Congratulations on becoming an Aunt, Christine! That is wonderful news!
Belated welcome, Mary Anne! I also love the Jacob Young, who plays JR (I might be in the minority, here!

)! I don't believe that he's been ill or has had surgery - his voice has pretty much been that way since he came on the show. Maybe he kinda does that on purpose - to sound almost sinister or "godfather-like" - to try to intimidate people, or something! Or maybe he just thinks it sounds sexy!
I'm not surprised that Jonathan is coming back, somehow. I wonder if he will be a "changed man" (they can't have an assaulter walking around PV free, indefinitely - if he turns out to still be alive - which I hope he is, if he's coming back - I'm sick of the "Lavery Brothers / Father flashbacks"!)? He was a pretty good actor - it will be interesting to see what they do with his character. Hopefully he won't just be a ghost who is there to torture Ryan.
I'm inclined to believe that Di is related to Dixie, too.........except for the fact that she seems to know an awful lot of the intimate details of JR's childhood, and Lainie (for example) wasn't around for very much of JR's childhood. She also knows some intimate things about her marriage to Tad - like little romantic things that they shared, etc. Why the heck doesn't she just take the DNA test, already, and be done with it?! She told Adam that she would take any test that he wanted her to take, like 3 weeks ago.........SO TAKE IT, ALREADY!!!!!
That's so nice that the actress who plays Anita had her baby. I wonder if she will be coming back on the show at the same time as Julia, or afterwards? I just hope that Anita doesn't bring Maddie back from California with her!
I also can't imagine how Erica can be so selfish as to want to tell everyone about Greenlee's pregnancy "publicly", after Greenlee asked her not to do so, more than once. I think that Erica is getting a little carried away with this "New Beginnings" stuff!