1 friend, 2 friends, old friends, new friends!

So yesterday I was busy procrastinating, only a little bit, and found my friend Laurenda on facebook. Yea! We haven't kept in contact for several years now, and I was very excited to find her. I found her blog, which led me to MANY other old friends from Columbia, both University Ward friends and Bear Creek Ward friends. I found Bryan and Sabra, Josh and Emily, Megan and Jared (all the way in Alaska!), Kendall and Michelle, Laurel and Louis, Tina (an old roommate) and James, Edward and Stephanie, Ben and Laurie, Laura (another old roommate), Meredith and Andrew, Melissa and Dwight, the Tia family, Trent and Courtney, Cary and Katrina, Wes and Melissa, the Spriggs family, whew, that's a lot. We even found some of the kids that were youth in Bear Creek ward, with their own families! It was so fun to see everyone, most have more kids than we knew of last time we saw them, and everyone looks like they're doing great! So, in the interest of my new-found friends who I hope are hopping over to our blog, I'll put in a quick update.

We left Columbia in spring 2003 and headed to Chicago so Aaron could go to graduate school. We lived a couple of places in Chicagoland and our second son Levi was born just before we left there in 2005. After Aaron had worked for a year, he decided to look into moving into a better position, so started applying to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Within three weeks of them calling him for an interview, he got the job in Los Angeles, so five weeks later we picked up and moved (with my brother Jon's help -- many thanks) to a place I had never been. Ever. We've been in the same apartment since May 2005, longer than any other place we've lived.

A.J. is in second grade at our local school, which he (and I) loves. He is big into baseball, convinced he'll be a major leaguer when he grows up, so look for his name in about 15 years. Levi started preschool this year, and absolutely loves it. He plays with everyone and is the class entertainer. He loves to sing and perform for people. Just this morning at A.J.'s dropoff he had Mrs. Lo's whole second grade class gathered around him to watch him do "Sporticus moves." He sees them on Nickelodeon's Lazytown and has to try them out: jump splits (like cheerleaders do), pushups, all kinds of lovely things.

Aaron is still with the SEC and has been really busy for a while, with the economy plummeting, banks and brokers failing right and left. I am a grad student in marine ecology trying to get a master's degree. Things are a little slow, because I can't just take off to my research site any time the tides are good. It all has to be planned really far in advance, and getting the boys taken care of is definitely the hardest part.

We'll be back in Missouri for Christmas this year, so maybe we'll see a few of you still in the Columbia area. I'm so glad we found so many of you. It's always good to connect to people from the past. We hope all is going well for you and your families. And let's keep in touch!