Fun Week

Andy and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary last week.  Time has flown by so fast, I can't believe it has already been nine years!  It was Restaurant Week in Baltimore, so we went out to a nice meal downtown and then caught the tail end of a jazz concert in a local park.  After we got home we decided to watch one show on TV and then promptly fell to sleep on the couch at 10:00.  It felt great the next day!  I got an extra 1.5 hours of sleep that night.  If only I could discipline myself to go to sleep so early every night. 

I got together for lunch with a great group of girls and their little ones. I started meeting these girls online and in person about three years ago as we were all trying to build our families.  Each of these ladies has had a beautiful story unfold in their lives over the last couple years. It was great to meet up and see everyone with their babies!  We keep praying for our blogger friends who are still waiting on their miracles.

Over the weekend we went up to Pennsylvania for the baptism of our friend's newest baby.  We met our friends in college and they moved up to PA a few years ago.  We haven't had a chance to go up to visit them in a couple years, so it was great to get together again.  Another couple from college came down with their kids as well.  Philip had a blast playing with all the kids.  It was a great trip, but it went by way too quickly.

Philip's new buddies

I've been going to a Mom's exercise group the past couple weeks getting ready for an upcoming trip to the beach.  I also just joined our local Mom's Club and look forward to getting involved in that group.  I'm still working three hours a day which can be tough, but I think I'll be cutting my hours back soon.  Andy has cut about 90 pages from his dissertation so far and is preparing for a big meeting at work this week.  His brother is coming up for a conference and will be staying with us.  Looks like it will be another busy week!

Dissertation Update!

This just in...Andy turned in the last chapter and conclusion of his dissertation last week!  Alleluia!  The first draft of his dissertation was 650 pages and included approximately 2,000 footnotes.  Now the fun begins.  He is starting to revise all of his previous chapters and he needs to cut about 200 pages.  He also needs to coordinate the bibliography which he estimates will be about 50 pages in itself! We are both very excited! 

He started going back through his first and longest chapter this week. Now that he sees the dissertation as a whole, he is finding it easy to make a lot of big cuts.  So far I think he has lost about 50 pages.  Andy has been coming home from working on the dissertation happy and energized.  It is great!

So what is next in the process?  After he makes revisions to all of his previous chapters (seven in total), he needs to get the second draft approved by his director.  Then it will go off to two readers who also must approve it.  That is followed by the big dissertation defense.  Afterwards the work isn't quite over.  He will still have to make any last minute changes recommended by his committee, be sure it is all formatted perfectly, and deposit the final document.  Then we will be free!  It looks very likely that he will graduate in May 2012 - big party to follow!

My hard-working husband (and cute baby).

After putting in a full day at work, he hangs out with me and Philip until P's bedtime. 

Then he turns on his computer and works on his dissertation into the wee hours of the night. 

He wakes up before me, goes to bed after me, and absolutely amazes me!