A Fateful Day

My German teacher likes to go off on cultural tangents which he must deliver auf Englisch. One such tangent was on the importance in German history of November 9th. Well, today more significance still fell upon that blessed date because Justin Michael Collings, future world-renowned, Nobel prize winning something or other that has to do with German history not only passed a grueling two hour grilling by three of the most knowledgable men on the modern history of all Europe but he passed it with distinction. Three cheers for our man Justin!

Speaking of our man Justin, in that big catch-up post I neglected to mention the VERY significant fact that Justin was offered a clerkship after our year in Germany right here in New Haven with the Honorable Guido Calabresi, about whom inquiring minds may read here. Despite Justin's long-standing friendship with Guido, we were both quite surprised that he got the position, and we're not a little grateful that we can store our stuff in a storage shed right here near home before we take off next July.

And now onto our update. Two of the kids in my German class play polo for Yale. The girls love horses, so I asked if we could come out to the barn sometime. We made it our FHE, discussing the Lord's Law of Health as we made the 20 minute drive out to Bethany. As you can see, they are cowgirls at heart.

You can kind of see the polo ponies in action with this photo. This ring is half normal size because it's indoors. It was 20 degrees the night we went out or something super cold like that.

I walked into the kitchen the other day and found Katharine here.

What a dangerous little monkey! Just kidding. I left our big step stool up so she climbed on easily. But I WAS surprised to find her here.

Sister Thomas, a wonderful woman in our ward, loves our girls. She asked if she could take me to Costco to get the girls some dresses she really liked there. Here they are!

We didn't post on Sunday because my grandparents stopped in on their way back from a Caribbean cruise. We always love when they stop in, and they never forget to come bearing gifts. This time it was blankets with stuffed animals and native island dolls though I forgot to snap a pic of those.

The other day Julia poked herself in the eye or something and was sure she had blinded herself. So Justin decided to play along, put his bathrobe tie over her eyes so she wouldn't accidentally open her gouged eyeball, and fed her her entire dinner. That was the best she's eaten in a long time!

Grandma helping Eli with her computer game.

Julia helping Grandpa with his shoes.

Fun times! Congratulations, Justin!!!!!!!!!