was stressful but we did it and it was pretty yummy!

We do have an online blog for people to follow so they can stay updated on our lives if they like. I am not very good at updating it; one of my New Year’s goals is to update it at least once a month. It is www.ckstoddardfam.blogspot.com.

We hope you have had a wonderful and safe year! We love you and hope you have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Love, Crystal & Keith

Here are some pictures from the past year, in no particular order.