Nicole's Adoption

The 3 year old who was my flower girl is now officially Nicole Shields! She has been in the Shields, and subsequently CPC, family for the last year and a half, but as of Thursday her adoption is official. Joe, her father and the music minister at CPC, invited the staff and a few other friends to join them in the courtroom. It was a moving experience being there with hardly a dry eye in the room (including the court clerks). The judge was a very sweet woman who asked us all to share about Nicole and the Shields family. Oddly enough, Nicole, who is not shy, would not speak to the judge or allow her picture to be taken, so I had to sneak in a few candid shots at the picnic afterward. It was a Hello Kitty party with a pinata. I also included here a picture from the wedding so you can see her face.

New Hobbies

One of the many things that Junius and I bonded over was good food - we found our favorite restaurant together and many of our celebrations of special occasions have involved days of cooking in preparation. However for both us daily cooking was more about the call of the stomach than the love of creation. Hence we had perfected the scrambled egg, pancake, mac and cheese, Ramen noodle, meal-in-a-bag and stir-fry recipes. If dinner couldn't be made in 15 minutes, we weren't likely to make it. But since January when Junius started seriously shooting to turn in his dissertation before the March 15 deadline (which he made with time to spare!), I took over the cooking and started viewing it as a hobby. I now plan out the week by which recipes I want to try. We spend more at the grocery store but we get so much more out of our food. Between Real Simple recipes which feature seasonal fruits and vegetables and Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking which was a Christmas gift from my parents I have been trying, learning, and eating quite well. Here is a picture of my first meatloaf (Balsalmic lamb meatloaf on a bed of red peppers, purple onions, and cannellini beans). It is hardly picture worthy since it tastes so much better than it looks, but meatloaf felt like a landmark, like I was cooking like a wife.

Another hobby since Christmas is Junius on the bass guitar. I gave him one for Christmas with help from my parents. Since we spent Christmas with them and packing a giant box would have clued Junius in, Mom bought the guitar in Memphis, wrapped it (that takes a lot of paper since the box included an amp, headphones, and other accoutrement) and hid it. It was the last gift opened on Christmas morning and Junius spent much of Christmas afternoon figuring out the notes and playing hymns. What with all of the dissertation work, he hasn't played it much since the semester started -- until today. One of his students used to play bass guitar in a British rock band and gladly offered Junius lessons. The first was today and Junius has been excitedly practicing now that he knows proper fingering and chord progressions. As I write this, I am being accompanied by "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen and Junius.

Washington Trip

We took a trip out to Washington state to visit some friends, the Sharritt Family, and to see a bit of Seattle. Here are a few pictures of Uncle Junius as ticklemonster, Mount Ranier, the skyline, and some other stuff we did. Enjoy!

Christmas decorating

We had a lot of fun picking out our first Christmas tree, hanging ornaments, putting up lights, and giving the whole place a Christmas-y feel. We even put some garland on the top of the armoire now it reminds me of the ghost of Christmas present.

Living Room

Here are a couple of shots of the living room before redecoration:





Obviously, it didn't have all those wine bottles all the time--those were from the kitchen. Here are shots of the way it looks now:

wedding shots

Ok so the photos from the photographer are due any day now, but I've had so many requests here are a couple of photos that people took at the reception of Junius and me dancing that I rather like.

Basement--Before and After

Two weeks ago I undertook the project of building a beautiful new home for Rebekah out of my old one. You see, we're going to live in my current apartment, but in order to avoid the feeling that she just moved in with me, we decided to do a pretty major renovation. As soon as my summer teaching ended, I began work; she was pretty busy with her own job at the time, so I had the help of some of my most fantastic friends to pull it off. Over the next few posts, we will highlight the changes.

In this post, it is the basement we are concerned with. The original basement was in all off-white, which made for a pretty dreary look. The plan was to convert it into a home theater, with a ceiling mounted projector.


In this picture, you can see where we are planning to put the screen for the home theater:


We chose a charcoal gray for the walls to absorb light (which would make the picture from the projector brighter), while leaving all the trim white to break up the monotony (just adding a fresh coat):


We painted the screen on using a specially formulated paint, then added velvet tape around the edges to complete it:


We are very pleased with the results!