Duke Graduation Ceremony (May 12)

Andrew defended his dissertation on July 21, 2017; we moved on July 24, and after arriving in Utah he had a couple of weeks to submit his revisions. He officially graduated on September 1, but his diploma didn't arrive in the mail until September 24 (which was quite a while ago).

September 24, 2017

So it felt a little odd to fly back to Durham to attend the graduation ceremony in May. We feel at once like we've just left (it hasn't even been a year!) and that graduate school was eons ago (it's been almost a year!); whichever way we happened to be feeling at any given moment, it was wonderful to go back to North Carolina (if only for a few days). 

Let's go Duke!

I think Duke is out of the March Madness running as of today, but the kids were sure rooting for them earlier this week. Gavin wore a Duke shirt and track pants on Thursday so when Zoë got dressed she picked out the very same outfit. She was so excited to be twins with Gavin!

Andrew's a DOCTOR!

There won't be a ceremony until next spring and he still has a list of required revisions to complete but (more or less) he's done! And I don't think I've seen him this at ease with life since 2012.

Danielle, one of the candidates in Andrew's cohort, decorated his door for him and made him cookies (she defended in May)

Meetings of all sorts

Today we met with one of Andrew's advisors. We brought along Zoë and Benjamin to spend some time on campus as well (because what else was I going to do with them?) so when we went to meet this professor the kids were in tow.

"And how old are you?" she asked Benjamin.

"I'm four," he said. "But I'm almost ten."

"Not for a few years, buddy," I whispered.

"That's okay, that's okay," she said. "Because do you know what? I'm almost 100 years old. It's true. Very soon I will turn 100. Yes, in about fifty-one years."

"Whoa!" gasped Benjamin.

Duke Gardens with Naanii and Bumpa

After spending the morning at the pool, we came home for lunch and some downtime—napping and board games and a little bit of Mako Mermaids—before heading off on our afternoon adventures.

Here's my mom ever so patiently playing Chutes and Ladders with the kids (that game is one of my least favourite games to play, so I think she's a saint):

Grad Parent BBQ

Last night we went to the Duke Grad Parents picnic and swimming party. Now that Andrew's the co-president we figure we should attend an event every now and again. We met some other crazy families who were still in grad school but had a handful of children accompanying them (though I think we had the most children out of everybody—so we're the craziest, I guess). We had a lovely (catered) barbecue meal (no cooking, no clean up—perfect). And we had a great time swimming, too!

Here we are eating dinner (picture by Sondra):

Hazing

We really need to get to bed, but first I'm going to tell you a story. Because I feel like I've been doing all the stupid stuff around the house lately. But Andrew just evened up the score.

Andrew's now the co-president of GradParents. They're hosting a pool party next week and Andrew figures we should go...since he's the co-president and all. We've somehow managed to miss every single activity the past three years.* Because we're super social people.

Anyway, in order to be an official "club" they have to register with the school every year. To do that, they had to complete an anti-hazing statement, which is just a bunch of rules you promise to obey in order to prevent hazing from occurring. They listed some items that might be considered hazing, such as, "sleep deprivation or interruption of consecutive sleep hours."

"We might run into issues there," Andrew said.

If parenting is a club—which apparently it is—then there's some serious hazing going on in this house right now. Any parents out there not experiencing "sleep deprivation or interruption of consecutive sleep hours"? Show of hands? Anyone? Bueller?

So, Andrew's been working on a grant proposal this evening. That, and a long email updating his main advisor on the work he's been doing the last little while. He just finished up and clicked send.

"Your message was sent to Ken Rogerson," his computer told him.

"Ack! No!" Andrew said. "I was supposed to send that to Judith!"

He wrote and email explaining to Ken that he meant to send that email to Judith but sent it to him by mistake—and complained about having 9 AM church (Ken is in our ward) and mentioned that we should, in theory, empty his freezer of milk soon (I'm using their freezer to store the milk that won't fit in our freezer). He finished up and clicked send.

"Your message was sent to Judith Kelley," his computer told him.

"Ack! No!" Andrew laughed. "It just keeps getting worse!"

So he's busy writing an email telling Judith that he meant for that message to be sent to Ken and for the first message to be sent to her. Let's all cross our fingers he gets the right person in the "to" field...

We're a little sleep deprived over here.

*Not quite true! Once Andrew went to a lunch and got free t-shirts for the kids. But he went to the lunch alone and only for food and free t-shirts. I guess we'll have to actually make an effort to get everyone out of the house, but leaving the house is so hard.

Duke Gardens with David

 Because I'm crazy I agreed to visit Duke campus today. My theme song has shifted from "waddle, waddle" to "everyday I'm shufflin'". I started out at an okay speed but by the end of the afternoon, I was struggling.

The entire campus seems to be under construction right now. The chapel is closed (for the next year, I think) so we weren't able to go inside, but we took a picture outside.

Our Easter Morn

Because Andrew started out the Easter season with Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday Mass in New Orleans, he thought it would be fun to finish it off with Easter Sunday at the Duke Chapel. Not that Easter is over per se. We've only just made it through Holy Week—there's still Easter Week left. Still, he thought it was a fitting "end."

