From Carbondale, Illinois to Des Peres, Missouri

The past week has been one of the longest ones in recent memory.  We just finished packing, cleaning and moving from our house in Carbondale, Illinois to our new house in Des Peres (pronounced De Pair), Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis).  Thankfully, to help make our move easier our friends, Leslie & Captain Smith watched Owen for us a couple of days and also let us sleep on their floor for a couple of nights after our furniture had moved, but we were still cleaning up our old house. 

Since this is a Sunday morning, and our new ward doesn't start until 1:00 pm, I have a few moments to reflect on the phase of our lives that we just completed.  About 3 1/2 years ago, Bryce attended a theater conference in Phoenix, AZ with the purpose of finding a graduate school that he wanted to attend starting in Fall of 2008.  While he was at that conference he decided that rather than wait an extra year, he would go back to school that fall (2007).  So after a lot of research, a trip to the midwest and heartfelt prayer, we determined that we were suppose to move to Carbondale, IL for Bryce to attend Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

So in August 2007, we packed a moving truck full of our stuff and our car full of Bryce's family and we made the three day drive accross Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois (about 24 hours of driving and several hours of sight seeing).  Bryce's family helped us get settled, then headed home and left us to make our home in the midwest.

Our first year of graduate school was interesting.  Bryce had an assistantship that paid his tuition and which gave us a monthly stipend to live off of, but I still had to work to cover all of our living expenses.  I found a bookkeeping job at a small, one attorney, law firm (I had just left a larger firm in Logan, UT where we had 9 attorneys) that didn't pay a whole lot, but ended up being a blessing in more ways than one.  Bryce started out in his program, made friends quickly with the other graduate students, and found joy in learning the skills associated with being a Theater Technial Director. 

As soon as we had settled in to life in Carbondale, we received a great blessing.  We found out that we were pregnant.  I had quite a bit of trouble with morning sickness, and the medicine they gave me to help with the nausea made me sleepy all of the time, so I guess you could say that I slept a lot that first year in Carbondale, but it was a good year regardless.  We had been able to go home for Thanksgiving that year, but because our baby was due in June, Bryce took a job at the McLeod Summer Playhouse in Carbondale for that first summer so we could stay home to have our baby. 

My mom flew out a few days before our baby was born and after 4 days of labor followed by a C-Section, our beautiful Owen Henry Allen was born on June 10, 2008.  We spent a week in the hospital recovering and then a week at home with my mom taking care of us, then she had to go home and Bryce and I began the adventure of parenting.  Bryce's family was able to come out that summer for a visit, as were my Grandma Mary & Grandpa Tom.  We flew home to Utah for a visit in August and Bryce was able to bless Owen in his home ward and it gave us a chance to see our families and friends.  As soon as we got home, Bryce's second year of graduate school began.

Bryce's second year was quite challenging.  He taught a few classes and had both his qualifier (A Midsummer Night's Dream)and thesis (The Secret Garden) projects.  He spend most of his time working on his projects, doing homework and grading projects for the classes he was teaching.  He also worked on several sound designs and decided that his secondary focus was going to be sound design.  After a 6 week maternity leave, I continued to work, and was blessed to be able to cut my hours down and take Owen to work with me.  It didn't work every day, but it worked well enough that I was able to get the necessary work done.

After passing his Thesis in May 2009, Bryce returned to the Utah Festival Opera in Logan, UT for the Summer 2009 Season.  My Grandma & Grandpa Christensen very graciously let us live in their basement for the summer and allowed us to spend a wonderful summer with them.  I was also able to arrange a way to do my bookkeeping work over the internet, so I was able to work through the summer in Utah for the law firm in Illinois.  We were able to visit with a lot of our family and friends that summer and it helped up gear up for our final year of grad school.

This past year of school was the busiest and craziest of all.  Bryce had several projects and classes that he taught.  He wrote his Thesis document, completed an internship with PCPA in Santa Maria, California, applied and interviewed for various jobs, and still had his own homework on top of it all.  We were able to go home for Christmas this past year as well and had the unfortunate opportunity to travel home again in February for Bryce's father's funeral.  But we survived it all, and in May 2010, Bryce graduated from Southern Illinois University Carbondale with his Masters of Fine Arts in theater.  His mom, brother, Craig, and sister-in-law, Lindsey, were able to attend his graduation.  He also accepted a position as Associate Professor and Technical Director at Saint Louis University and starts next week.

This past summer Bryce worked again at the McLeod Summer Playhouse, this time as the Technical Director.  His brother, Garrett, came out to work with him and stayed with us. My sister, Nita, also spent the summer with us, watching Owen while I put in a few extra hours at work to get them ready for a new bookkeeper.  The first part of August my parents and sisters, Emily and Mary, came to visit and take Nita home.  Garrett flew home a few days later and then we began the epic saga of our recent move.  Now we are moved into our new home, starting to pack, and Bryce starts his new job tomorrow. 

All told, the past three years have been long and challenging ones.  But by working hard and relying on the Lord's guidance, we have been blessed to be where we today.  I just have one wish now - to get my house unpacked and find some calm amid the chaos that we've been living for the past couple of weeks.