Happy 7th Birthday Anja

We had an excellent day for Anja’s 7^th birthday yesterday. Mummy and Daddy wish you a big Happy Birthday Sweetheart. As usual we had many good friends join us in the celebration, as the kids get older these events are getting more and more hectic. Anja had a selection of good friends from school and elsewhere and we of course had some of our very best friends. I think all had a great day. One new thing this year was that Lynne did two treasure hunts, I'll have a little post on that later in the week.

As is now customary, we must thank Granny Owens for Anja’s beautiful dress all the way from Ireland and to Brooke for all her help yesterday but importantly for making Anja’s fantastic “Daisy Cake”. Thank you both and I’d be remiss if I didn't express our thanks to all who came and for all the great presents.

I’ve finally got through all the photos, it took some time. A selection is shown below but many more here. I was also thankful that we got an updated family photo.

Dresses from Auntie Eilish..

A very short note to thank Auntie Eilish for these two beautiful dresses. Thanks Sis...

Dance Recital

As we prepare this morning for Anja’s birthday party, thought I’d share a few photos from yesterdays dance recital. This show takes place every year at Purdue and is the final event from the dance classes they have been taking for a few months. There are literally hundreds of children, mostly little girls, participating and they’re all “really really excited” since everybody is dressed up with make-up, they are on a big stage and about to perform. Our girls were just as excited.

Granny Owens Arrives

Just a very short note to let you all know that my Mum, otherwise known around here as Granny Owens, has arrived safely after a long journey from Ireland. The kids are so excited, they can't contain themselves. We’re all looking forward to having her for the entire month of May. Shown below is a picture plus each girl’s colorful rendering of herself and Granny.

They Need to Look Like This!!

I hope everybody’s week is going well. It’s Thursday night and we're approaching a crazy busy weekend ahead. I know, we only seem to do this kind. My Mum, Granny Owens, arrives tomorrow evening and everybody is really excited to see her. On Saturday it’s Anja’s 7^th birthday, but since both her and Isabel are involved in a dance recital most of the day, we are having her birthday party on Sunday. I’m tired already. I’ll obviously be posting updates as we go along.

You’ll love the little picture below. To celebrate her birthday, Anja wanted to take cupcakes to school tomorrow for her class. So, to be sure she provided sufficient direction, she drew a little picture. Her spelling still needs some work, but in case we were unsure “They need to look like this!” was a clear message. We love you sweetheart.

Fruit Bushes, Trees and Pies.....

Writing this blog post is the last thing I’m going to do this busy weekend. We pretty much spent the afternoon and evening with Randy and Lorraine, they cooked us a special meal in celebration of our citizenship this weekend. Right after lunch we coerced Randy into buying three honeycrisp apple trees and three cherry trees; two bing and one rainier. On our way to the store we swung by our house and dug up a dozen or more raspberry bushes to plant in their garden.

Lynne put in all the fruit bushes; Randy, Connor and myself did the trees whilst Loraine and the girls made dinner and baked the fruit pies. The evening was topped off with a meal littered with red, white and blue food items, the girls did these flag drawings and of course we had some apple pie…we had a great day you guys, thanks again.

Lynne's Research Group

We had another busy day here at the house, we entertained Lynne’s research group and collaborators for the afternoon. Several of her current PhD students and post-doctoral research scientists came over for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Some of them brought their significant others and kids. It was a pretty low-key event, I think everybody relaxed and had some food and a few drinks. There were certainly lots of laughs and some gentle jibes. Never easy to do with the boss around but everybody seemed to enjoy it, we certainly did. I know Lynne was very happy to have such a great group over. 

US Citizens

Today was a pretty special day; Lynne and myself became United States Citizens this morning. Yep, how about that, that doesn’t happen every day. After several years as legal resident aliens in this country, seriously, that’s what we were called; we initially entered on a H1B Visa.  Lynne was even on a J1 Visa at one point but we eventually got Green Cards and after 5 years we finally got through the naturalization process.

This morning we travelled to US district court in South Bend and together with 46 other foreign nationals from over 20 countries we collectively raised our right hand took the Oath of Allegiance thus becoming very proud US Citizens. Now we each have three passports, in case we ever get lost. We couldn't get pictures of us actually taking the oath but shown below is a picture of us standing with the judge who presided over the process.

Congratulations.....Professor Taylor

A short note to let you all know that Lynne's professional achievements are starting to rack up. Late last week she heard officially that she will receive a promotion to full Professor in the School of Pharmacy at Purdue, effective August sometime. Well done love, nobody deserves this more than you do. We're all terribly proud of you.

Happy Birthday Marissa and Reina

Lynne has been travelling; she left yesterday morning for the garden state, New Jersey. She’ll be back tonight albeit around midnight. Yesterday we had a busy day of socializing, the kids and I hung out at Marissa’s 4th birthday party. The kids played hard in the garden whilst Steef, Ginette and myself sat around, watched them play and chatted. It was a tough day :) We finished the day off at our house with some lamb kebabs, chicken sausages, a few glasses of wine, a perfect Sunday afternoon really.

Shown below are a few photos from yesterday but importantly also shown is a picture of Reina who also celebrated her 8th birthday this weekend. Lynne, the girls and Connor actually spent the day Saturday with them and like us yesterday, stayed for a full day of entertainment. I could not go so there are no pictures, I took the picture of Reina below a few weeks ago.

Rock Star Anja....

A short update to let you all (or y’all) know we’re all still alive and well, sorry that there were no blog posts this week, not really sure where the week went exactly. Shown below are a few pictures taken of Anja earlier in the week. She was posing as a rock singer and insisted that I take a picture. I also include one of her in the dress that Granny sent over for her 7^th birthday party later this month. I think it’s a little long but boy does she love it. I’ll have a more detailed update tomorrow.