My thought was, "On a weekend when we're each attending ten hours of church meetings and where we're trying to make the kids sit through eight hours of church meetings you're suggesting we submit ourselves to another hour of church? Are you serious?"

He was.

So this morning we got up, rifled through our Easter baskets, ate breakfast, got dressed, and left.

Here are the girls holding up their chocolate bunnies. Benjamin got one as well. They're all different and they all have names. Benjamin's bunny was named Sunny. Rachel's Bunny was named Honey. Miriam's bunny was named...Yummy. Who thought that was fair to poor Yummy the Bunny? S/he doesn't stand a chance of surviving Easter with a name like that!

Baby Shower

Andrew's colleagues threw a baby shower for us today; it was so nice of them. I think the masterminds behind the party were Jen, Ade, and Sierra, though everybody helped. Those three girls, though, were extra excited to meet our kids because they really like Harry Potter and Doctor Who and having the opportunity to get down and draw on the sidewalk with chalk.

Sierra and Ade drawing with the kids

Cheering at Duke

Miriam's squad got to cheer during half-time at a basketball game in the Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke. Everyone seems to be super impressed when they hear this until we clarify that it was a women's basketball game, as if that should make any difference. The women's basketball team is actually ranked higher than the men's basketball team but it's certainly not as celebrated. The stadium wasn't nearly as full as it's been when we've attended men's games—there were no Cameron Crazies or anything like that—but I think that was better for us.

Dinner at Duke

After spending two hours at ballet—dancing for the girls, latch-hooking a Nana costume for me (if anyone in the area wants to come see Peter Pan, let me know!), doing homework for Andrew, and being a baby for Benjamin—we went to Duke for dinner. We had a decent break between each hour we spent at the studio so while we were home for lunch I went ahead and threw together a picnic as well.

I am so glad we visited the gardens last week because today most of the blossoms were gone. They've been replaced with bright green leaves. Spring has really sprung out here. I think if you sat outside long enough you really could watch things grow at the rate things are popping up around here!

Conference intermission

Between sessions of conference we ran off to Duke Gardens for a little picnic and stroll. It was so beautiful with all the flowers blooming! It was rather crowded, too, which makes sense because it was the perfect day. I loved it! It reminded me of parks in Europe—like The Mall in Washington DC—like a town square of sorts. There were people walking dogs, people napping in the shade, people suntanning, people rolling down hills, people picnicking, people throwing balls—everyone was just out enjoying the day, all together.

We parked by the Asiatic garden this time; we've never been to that part of the garden because we've always walked the other direction. But the Asiatic garden is beautiful!

Andrew wants to go to Antarctica one day (my Auntie Colleen and Uncle LeRon took a trip there at the beginning of the year and Andrew was melting over their photographs) so I told him that I wanted to go to Asia one day.

"I don't care where, really," I said, gazing dreamily at a pagoda in the distance. "Japan...Korea...Thailand. Just...Asia. Y'know?"

"If you don't care where then we've done Asia," he said. "Turkey...Jordan..."

"But that's the Middle East," I said. "I want to see Asia."

"You mean the Far East."

"Precisely."

"We can do that, too."

Or, you know, we can at least go back to wander around in this garden a few more times and dream of being elsewhere. Not that here isn't great. Because it is. But once you've been bit by the travel bug...

Anyway, the gardens were really beautiful! We stopped by this tree before we'd even gotten into the garden because Rachel wanted a picture, with Benjamin (and Miriam but Miriam wouldn't cooperate (and then this morning when she saw the picture asked, "But where am I?")).

The Cameron Craze

"You'll never get in," Reid told us when we first declared our intention to attend Duke. He wasn't talking about academics, though. He was talking about sports, specifically basketball.

Andrew had boasted that we were going to go to a Duke basketball game, but going to a Duke basketball game is nearly impossible. People camp out for tickets to the formidably famous yet ridiculously tiny (let's call it...cozy) Cameron Indoor Stadium. Tickets are like gold and the fans are so intense that they have their own Wikipedia page.

This week Andrew got an email announcing that the first game of the season would be a "family night" and that their graduate student association had purchased a number of tickets and all we had to do was get in line early enough to beat the crowd and we'd get in the game for free, so we picked Rachel up from school instead of letting her bus home and headed off to campus.

We had to be in line by 4:30, as per the emails instructions, and we got there around 4:15. The line was virtually nonexistent but it did get long as we were waiting. I think everyone who was in line got into the game, though.

Once we got our wrist bands and knew we'd be getting into the game, the first thing Andrew did was call his father to gloat.

Duke

Rachel didn't have school on Friday and Andrew doesn't have class on Friday afternoons so we decided to go on a tour of Duke's campus (for my sake, since I hadn't been there yet). The campus is beautifully Gothic—even the newer buildings on campus tweak their modernity to have a Gothic feel by adding arches or crenellations or other cool things.

Both girls are fairly convinced that Duke is Hogwarts.