Happy Channukah!

Two nights ago, William and I kicked off our Channukah celebrations by lighting a new menorah that we got last year but hadn't been able to use yet.  We turned the lights down as we lit it and it was really pretty.

We decided to make latkes to start the holiday off right, and we happened to have a latke mix so we thought we would try it.  They weren't as good as dad's fritter-style shredded potato latkes, but they weren't bad for a mix that only took a few minutes to make (we are very much looking forward to the right kind of latkes with the whole family in Florida next week!).    We had them with sour creme and sauteed green beans; had to do something to balance out the unhealthiness of the latkes.

Yesterday I took Perry to the dog park during the day, he is learning the command "come" and is starting to be pretty consistent about listening even when there are distractions around, so I was really excited.  He continues to be the cutest dog in our apartment/the planet (sorry rest of family, I'm a little bit partial).  Maybe we should have a family cute pet picture post-off on the blog!  I challenge the rest of the family to out-cute this face:

Tonight we are headed to the Mosses' in Raleigh for dinner, and then William starts his vacation so we will get to have a vacation day together, which will be really nice.

Happy happy channukah to all the Halberstadt family, we love you!

Chailee and William

Update from Georgia

Hi Savta and Saba,

I am finally making my first post! Sorry it took me so long :(  We are having a lazy Sunday today because I have the day off in between rotations.  I worked my last night shift last night at Hughes Spalding (Atlanta's community children's hospital), and tomorrow I go back to general pediatrics at Egleston (the large Emory children's hospital).  I have already had one month of general pediatrics at Egleston, so it will be nice to be comfortable with what I am doing for once. 

We have had a busy last few weeks.  I went to Texas to visit mom and dad during my week vacation earlier this month. One night we did a "pinot and palettes" class where they instruct you how to paint a picture, and you eat and drink wine during.  We did a replica of Monet's venice sunset.  It it so interesting how we each had different interpretations of the picture. 

 

I then flew back early so Drew and I could watch University of Georgia play in the SEC championship in Atlanta.  I actually got to sit on the 12th row up from the field with one of my old college friends Arlene.  UGA lost to LSU (the #1 ranked team), but we still had tons of fun!  Here is a picture:

We also got Charlie a new outfit to get in the spirit of football season.  He has gotten so big!!  He is 80 pounds now, and just had his first birthday.  As you can see it is a little hard to find a shirt that would fit him, this is an XL and is still snug! 

And the most exciting news of the month...we got our wedding album this week! It took so long because our photographer had a baby girl about 2 months after our wedding and took alot of mommy time off.  But we finally have it and it is beautiful! Here are a few pages from it.  The first is the cover page, and the second is a picture of the ceremony (Savta you are there on the left side!), and the third is my favorite picture!

Okay that is all for today.  Drew and I are headed off to a holiday party for our intern class.  I hope all is well up in Boston and I cannot wait to see you in a few weeks!!  Tell the snow to stay away!

Lots of love and kisses,

Tracie, Drew and Charlie

More Holiday Parties!

Dear Saba and Savta,

It is Sunday and we have attended three of the four holiday parties we have this weekend!  On Friday night,  William went to a party in Raleigh while I went to my friend Jenn's apartment for a party, at which William met me later.  Jenn's an awesome cook, and made all kinds of things I would never think to make - cheese straws (a savory southern cross between a shortbread and cracker, very good), pralines, cookies, lemon squares, and fancy jelly shots (gelatinized cocktails that are beautiful in different molds, I put a picture of one of them below).  She also had eggnog, which I tried for the first time, and didn't mind.  I know it can be one of those polarizing things people tend to either like or intensely dislike, but I'm not on either end of the spectrum yet.

"Santa's Hat Jelly Shots - Cranberry Juice, Rum, and Grenadine with coconut to garnish!

 

Recipe

Yesterday we had a nice lazy Saturday, I am reading the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which is about an African-American woman whose cancer cells were used by scientists to make amazing discoveries, but to whom very little credit and no compensation were given.  It has been a great read - I really have been enjoying a lot of medical history reading since I started medical school (but I think this book would be interesting for anyone).  William is reading a series called Game of Thrones that has been made into a TV series of the same title on the HBO channel, so we have both been bookworms in the last few months.

Last night we went to one of William's Duke friend Christine's apartments for holiday party #3, and had a great time.  Christine made a beautiful holiday dinner with beef tenderloin for the main course and delicious bread pudding for dessert.  We brought brandy milk punch, William's family's traditional holiday drink, as well as shrimp cocktail from our last fish co-op delivery of the year.  Tonight we are going to our last holiday party (of the weekend!) and it will be in Raleigh with many of William's firm colleagues.   William has been going to this party every year since he was a baby since they are also his dad's colleagues, and it is always neat to see people who have known him for so long.  We are also going to a graduation party tomorrow night and having company on Wednesday night, so it may be a few days before my next post but I will have a lot to write about!

Love from North Carolina,
Chailee and William

Office Holiday Parties!

