The New Year

Needless to say, it was a wild and busy holiday season, despite our best efforts to make it as easy as possible. There were a lot of things that happened within a really small amount of time. We'll start with Aaron's news. Diane had surgery on her nose and it was very successful. From what we hear, her nose began healing in record time. However, soon after this surgery, they found a lump in her breast which caused some concern, and had that removed at the end of December also. So Diane had quite a holiday season visiting the doctor's office, but we are glad to report that she is doing very well and in good spirits as always. As you all know, Aaron and Julie made a quick trip to California after the passing of Julie's beloved niece Sydney December 28. We were able to make it to her funeral services, which were absolutely beautiful, and spend some good time with her family, being introduced to little Riley and Ashley (both born in November) for the first time. That same weekend, Riley was blessed by his grandpa Burnham, which we were also able to be part of (though Riley did not really want his picture taken in his blessing outfit made by his grandma Burnham). Also, on the surgery end of news, as some of you heard Julie's Dad Mike had his prostate surgery post-poned due to some technicalities and it has been rescheduled for the morning of January 16th. They will be at the hospital at 5:30 in the morning for a 7:30 surgery time. If you can all remember him and pray for a swift recovery, we know he would be grateful. We had a great new year here in Provo, learning that we passed all of our classes from last semester, and getting our schedules ready for this semester. We are very excited and motivated to do well, and move on. Our first treat of the new year was Julie's first visit to her doctor. The first thing they did was do an ultrasound to find our little baby. We were able to hear the quick little heartbeat and they even printed us out a picture for us to keep. There's not too much there to see, but we can see a nose, which makes this future Daddy very proud. We are very excited for our next appointment and for the progress that comes every day. Julie has been doing very well and was amazingly blessed to not deal with a lot of sickness. This makes being a full-time student and part-time worker a possibility. This semester Julie is taking an Advanced Food Preparation Class, Family Meal Management, Floral Design, The History of Design and Architecture, and the Doctrine and Covenants. Aaron's schedule is full of English Phonetics & Phonology, The History of the Book (taught by our Bishop's brother), Early Modern English, Sociolinguistics, Southern Hispanic American Literature, and Lifestyle Management (which fulfills his P.E. credit). We are sure to have a busy semester, but we are prepared and ready. We are already trying to get ahead, to make the end of the semester a bit easier. Aaron will be graduating April 27th. We are very excited for this, though it is a few months away, and are still trying to decide where we will be going once we are done here. But as always, we'll try and keep everyone posted!