More Catch-up and overdue pictures!

I am so behind in my writing that I decided on another long post to catch up on all my pictures.  Perry is getting really big, I weighed him yesterday and he is a whopping FIFTY pounds!!  He is still handsome as ever, of course!

At the beginning of January I went to Philadelphia to take Step 2-CS, my last set of medical boards.  Unlike the computer board exams, this is a clinical exam with actors that play patients and only offered in four locations in the country.  What's nice is that the exam is pass-fail and fairly low-stress, so I decided to make a trip of it to see Emi (a high school friend who was in our wedding), who is now in Philadelphia, and then Lacey in D.C. on my way back.  I stayed with Emi the night before my exam and played with her very cute bulldog, Hatsu.

After my exam (on a Friday) I drove to D.C. to hang out with Lacey (another bridesmaid) and her husband, Jeff (another IMSA alum).  Lacey, Jeff and I met up with Erin (my Wellesley roommate and bridesmaid) in the city to hang out on Saturday.  We went to a restaurant that you would both really have liked, based on classic historic American food (e.g. Delmonico's hamburger, Southern-style shrimp and grits, and catsup, to name a few).  Some of the dishes were done traditionally, and others were a little more avant garde, as was the case for my "sugar on snow" dessert; shaved ice with lemon custard and maple syrup (the maple syrup froze so it had more of a taffy-like texture).  The dish was quite a sight:

Afterwards we went to the Museum of Natural History, and there was a really great bug exhibit - I got to hold a HUGE grasshopper!

We also got to see a cool exhibit about the Chilean miners that included one of the two Phoenix capsules in which the miners were rescued.  I thought it was a little weird that the capsule would be in the U.S. rather than Chile, but apparently NASA made the capsule so it got to come back to the U.S.  There were amazing letters from the miners and diagrams of the disaster and rescue efforts.  

Lacey and Jeff live near Arlington cemetary so on Sunday before I left we took a quick trip over to the Robert E. Lee house before I headed out.   Jeff took this picture of Lacey and I looking out over the D.C. skyline, if you look closely you can see the Washington monument, the Capitol, the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, and Arlington Cemetary behind us.

It was nice to be home after the D.C. trip - William and I did a TON of traveling over the holiday and it was very nice to be home the next weekend.  A few weeks ago we also got to go have a nice Shabbat dinner at Amy and Anthony's, and we showed them the blog.  They wanted to send you lots of love and good wishes, so we all squished in front of William's camera and took a picture to send you!

Lastly, I have been doing some experiments with baking, and I made some cookies that have hydrangeas piped from icing on top, as well as some royal icing that I painted.

 

We are less than three weeks away from our half-marathon and got up to a 12 mile run last Sunday.  On Saturday we are planning to do the full race distance - 13.1 miles - and then only doing short runs so that we are well rested for the race on March 18th.

Will try to be better about posting more frequently in March!  We miss you and are sending you lots of love from North Carolina and counting the days until Passover! 


Love,
Chailee and William

Zavi's Find

This morning, on Zavi's third day of walking to the top of our cul de sac, she was shying away from the east side of the circle. I thought she was afraid of the trellis above one of the mail boxes.  I decided to take her over "there" to directly address whatever she was fearing.  So I get her over there, and I am giving her some treats (what you're supposed to do when they are scared of something), and she has almost no interest in these diced chicken pieces.  She just keeps staring over the mailbox. I finally get wise, and look over the mailbox. This is what I (we) saw......Joe

Zavi:  Very confident before seeing the bear

Long time, no post!!

Dear Savta and Saba,


I have been completely delinquent in posting lately!  William and I have been traveling a good number of weekends and training for the Virginia Beach half marathon in three weeks.  We are up to 10 miles, so this weekend we will do a 12 mile training run and then take it easy with shorter runs for the two weeks before the race.  We bought our tickets for Passover and we are so excited to get to see everyone!


Perry has started obedience lessons with a new private trainer (group classes were not working for him - our little pup needs special individualized attention because he has a little trouble focusing) but he is doing great on the leash and much better in the apartment since we started. We got Perry's DNA results in January (a cheap test where you send a cheek swab from him and they tell you what breeds he's made of), and we had a little contest to let our friends and parents/siblings guess his heritage.  It turns out he is about 1/4 hound (american foxhound and otterhound) and 1/2 lab.  Some of the sillier, small breed contributors were lhasa apso, saluki, and finnish spitz.  We're not sure about those, but he does look a lot like a foxhound/lab mix! Bill Moss, William's dad, got the most points (he guessed both foxhound and lab) and won the contest.

Dad is having a great time with Zavi in Asheville, he took her to the top of our road in Asheville for the first time last night, and she looks great!


We celebrated six months of being married and Valentine's Day at a place called The Inn at Celebrity Dairy last week.  It is a little bed and breakfast out in the country near Chapel Hill, and it has been taken over by a gourmet chef and his wife (Tina, a former rockette!) but it is still a working farm. Dinner was awesome - all local produce and cheese made from goat milk from the farm.  We woke up on Wednesday and got a tour of the dairy before we both headed off to work.  It was pretty wild to be on the farm at 8 a.m. and at work at 9 a.m.


Speaking of work, I am contributing to several Emergency Medicine projects that I think are going to be published soon, which will be a big help for my residency applications!  I'm still not sure Emergency Medicine is what I want to do (I have been thinking more and more about ob/gyn) but any publication is helpful, and I am enjoying the work now.  Last night I got to work in the free clinic that all the students from UNC's health school run, and it was really fun to work with the newer medical students and realize how much I've learned in the last 3.5 years.

William's picture was in the paper because his new firm took an ad out announcing all their new attorneys last Sunday - he's a little sheepish about the ad but I think it's great!


We cannot wait to see you both at Passover (and to introduce William to our Passover traditions - you'll really have to hide the afikomen low this year so William can't find it)!
 


Love,
Chailee and William