A quick look at the end of 2008

After a nine month hiatus, I have resolved to start blogging more faithfully. Especially because we've had an eventful year!!

In March, we found out we were pregnant! That was only the beginning! After a great semester of school, we moved to Parker, Colorado, and lived with Pops, Fay, and Daniel. We both got jobs in Aurora for the summer. We both worked at Wagner Equipment Co. (a Caterpillar dealer) -- Brian in the accounting department and me in the training institute. We loved our time there!! Colorado was amazing!! Pops and Fay were so nice to give us room and board. We had a great summer with them! While we were there we sold the Jeep that Brian's parents gave us and bought a 2005 Honda Civic. We love the gas mileage!! We had many, many other blessings come to us over the summer. A few highlights include a week-long trip to London and Paris with Cheri, Trevor, and Garrett Hazen, a trip to South Dakota, and the chance to see and shake the hand of Senator John McCain (the Republican Presidential candidate). After such a wonderful summer, we may just end up living in Denver forever!! Who knows?!

We came back to Utah in the middle of August (just in time for Annie and Jason Driggs' wedding). I started student teaching at Provo High School and Brian started his first year of the BYU accounting program -- the "Junior Core."

For Brian, school was very time demanding. He would spend hours upon hours at school studying and completing homework. Fortunately, he loved the group he was assigned to. They worked together everyday and I would say that they have become some of his best friends!! We joked that he spent more time with his accounting group than he did with his family over the semester! Haha.

I LOVED teaching. It was such a fun and rewarding time. I had many, many learning experiences. I hope that someday I can return to the classroom again.

Well, the pregnancy went pretty well. There were no serious complications or anything. At about 35 weeks I started going for Non-Stress tests twice a week. On November 4th, I went to the doctor because I was struggling to keep my blood sugars under control. Later that day I had an amniocentesis where they discovered that the baby's lungs were developed enough to be delivered. Immediately, I was checked into labor and delivery and they induced me (3 PM). A great blessing was that my student teaching officially ended the minute I was checked into the hospital. I called Brian, who had been taking a test, and he quickly came to the hospital. Well, for the first few hours of the delivery, nothing really happened. We watched Obama sweep the election and rested up a little. At 9 PM they gave me the pitocin and the contractions became increasingly stronger. By 11 PM I was in enough pain and so I requested an epidural. The epidural was amazing and it allowed me to actually sleep until I was fully dialated at 3 AM. I started pushing and at 3:52 AM on November 5th a beautiful baby girl was born. We fell MADLY in love with her!! Later that night we decided to name her Madelyn Camille Hazen.

My mom came and stayed with us for the first nine days. It was a huge blessing to have her here. I'm not sure how we would've made it alone. We had MANY, MANY visitors in that time as well. The Hazens came up from California and several other friends and family members came by to meet the little one. Brian happened to be in the middle of a test week for all of his accounting classes and he still had one to take after the baby was born. Having all of the visitors was a little stressful for him, but he spent just a couple of hours studying for the test and went and took it only two days after she was born. Amazingly, he got the highest score on the test of all the students in the entire junior core (He's so smart)!!

Madelyn was blessed on November 23rd wearing the same dress that I wore when I was blessed. We are still obsessed with the little pumpkin. Everyday I am amazed at the love that I feel for her.

We went to Gran's for Thanksgiving and enjoyed the break. A few weeks later Madelyn and I took her first plane ride to South Dakota while Brian took his finals. She was a great little flyer! In South Dakota we had a BEAUTIFUL shower put on by Lacey Musick and Kris Graham. So many wonderful friends came. We had a great time with Ma-T and PaRo. We were sad to leave but excited to get back to the father of our little family!! Brian did very well on his finals and was able to finish the semester with an AMAZING 4.0 in all of his classes. I couldn't be prouder of him!! I officially graduated from BYU with a Bachelor's degree in Chemistry Education in December as well. We drove to California to spend Christmas with the Hazens. We had a great time there. Madelyn was able to meet many more members of her extended family!!

Well, that's about it! That is the condensed version of our 2008. We're looking forward to another rewarding year!