CHRISTMAS 2003, HAPPY NEW YEAR 2004!
This past year has brought about many changes for our family. It has been challenging but very rewarding at the same time.
2003 began as Julie finished her Master's in Mathematics Education. Upon completion of her graduate studies she kept busy working at an English as a second language school teaching a GRE/GMAT math class, working as an internet tutor at UVSC, tutoring middle school kids and supervising the math club at another middle school. In April she participated in the graduation ceremonies for her accomplishments at BYU. After graduation ceremonies Julie worked as adjunct faculty at BYU teaching college algebra. Julie gave her students their final on Monday and Hailey was born less than a week later on Sunday. (Julie told her students that they would all get A's if Hailey came before the final. The students were disappointed that Hailey waited!)
June 22nd came about the biggest change of the year when Hailey Jalyn Plummer was born. She weighed 7 lbs 11 oz. Other than the large purple-red bruise she had on her head, she was perfect. She didn't even cry when she got her birthday shots! She turned 6 months right before Christmas and has already figured out how to crawl backwards.
During the summer I started getting more serious about finding a real job anticipating I was going to finish my thesis and move on to better things. Working with a recruiter that only works with bilingual Japanese speaking candidates I flew to Michigan and interviewed with two Japanese companies in the automotive buisiness. After receiving offers from both companies and after much thought and deliberation we chose the one that we thought was more promising in the long run. From there the race was on to finish my Master's project/thesis in 30 days. I worked my tail off to get everything done that had to be done on campus and took the rest with me. Julie had to turn her teaching position down at BYU and we packed up our things and drove east. We spent two weeks in Bowling Green, KY for training at the company's new model development center. Then we headed north to Ann Arbor, MI where we now live. I'm working in the Toyota Technical Center refining the design of the instrument panel wiring harness on the 2005 Toyota Avalon. I work with several Japanese engineers that give me ample opportunity to speak Japanese. The catch is most of them speak English pretty well so I must push myself to speak Japanese.
After arriving in Michigan around the end of September we were put in corporate housing until we found a place to live. This was nice because it took the stress out of worrying about where to live immediately and gave me some time to work on my thesis in the evenings. Although, at the same time it was a challenge to look for a place to live, write a thesis, work full-time and entertain a 4 month old. At the end of October I submitted my final draft of my thesis to my committee in preparation for my defense. I then flew back to Utah and defended on November 14th. I miracuously passed with minor corrections with the 14th of November being the last day to defend and still graduate in that semester. So I made it by the skin of my teeth without having to pay more tuition on another semester. Oh and I forgot during the midst of all that fun I got mono to add to the things to deal with.
Sometime during the beginning of November after looking at 32 homes we finally found a house we were interested in putting an offer on. Our offer was accepted and the mountain of paperwork started. We moved into our home on the 17th of December just in time to have lots to do for the Christmas and New Years. We have spent most of the vacation unpacking and making our home fit our needs. The nicest thing is that our ton of stuff we had before in our little apartment in Utah fits quite well in a larger space.
So far we have enjoyed living here in the outskirts of the "motor city" even though everyone around seems to work for Ford and the outside temperature is quite miserable at times. My work has been interesting as I haved learned many interesting things about the hundreds/thousands of design processes a car undergoes as it prepares for mass production. Even with the slump in the economy Toyota is still selling the same number of cars whereas the big 3 aren't doing so well.
Hailey just had her first half birthday a few days ago. To celebrate we ate some Gerber baby food and said, "Horray for Hailey." She's a silly girl with a cheesy smile. I get her confused with her stuffed Pillsbury dough boy because of all her rolls of fat. She so desperately wants to crawl and get to the things across the room so she can put them in her mouth, but she just hasn't quite figured it out yet. She rolls over, picks herself up, and pushes but she only seems to go backwards. It's terribly frustrating for the poor sweet thing!
We hope everyone has a most splendid New Year. May 2004 be filled with as much excitement as the past year has been for us.
We would like to hear from all of you and hope to stay in contact as much as possible. Our family web site is located at
http://plummerfamily.com/jon. We have more pictures of our family on the website which is updated on a somewhat regular basis.
The Plummer clan,
Jon, Julie, & Hailey
Jon’s e-mail: plummer@byu.edu
Julie's e-mail: babe@byu.edu
Web site: http://plummerfamily.com/jon
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