2018 Family Newsletter

Dearly Beloved,

2018 was the year of four moves for us: one international, one in-state, and two interstate. In mid January we returned from our five-month stint in Nanjing, China to our student apartment in Provo, Utah. Tim finished classes in late April, and we moved to Cedar Hills to spend a month with his grandmother while Irene finished her last month of work at the Utah Specialty Hospital. One month later, we moved to Idaho Falls to stay for 7 weeks at the Hall Home Base, bringing the number of families in that home to three during June and July. The final leg of the journey took us to Willoughby, Ohio in late July as we prepared for Tim’s new teaching post at Andrews Osborne Academy (AOA), which started in August. Like early members of the Restored Church, we felt the call to “Go to the Ohio”, but unlike them, we’ve had a warm and friendly reception upon arrival.

Tim spent January through April finishing his last semester of courses at BYU, then June and July laying carpet in Idaho Falls. He is now a Spanish teacher and chair of the World Language department at AOA, and is also coaching Cross Country. To be honest, though, a great deal of his mental energy is poured into planning our first garden, studying teaching and learning, and enjoying little Helen’s charming smiles. He flew back to Provo in November to defend his Thesis to complete his MA in linguistics, and thankfully passed.

Irene has kept the family together and been amazingly adaptable through all the moves. She did this while finishing her last three semesters of her dietetics degree, growing a child in her womb, and working much of the time as a diet aid in an outpatient care hospital. Irene completed course work for her BS in dietetics in early December, within a few days of Tim’s final thesis draft being accepted. With the completion of her last final exam, we entered a new phase in our marriage: for the first time since we were married, neither of us was enrolled in university courses. Only days after finishing her nine-year university marathon (slowed by 10 moves, 3 pregnancies, 2 children, and approximately 2,493 loaves of home-baked bread), Irene delivered the culminating event of 2018 for the Halls by giving birth to our sweet Helen Claire, right here at home.

Dominic is the incarnation of the Suzuki Violin Level 1 song Perpetual Motion in both mind and body. His energy is boundless, as is his creative impulse, his oral expression, and his appetite for being read to. He began school at AOA in the Pre-K program, and has enjoyed it (though he has also begged consistently, “Can I just be homeschooled? I don’t want to miss out on what the family is doing!”) He misses all his cousins back in Utah and Idaho, but has loved his Spanish class, and getting to run with Dad’s Cross Country kids here in Willoughby.

Maggie...is still Maggie. Except now she has hair. And she now talks, which allows her to verbalize her tireless insistence that everything be in its place, and that nothing change in the cosmos without her understanding and consent. She thrives on routine, loves to sit on daddy’s lap at dinner, and memorizes our family poetry with astonishing precision for one who bumbles while distractedly singing during memorization in our morning devotionals.

Helen just sleeps. And smiles. And coos. And smiles. She is nature’s dangled carrot to persuade us to have more children. If all infants had been, and were, and ever would be like unto Helen, the average number of children per couple would easily double. Maybe she’s just saving up the sauce for later. Oh look, she’s smiling at me again!

We love you all, and may the Lord bless you and keep you as he has blessed and kept us this past year.

Tim, Irene, Dominic, Margaret, and Helen