"D" Day

Tuesday was Defense Against the Dark Arts Day. Oh wait, I mean that the day had finally come for Bob to defend his thesis. Yes, he scheduled it for Tax Day. Thankfully I am the one who does the taxes, but I think that is a whole other blog entry. I took the afternoon off and traveled up to Moscow with Cathy to be there for his defense. We had a nice little crowd actually, very good feeling to be so supported. It was amazing to me as I knew that he had been putting a lot of time in to the whole thing over the last three years, but I guess I didn't really comprehend how much time. Oops. Live and learn. And many people have said that the roles will be reversed once Etta comes...But he made it through the presentation and the question and answer time and passed! He now has to do some more revisions to the written part, have it edited and then get it "published". Oh, did I mention that it has to be by May 1st? That along with the two concerts he has next week, and the fact that the baby seems ready to come at any time has him a little stressed out. We just keep remembering that God never gives you more than you can handle and that we are truly blessed that these are the worst of our problems right now.

So a thesis defense isn't necessarily the most exciting of times but I tried to capture some shots to bring the action to you:


"As you can see, I have very long arms and can point across over half of the black board." (Actually he was exlaining how much kindergartners can learn in one year.)


"And then the board comes along and crunches the budget and compacts the music department yet again." (Really? He was showing a rubric that he has classroom teachers use to evaluate student concert etiquette at concerts.)