abmaster

No more school! Graduation achieved! I have my MPH and now am commissioned to work toward alleviating disease and poverty.






Husband Super Support






I had to end with the cheesy border shot

But I couldn't do it without looking fairly ridiculous! The sash means Delta Omega - official Public Health Honors Society, I guess. I'll eventually post a public website portfolio of my work from this degree to help people get a better picture of what it means.

It has been a fun 2 years here in Boston and definitely worth the adventure; I can't believe it's already accomplished, and with such faithfulness from God in providing a job at just the right time to pay for it all. Wow.

Mom and dad O came for the extended weekend. We had fun at the Bleacher Bar
at Fenway Park, walking the Freedom trail (for the last time?!), the SOWA artists market, church, graduation, and a trip to the North Shore (see slideshow).
It was great having them on our home turf for a few days.

Mom, the model


Rockport

What have I been doing post graduation?
Eating, mostly.
I made raspberry blackberry pound cake.


Then homemade raspberry marshmallows


And Greek lamb burgers (get it?) with a yummy yogurt cucumber quinoa salad.


Next up: 5 year anniversary! The fun is just beginning!

little onion

17 week Karate Kid is either turnip-baby or onion sized. I pick onion. 5 inches and developing joints these days.

I've definitely entered the weird dreaming phase and while I can't remember all details from every night after about 5 minutes of waking up, I know they've involved missing graduation because the bus was late and I refused to pay for a cab, and eating chili powder while praying for people to make my prayers extra powerful.

Also Karate Kid enjoyed the Freedom Trail yesterday with the parents (or I guess I should say and grandparents) and will, tomorrow, be on stage to accept a Master's degree!

misc. momness

This Mother's Day has been fun and obviously different from any others so far! I started out the morning with a little note from an obviously super-intelligent TBA Isaacson:

It's nice knowing my kids will already understand the anthropologie sales rack from in utero!

We spent the day taking the little one on another trip traversing the hills of north-central Massachusetts. There were a whole bunch of cool cliffs with rock climbers as well, and nice lookouts.

We completed the trip with ice cream and now some relaxing hangout time at home. Next year is going to be REALLY fun!

Anyway, happy mother's day to our super moms, and all you other moms out there (including the newest mom (again) I know, Hillary. Here's another Hadley pic!!)

our little avocado

16 weeks = baby has reached avocado size. (??) Approximately 4.5 inches long AND it urinates every 45 minutes (and sometimes swallows it, don't tell Tim). To me it doesn't yet seem like like it could be avocado size, but the belly will pooch in its own time (and it has some constant frozen yogurt and brown sugar poptarts feeding it these days!). It is weird actually taking a picture to capture weight GAIN, but here's the best we got:

Little Avo will be properly and organically decked out early on with a quality tie-dye CO onesie from Becka and cute beanie Tim's mom just knit! sweet! Pretty much as big as my water bottle, whoa.


Let's see what fruit model surfaces for 17 weeks...

excitement!

We have two new exciting editions to our lives. The first is very exciting. We are so happy to welcome our new niece, Hadley Kate into the world. Check out this picture. She is the sweetness!

Second, and not quite as exciting, is the new song we've written and posted on our music site. Click here to take a listen. Maybe we should write an epic song about Hadley battling robots and saving the planet. Now, that would be exciting.

Springy classlessness and FREEdom

No more school! Spring is in full effect. I had my last class on Wednesday night and FREEdom feels more and more fabulous every day. I still am working full-time through the end of June, when we move out of our apartment. And fly to Paris (yippers!). So now I get to focus on: 1) reading baby books (and finding place of care in CO), into the 2nd trimester already; 2) planning the daily in-betweens of fun times between Paris and Vienna; 3) packing! And simplifying life even more, which is also FREEing.

Since our last smashing deput post, a lot has happened:

Marathon Monday (wasn't the same without the Mangrums)

Trip to see Trip
(and Kira, Anya and Asher Campbell in New Jersey), where we played with their cute kiddos and ate great food (again).

And of course we stopped for one last NYC cupcake, some of the few we really like in the world.

Then I finished school!

