Look out 2011! It's going to be a BIG year!

Happy New Year!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We got to go up to Idaho and see Eli's mom, grandma, sister, brother, and niece. It was so nice to spend some time with them. We even got some family pictures. We were really spoiled this year. Thank you to everyone. We especially loved the presents for Caroline. She got some really nice books and cute clothes! Eli read her one of her new books the other night and she was kicking while he was reading it. I think she'll be a reader, like her mom and dad. We got to see the rest of Eli's siblings the day after Christmas and that was really fun too. We got to stop by and see my sisters new puppy! He's so cute! We had a great Christmas. Hopefully next year we'll get to see the Missouri folk for the holidays!

I can't believe it's the end of the year. This year has been so challenging and great at the same time. We had a miscarriage at the beginning of the year, which was really hard, but we're so happy that everything is going well with Caroline. Eli graduated from BYU in April (he's so smart!), and spent the WHOLE summer (no exaggerations here) applying to medical schools. That was so time consuming and I'm really proud at him for being so disciplined and putting all the effort into it. I know it got really monotonous and boring for him. Then, he spent a lot of time in the fall traveling to interviews. It's kept him really busy! He's now a seasoned traveler and can navigate new cities and airports easily. Here's all the cities he went to this fall: Louisville, Des Moines, Omaha, Washinton D.C., Galveston, Lubbock, Houston, Salt Lake (well, that didn't require much traveling), and in January he is going to Portland. I missed him a lot when he was on his trips. We were so grateful to be accepted right away at Louisville, so we know we at least have a school to go to. Way to go Dr. Eli!

This year we also were able to take some fun trips. We went to Disney Land with our good friends and had a great time! We also got to go up to Yellowstone in August. That was really nice. I went home to Missouri a few weeks ago, although it was short, and for a sad reason, it was still so nice to be home for a while. I hope that wherever we move to it will be closer to Missouri. We joked that Caroline decided to stick around with us because she thinks we're big travelers who have a lot of fun. I was five weeks along when we went to Disney Land. We do have a lot of fun, but we usually don't have the money or time to travel too much. We probably won't be able to take her to Disney Land again for a long time, so I hope she enjoyed it. I didn't even go on any of the fun roller coasters, so we'll both need to go on those next time.

Tonight we are going to ring in the new year at my sisters house with my other sister and her family. It will be fun. Belchers know how to throw good New Years Eve parties. I wish we could have it with Phil and Michele and the Belcher cousins. Those were always a blast. I'll try to get a spoons game going in their honor, hopefully there will be no blood or broken tables tonight.

We are so excited about 2011. It's going to be a big year for us! I turn 25, we'll have our Sweet Caroline, we'll be moving somewhere, and Eli will start medical school. There are lots of changes on the horizon but we're really looking forward to them. We've been so glad for the time we've been able to spend in Utah since we got married, we've been able to spend time with lots of family, more of Eli's than mine, but we loved it. It will be bittersweet to move away, but the closer it gets the more excited I am. We are looking forward to having our little baby in 2 ½ months (can you believe it?!!) and starting our family. We hope all of our friends and family have a great new years too!

Love,
Eli, Cherie, and Caroline