Dear Savta and Saba,

Yesterday morning I had a big presentation at a case conference in the Emergency Medicine department here at UNC.  It went really well, and afterwards my office had a yankee swap party at lunch, where everyone brings one wrapped gift, and it's a game to try to steal more desirable presents from others; at the end everyone ends up with a present. We were specifically instructed to bring silly gifts, so I brought a Star Wars Monopoly game.  There were 17 people, so the pile of presents filled most of a cubicle!

 The presents were all pretty funny - someone brought a Harry Potter wand, someone else simply put a 6-pack of beer in a big box with nice wrapping paper (one of the most popular gifts, not surprisingly).  Another person brought star wars pez despensers, which got traded a few times as well.  I ended up getting what I thought were cute little plush toys, and they turned out to be plush models of viruses!  It was pretty funny, especially since there were lots of people in medicine there.

Last night William and I spent several hours finishing up some holiday shopping, and we also bought some decorative holiday channukah things for the appartment and our little rosemary channukah bush (we are doing a lot of compromising on the apartment holiday decor!).  Will send pictures when the decorations are all up.  We can't wait to put Perry's channukah collar on that you bought him at the craft fair, we will send a picture once it is on, too. 

I am guessing you are busy with holiday things at Edgewood as well - we have two other holiday parties this weekend, and then we will be headed to the Moss family in Raleigh for Christmas at the end of next week.  After Christmas we are joining Mom, Dad, Mel, and Cole in Sanibel, then we'll be back in Raleigh for the new year.  We have a busy couple of weeks but lots to look forward to, missing you as always and hope you are doing well!!!

Love,
Chailee

p.s. our holiday cards are going out tomorrow so you should be getting them soon!

Puppy Love

Hi Saba and Savta,

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been spending a lot of time with my neighbor's dog. Last night Cole took a rare study break (he is done with 4 exams, only two to go!). I brought Shama over to say "hi" to Cole before we went for our walk and as you can see in the picture, she was plenty happy to see Cole!


Don't worry Savta, he's still a cat person and he'll have his cat one day-- but Shama does give great hellos!

Other than walking Shama and (a lot of) work, I don't have anything too exciting to report-- just trying to help Cole get through finals!

Love,
Maris

Weekend Wrap-up

Saturday night William and I went to the Fred Astaire studios in Durham to take a dancing lesson.  It was a waltz lesson, and we thought it would be pretty low-level since it was offered through the UNC ballroom club and they usually have beginner-oriented classes.  When we got there they immediately split us into leaders and followers, and started quickly teaching some pretty complicated figures (William's eyes grew several centimeteres in diameter when they split us up).  I did some ballroom at Wellesley and I was still pretty uncomfortable so you can imagine how he felt!  Fortunately the instructor realized that most of her audience was not on the advanced level to which she was teaching and slowed down the instruction quite a bit.  By the end we felt good about a basic waltz step and at least one more advanced step.  After the 45 minute lesson there was open dancing, and we got to practice the rumba and the foxtrot we had learned for the wedding - I had so much fun! 

On Sunday we had a lazy morning with the puppy and went to the dog park a lot so he was nice and tired - still showing no signs of slowing down after the peanut butter incident.  Last night we met a friend after dinner who was celebrating finishing graduate school applications, and then we went to see the Muppet Movie.  I thought it was really fun - I hadn't heard most of the hype so I didn't expect it to be as good as it was, so many adult jokes but a really lighthearted fun plot!  Hope all is well up north, it is quite cold (by NC standards) today, but very pretty.  We miss you, Saba and Savta!!

Love,
Chailee

Mini Vacation Weekend in Asheville

Very Decorative, Very Real Cat!

Great weekend in Asheville for M-S Parent Crew.  Rendi and Joe started the weekend with tapas at Zambra's Restaurant, with dessert and tea at the French Broad Chocolate Lounge.  With Rendi receiving some unexpected good news on Saturday--NO TRIAL next week--they continued their mini-vacation in the mountains with Lunch at the City Cafe and coffee at the World Coffee Shop in the Battery-Wall Street area.  As we were walking around town we saw this unreal cat in the window of a shop--almost could not distinguish it from the Christmas decor and colors.  We stayed in Saturday night to watch the Heisman presentation on ESPN. BUT, the big news happened before the Heisman telecast as the University of Kentucky was defeated on a game ending shot by Indiana University. A truly great day!  Sunday saw breakfast at the family favorite, The Early Girl Eatery.  Synagogue winter meeting followed where Joe did the Finance presentation.  The afternoon was taken up with mostly relief that the Patriots beat Washington--at Washington.  Weekend was closed down with dinner at Doc Chey's, Rendi's Amazing Race, and the Giants-Cowboys Football Game.  A really great mini-Vacation Weekend!

Good Night Savta and Saba--We miss you.
-------Rendi and Joe

Puppy Peanut Butter Mischief

Last night we had a little adventure with Perry - he got a peanut butter jar from a part of the counter where I thought he couldn't reach it while I was at work.  He chewed the lid off and ate over a cup of peanut butter!!  We had to call animal poison control, and they said that as long as he didn't seem sick we could observe him at home.  He looked like he had the world's best day!  Since he appeared to be no worse for the wear we headed to Raleigh for the associate party that William's firm threw at one of the associate's apartment social room.

