Happy News

Well it's been a while since we've updated....because we've had a secret to keep.

Any guesses?

Whitney's pregnant! We found out on Father's Day and we are overjoyed. She is now 12 weeks and the due date is February 21.


Baby's first picture: (Taken last month at 7 weeks)

New Favorite

Delicious, hot or iced.

I Heart Root Canals

Really I do. I highly recommend them. (If you need one, that is). My teeth haven't felt this good in years.

Does anyone know where I can find these?

Over Your Head

This Saturday my brother and sister-in-law (Danny and Lindsay) will be featured on HGTV's show Over Your Head. From HGTV's website, the show appears to be scheduled for Saturday, May 31st at 11:00 am (PT and/or ET). Others in the family say 8:00 am. Who knows. We don't have cable. Hopefully we'll get to see it at some point. But what we did get to see was their bathroom. HGTV helped them turn a Bathroom Debacle into a bathroom delight. (They filmed back in December so we got to see the finished product when we were out for Christmas.)

My parents came to visit us and we had an absolutely lovely time. We showed them around Durham, they got to see our daily routines, and...

they were each appointed seats to the House of Representatives!! Just kidding. We actually just went on a fun weekend trip to Washington D.C.



Roosevelt once said, "Speak softly, and carry a big stick." D.C. is in fact the home of America's largest and pointiest stick, which can be seen in the background above. This explains why Roosevelt indeed spoke so very softly.


Just as we have with so many of our other beloved visitors, we all went to Duke Gardens.


We never grow tired of the gardens, because different flowers have been in bloom each time and the tulips were particularly big and beautiful this time. You can't quite see the scale on this picture, but the top of the flower goes up to about where my neck is.

It was such precious time and it went by so quickly. Thanks so much for making the trip to see us!

Tracie's Engaged!

Engaged to be married, that is.

Congratulations, Doug and Tracie!

lawn mowing, friends in town

We bought this beauty last Saturday. It doesn't match our house AT ALL but Sameer convinced me to settle on it anyway, since designer lawnmowers are so expensive these days. Sameer put this ugly orange thing to work and mowed the lawn today. If only we had taken "before" pictures....you would have been impressed with the height of our (mostly crab) grass. A week longer and we'd have had to go out there with a machete just to prepare the lawn for mowing. I was surprised that we hadn't heard from anyone in the homeowner's association about it - my guess was that they couldn't successfully make their way to the front door.

Lance and Cassie, friends from Yale, drove down last weekend to hang out with us. The main purpose for the visit was to help us buy a lawn mower. But afterwards we still had some time, so we did some other stuff too. Most significantly, we introduced them to The Office. They successfully watched Seasons 1 and 2 in a very short period of time. Thankfully, they don't seem to ever require any sleep. Anyway, we're so glad they're Office fans now too, because that is the only thing we know how to base a friendship on. I am aware that I ended that sentence with a preposition - but it just felt like the right thing to do.


Thanks for coming to see us! Your presence was very enjoyable, as were your omelettes.

He is Risen!

Said the angel, “He is risen!”
Tell it out with joyful voice:
He has burst His three days’ prison;
Let the whole wide earth rejoice:
Death is conquered, we are free,
Christ has won the victory.

Come, ye sad and fearful hearted,
With glad smile and radiant brow!
Death’s long shadows have departed;
All our woes are over now,
Due to passion that He bore—
Sin and pain can vex no more.

Come, with high and holy hymning,
Chant our Lord’s triumphant day;
Not one darksome cloud is dimming
Yonder glorious morning ray,
Breaking over the purple east:
Brighter far our Easter feast.

He is risen, He is risen!
He has opened Heaven’s gate:
We are free from sin’s dark prison,
Risen to a holier state;
And a brighter Easter beam
On our longing eyes shall stream.


- Cecil Alexander (1846)

We've had some visitors recently...and what a joy it was!



Heather and May took a long train ride to visit us for a few days while they were on this side of the country. Thanks Heather! We miss you!

The neglected blog.

Um, since it's February 29 I thought I'd post so we could at least have a post under Feb. 2008 (ridiculous, I know). Unfortunately we're too tired to think of anything to write. Or maybe it's just that it's been so long that we don't know where to start. Anyhow, if you haven't already seen the video below, welcome to the world of "Charlie Bit Me". This blog is pathetic. But here you go:

Sorry No Posts for a While... But Please Accept This Goaty Goodness

The guy who coined the euphamism "like a deer in headlights" had to be kicking himself after he saw this...

Our beige house

For those of you back home we thought we'd finally put some pictures of our furnished home up here. What I've realized after putting all these pictures on the computer is that our home is very beige. I guess we are the kind of people who need to be more adventurous with color.

