Dr. Nate :-)

My husband did his thing yesterday! He defended his dissertation against the cruel, harsh attacks of the outside world! He went into The Big Lecture Room with the Powerpoint and Made the Science Words for like an hour, all the words about the Proteins, um... doing their Protein Things! And there were graphs! and charts! and many, many equations! And I recognized a couple of the equations because I had helped with them! And then his family and I went into the room next door and set up all the tables of Snacks while the faculty people questioned him about his work and his affiliation with the Communist Party and why his shirt is never completely tucked in and why he's always drenched in sweat, and then they signed his papers, saying he's a Doctor! Woo hoo!

This is before the big talk. Doesn't he look incredibly Hott??? (...and hot...?)











Here's the snack room afterwards. The nice man in the blue shirt is his adviser, offering a toast. His siblings Adrienne and Elliot are here, too. (I'm pretty sure Elliot understood more of the talk than I did.) Do you see the cheese plate? With little flags in the cheeses? We had 10 kinds of cheese and I made little flags identifying each one because I hate eating cheese and not knowing what I'm eating. Not that I'm obsessive compulsive or anything.







Look at all those cookies I baked! Because I am totally a Proverbs 31 woman! (Just kidding, of course. Wegman's helped out a little bit. But if we read the part of Proverbs 31 that says something about "bringing food from afar," then I still qualify...?)





Here's Nate looking happy with his friend John.










Most of the good friends he's made while in grad school.






And as a special surprise, his family and my family and some friends chipped in and we got him the Big Person camera he's always wanted. So after he opened that, the rest of the evening was spent Talking Camera with his dad (they know all the things about lenses and filters and, you know... Camera Things.) So he was a happy boy. And then I fell into bed, exhausted and Great With Child.

So thanks to those of you who prayed for him. Yay! (Now we just need a job.)

:-) Love, Neb