It was really fun, everyone is really nice, and we played a name-that-tv show-theme-song game.  We had a respectable showing but a lot of the show songs (Miami Vice, The Newlywed game, and L.A. Law) were not shows we knew very well so another team ran away with it.  Fun was had by all though, and we returned home Perry seemed to still be in good health and happy.  He did drink a lot of water, though, so it was extra special when he woke us at 2:30 in the morning this morning to announce that he had to go out!  He has woken us up perhaps one other time in the entire three months that we have had him, so we consider ourselves lucky so far.

He has been very playful and cute today, so we are hoping that we are out of the woods.  We had a relaxing morning this morning and this afternoon I went to have coffee with some med school friends.  The plan for tonight is ballroom class at the UNC ballroom club (not William's choice, but I watch lots of basketball and football so we are totally even).  Tomorrow we ar egoing to brew some beer and hopefully go see The Muppets new movie - we have heard great things about it from everyone we know who has seen it.  Hope you are having a great weekend, Saba and Savta, and will write again soon!

Love,
Chailee and William

Hi!

I hope you have had a good week since I saw you on Tuesday-- my week has certainly been busy, mostly with work. On Wednesday night my big project at work hosted a party for the whole team-- we went candle stick bowling and had pizza. Yesterday I decided to have a lazy night--not hard to do while Cole is buckling down and studying a lot. He's finished two exams, but still has 4 more to go next week!

Tonight I just got back from walking my neighbor's dog, Shama (picture below). Look how big she is getting!


We had a great walk, but as you can see in the pictures, she is quite fond of every stick she sees, no matter the size, and has no problem laying down on the sidewalk! I wish Chailee could bring Perry up to Boston to show Shama how to behave.

Hope you are both having a good Friday night and I'll see you soon!

Love,
Maris

Work and Dinner!

Not much happening here this week so far,  I have been working on a study for the emergency department of emergency calls (911/ambulance stuff) and we are in the data analysis phase so it's a lot of number crunching.  William got to appear before court for the first time yesterday, which was very exciting.  Perry continues to be a royal bandit -he ripped my Wellesley alumnae magazine yesteray :( - but extremely cute, this week he learned how to catch a treat when we throw it (previously he would just get hit in the face!).

We are in a fish co-op so we get a weekly local North Carolina seafood delivery, and today we got little neck clams and mullet fish.   We steamed the clams with a little bit of spicy chicken sausage, white wine, and green beans and they came out really well.  We look forward to Thursdays every week because the sea food is always delicious!

Tomorrow night we are going to William's firm's associates' holiday party, so we will post an update on Saturday, sorry there isn't a lot of news right now.

Love,
Chailee and William

Disneyland round 2

Hi Savta and Saba!,

I had a day off today and since Disneyland is 20 minutes away, Frank and a few friends of ours decide to go during the week (frank called in sick) Much different from when I went on Thanksgiving and the place was hecka busy! We rode a ton of rides and traded vinylmations. Vinylmations are small mickeys that are decorated in different sets based on different Disney movies. You collect sets of 12 and you can sell or trade them at the stores around the park. But be forewarned, it becomes rather addictive! I got one worth 400 dollars and the weird people outside the stores who saw me (I paid 10 dollars) wanted to jump me for it. Anyways in the evening they have a "World of Color" water/light show that is amazing, ie see the picture I posted. Will post again soon, LOVE YOU!

Chocolate Drops and Tea!

We have had a musical week in North Carolina!  Mom and dad came to town to visit William and I last Thursday night.  For their Channukah present, Maris and I bought them tickets to see Paul Simon at the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC).  They said that the concert was great - it sounds like Paul's voice and music have both withstood the test of time.


On Friday we had another musical treat with Mary and Bill Moss, mom and dad at the Duke University Campus.  Mom and dad had gotten tickets to the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a band that plays back porch-style old southern music.  A stage shot is below but the quality was not great due to concert lighting.

Carolina Chocolate Drops at Page Auditorium, Duke University

The concert was fantastic - all the musicians were very talented on multiple instruments, and packed a serious amount of charisma to boot.   On Saturday we said goodbye to mom and dad, although they had kind of a rough drive back from Chapel Hill to Asheville with a flat tire, they made it home in one piece!  Saturday night William and I went to a dinner party at a friend's house in Durham, and had a nice lazy Sunday morning.

On Sunday, I went to the Washington Duke Inn (a fancy older hotel associated with the University) with a big group of girlfriends for holiday tea.  It made me think of you, Savta, and our tea at the Ritz in Boston.  The tea was delicious, the company and food were excellent.  

We took this picture in front of the big tree in the hotel lobby (you'll be happy to know there was also a menorah, but the tree appealed more to the rest of the group for the photo op).  I am in the red dress, second from the left.  I hope you are all doing well and staying warm as the weather changes, we miss you in North Carolina!!!


Love,
Chailee and William