Up until Saturday (2 days ago) we lived in this house with no blinds or curtains. We put a navy blue sheet on our bedroom window the night we moved in and just left all the other windows uncovered. I had thought that covering the windows would be a priority - we planned to do it right after buying the appliances....but somehow it just never seemed that important. We loved the windows and they brought color into our place a little. I just ignored the fact that the neighbors could see straight into our home. I really didn't even think about it.

Well we finally broke down and got temporary blinds on Saturday. We had wanted to get blinds before we left for Christmas but we weren't ready to buy real ones yet. All this time we had been resisting buying temporary ones because we couldn't stand the idea of spending money on something disposable. Finally, we decided to use a Home Depot gift card we had gotten for buying an energy star refrigerator and we got the temporary shades. They cost $60 total for the whole house. Yes, we're that cheap. I don't know why we didn't do it sooner. We'll leave these up for a good long time to make that $60 worth it!

So now we have privacy but our house is even MORE beige and I miss the windows and the color and light they brought.

So here are some pictures of the house before we covered it up with cheap ugly temporary blinds.





And if you want to see even more of the beige-ness, here's an album full of house pictures.

Our house

We get to meet her in a couple of weeks...

Our newest niece: Sophia

Sameer makes me laugh

The other day Sameer sent me an email that said only this:

"You've never seen a burrito as big as the one I am about to eat. Pray for me."

The humor broke the monotony of a very dull day.

As it turns out, he survived the burrito.

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six wingèd seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

from the Liturgy of St. James (4th century)

Taking advantage of the University

Last night we went to hear Handel's Messiah at Duke Chapel. Thanks to my parents who played recordings of this quite often during my childhood it is very near to my heart. It is also extremely long and after it was over I had to promise Sameer that in the future we will only go to performances of "selections" or "highlights" of the Messiah.

In spite of the uncomfortable pews it was a perfect way to begin the Advent season. I couldn't find my CD of it this morning but thanks to the world wide web I am listening to various performances of my favorite selections online.

"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by his blood, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. Blessing and honour, glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. Amen." Revelation 5:12,13

Missing the little pup

After our puppy sleepover (that involved more playing than sleeping) we had to put him in the neighbor's back yard in his make shift house with our blanket. It was so sad. We hated to leave him out there but the neighbor said someone was coming to pick him up that day. We worried about him the whole rainy day while we were at Duke but we hoped someone really had picked him up. We found out that our neighbor is severely allergic to dogs and that's why she left him outside.

When we got home he was sitting on our back patio pressed against our door and of course we brought him in. For about 20 seconds we considered keeping him but then neighbor came over and told us someone should be coming by that night to get him. We got to keep him for the evening until around 10:30 when a nice girl who seemed to really want him came and got him. It was a sad goodbye but we're very happy he found a home. We were so torn - we really wanted to keep him but we're gone for 10-12 hours a day and that's no way to raise a puppy.

We've been missing him ever since. He was such a sweet little thing.

puppy update

In the late afternoon we put him back outside with a blanket for a couple of hours. When we saw lights on at the neighbors' house we went over and talked to them. She said someone was coming to get him tomorrow and she had forgotten he was still in the backyard. We asked if we could keep him for the night and she heartily said yes.

No, we didn't get a dog

So we have this adorable puppy wrapped in a red blanket sleeping on the kitchen floor right now. Over the weekend we noticed that there were 3 adorable puppies learning how to walk in our neighbors' backyard. There is no fence between our yards so it seems more like we share a backyard. Last night I saw the three little ones cuddling and this morning they were there too. It's getting kind of cold now and it's been raining off and on. This morning while we were watching the puppies from the window we saw the neighbor come and pick up two of them and go inside. She left this one in the backyard. When we got home from church this little guy was still there all by himself. He was getting brave walking around and I was worried he would wander out to the street and get hit by a car. Sameer went out to visit him and a few minutes later it started raining. He (the puppy - not Sameer) started crying. We couldn't resist. One thing led to another. I held him in my arms for a while and he seemed so content. I rang their doorbell to see if they were home. All the lights were out. No one answered. We just couldn't leave this little guy out there in the rain without shelter so we brought him in and he's warm and happy; dreaming his puppy dreams. I left a note on their door. Hopefully we didn't ruin some grand dog training plot. I actually have a feeling that he's not their puppy - perhaps they are dog sitting. We told them once that we wanted to get a dog someday and they said they didn't like dogs....


So maybe we did the wrong thing. We couldn't resist. I know, I know - we should probably return him to the patio.