2006

I cannot help but feel grateful in these last six hours of the year 2006. Becca attended and graduated from massage therapy school and has been working in her profession almost uninterruptedly since then. My business has been a much better source of income for our little family and has given me a way to directly apply the principles that I have learned in my classes. We have many friends to do fun things with when we have free time and we have the ability to communicate regularly with our family members and visit them often. In our new ward, my church service has felt more rewarding and Becca and I are starting to have family home evening more frequently.

I feel grateful not only because 2006 has been so positive but because 2007 is looking to be exciting. I will graduate with a double major in Spanish and Portuguese and Becca and I will spend five months touring southern Brazil and northern Argentina. After that I have thought of applying for a job as a junior editor at a local Spanish Language newspaper and running my business on the side while I prepare to apply for a job in the State Department. No, we do not know where we will be living and we have no idea where or when we will be settling down.

I’m not a huge fan of New Years Resolutions but I suppose that if any change would make me happy this time next year it would be one of health. I don’t have any big reason to complain but I would still like to reestablish some good habits about dieting, as in changing my diet for good, and exercise. I am twenty five and sometimes I think that I look and feel more as if I were in my early thirties. Other than that, things can just continue to progress as they have been. I’d like to have good steady employment that is advancing me professionally and providing for my family, I would like my church service to continue to feel meaningful and Becca and I should continue to grow personally and as a couple.

Becca and I will ring in the New Year between one to three hours before all of you so let me be the first to wish you all a happy new year. Thank you all for the wonderful and enriching things you do to make our lives that much better. Thank you for your prayers, your emails, your phone calls, your lovely gifts, your concern, your jokes and, especially, your love.