January - We celebrated the New Year on a cruise to Mexico. We celebrated Emily's beginning her final semester at Brigham Young University. We celebrated Sam's having a full time job as the Chief Technical Officer for a home security company.
February - We celebrated Emily's pregnancy by announcing it to our friends (family found out much earlier).
March - We celebrated Sam's acceptance into the school of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. We celebrated the Lehi Days rodeo by driving to Arizona to surprise Emily's family.
April - We celebrated Sam's completing a half marathon with his sister and dad. We celebrated our last night together before Sam moved to Akron, Ohio, to begin his fifth and final summer as a lead technician for a security company. We celebrated Emily's graduation from BYU with a B.S. in psychology. We celebrated our arrival in Akron after three nights of sleeping in the back of a moving truck on the side of the road.
May - We celebrated the baby growing inside of Emily. We celebrated the night as sometimes Sam would not get home from work until after midnight. We traveled to Arizona and celebrated Emily's cousin's wedding. We celebrated our one year anniversary.
June - We celebrated Sam's 28th birthday. We celebrated living only two hours away from Sam's sister and her family.
July - We celebrated Emily's brother receiving his mission call to the Ukraine Donetsk mission. We celebrated Sam finally deciding to attend Cornell University.
August - We celebrated the birth of our son, Alexander Paton Merkley on August 1st. We celebrated the end of our summer in Akron. We celebrated learning to be parents. We celebrated moving to Ithaca, New York. We celebrated Emily's brother's wedding in California.
September - We celebrated Alex's smiles and cooing. We celebrated that Sam can still work a few weekends a months servicing alarm systems. We celebrated that Cornell has incredible networking and Sam will be able to have a great internship next summer.
October - We celebrated Emily's 21st birthday. We celebrated Alex's first laugh. We celebrated the blessing of Alex. We celebrated the beauty of the East by seeing New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.
November - We celebrated Thanksgiving in Arizona with Emily's family. We celebrated that Alex is excellent on flights across the country. We celebrated being called as ward missionaries. We celebrated that Ithaca was still relatively warm.
December - We celebrated Alex's rolling over. We celebrated buying our first Christmas tree together and decorating it. We celebrated that most of Sam's family lives east of the Mississippi so Christmas was celebrated in Columbus, Ohio, meaning that we only had to drive seven hours.
Love,
Sam, Emily, and Alexander Merkley
Awesome Emily! I love how you celebrate everything. Very fun. Is Ithica still "relatively" warm? :)
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