And yesterday I joined a couple of similarly FREE classmates for FREE afternoon sailing in the Boson Harbor, huzzah! It was a gorgeous day for it.

This morning I took a lovely bike ride to the Arnold Arboretum, where blooms galore enhanced my Springy freedom feelings.

As for a baby update, still good to go. Next week will probably suffice for a belly shot since there is minor protrusion occurring. Fun times!

Smashing Debut

What, you might ask, is this? Olympic gold? Aren't the Vancouver Olympics over? Why is Tim wearing funny green pants? Please, allow us to clarify.

The thought has begun to crystallize in your mind like a small icicle on the rifle tip of a cross country skiing bi-athlete. Yes, it is true. Abby is pregnant and we couldn't be happier. Curled up inside her like a little bobsledder is our baby.

On Friday we went in to have our first ultrasound. As the technician slowly increased the volume, I leaned forward like a Swiss ski jumper and heard for the first time the little thump-thump of our baby's heart beat. We could see the child, not even hockey-puck sized, moving around with strong working arms and legs.

The little kid showed us right away that it was a fighter. Inside the womb, he/she was kicking away. It was a KARATE KID! As gold-medal winning parents we couldn't have been happier to see our competitive child already training for the summer games. Judo-chop!

We are grateful to God for this new addition to our team. We are cheering louder than Canadian curling fans. Due date is October 23, 2010. Results are now public.

the trip heard round the world

Steph and Reid came to visit Boston! And Boston knew about it. They were unashamed.

They trampled the Yankees (OR maybe the Yankees trampled us, a Sox game, but we took the 86 degrees instead!).

(no worries folks, this is Reid's bevvie.)

They traversed the FT (Freedom Trail) and the (Beacon) Hill.

They shot the minutemen. (I mean followed the trail through Lexington and Concord where the minutemen shot the British).

They shut down Walden Pond. (I mean it shut us out due to flooded footpaths).

They declared Independence (by resting at Fort Independence, Castle Island, after several futile but fun attempts to fly our penguin kite).

All in all, a great trip. Thanks for the visit, friends!

Jesus is Mine

We've posted a song for Easter on our music site. The song is a hymn by Jane C. Bonar from 1844. We are unsure of the original melody, but since first stumbling on the words, we have not been able to escape their simple and beautiful power. "All that my soul has tried, left but a dismal void. Jesus has satisfied." Listen by clicking here.

let's start with Browntown

We do have a lot to fill you in on, and we'll start with Abbie and Cyrus Brown's visit this past week (and pause for Easter, and for Steph and Reid's visit!). I already miss them a TON and it was way too short but wonderful to be around such good friends again.

Sunday could be viewed as the best day, especially in terms of a weatherman's respect. That's why it's the only day I have pics from! We indulged in a breakfast treat at Flour (Sunday and every day), walked our way through town to church, enjoyed a long and windy but wonderful sermon and Caleb and Acsah and Palm Sunday, then parted ways as Tim went to work and the three others of us zipped our way up to the North Shore to Gloucester (clam chowder, fishing coastal town) and Crane Beach near Ipswich. We definitely found our share of adventure there in some trails winding up a hill behind the beach, through a mansion estate, and through a surprise soggy bog of some sort that soaked us as we ran with adrenaline right through it, screaming! and then laughing.

stairs to the beach

trail up a hill with cool trees

mansion.

cool bench (cool people)

with a view!

Monday it began pouring sheets from the sky, and it never stopped until after they left on Wednesday. We soggied ourselves out running Monday morning, dried off, then soggied ourselves again exploring Newbury street, then dried off in Tim's store, then proceeded to give the wettest Freedom Trail tour (and fastest!) in history, and were quick to consume cannoli's at the end. We finished with a (wet) coffee tasting at Tim's store before coming home to cook the most divine oatmeal buttermilk pancakes in the world.

Tuesday was more of the same - only the Browns were alone in Browntown exploring Harvard in the even more rainy weather. We finished with a fabulous Venezuelan meal at a (nearby) favorite restaurant, completed with treats from Flour.

And then just like that they were gone! We need this again a million times!


stay tuned for Part II - StephandReidTown!