October 2009

(more catching up...)

We kicked the month off by heading up to Kentucky to visit my bro and his fam and go to the AL-KY game. The weather was perfect! We had a good ol' roll tide time.

Cousins!

And then came...

DISSERTATION DAY!!!

The last six and a half years of academic work have been leading up to this DEFENSE. There have been many classes, a few qualifying exams, hours upon hours of research, and this was the culmination of it all. The dissertation title:

A Corona Theorem in Certain Subspaces of H^∞(D).

Copies available upon request. Note first, before you ask for one, that it has nothing to do with beer.

D-day was October 12. All three of us had swine flu. Fun times! It went well, though. Philip and Caroline came over to Tuscaloosa with me, and I presented my work to my committee of five professors. They asked a few questions, which I attempted to answer. I then stepped out of the room while they conferred. Then my adviser Dr. Trent appeared and said, "Congratulations!" And that was that. In that moment, I became Dr. Ryle. And then I went home to care for my sick baby and pack for an out-of-town wedding I was in that weekend. Back to life.


We traveled to Albany, GA for my college suitemate's wedding. Erin found her hubby working at Disney, and he is the perfect addition to complete our group of four gals and now four hubbies. (which, of course, was a very important criterion). I'm so thankful that each of us found guys who get along well, because we have many vacations together in our future!

The rehearsal dinner was a good ol' fashioned BBQ with yummy sweet potato fries served with a cinnamon dipping sauce. Caroline took a spin around the dance floor with the groom! And of course we suiteys had to line up in our signature staristep pose. We are each four inches taller/shorter than the next.





The wedding was gorgeous, as we knew it would be. I was like Central Park in the fall, complete with a coffee bar named "Central Perk" at the reception. Pumpkin spice lattes! Yum. We has a blast being together and celebrating with Erin and Bill!

Caroline trying to love on Ava

We stopped in Columbus, GA, on the way back to B'ham. It was such a cute town! We were only there for a couple of hours, but we hope to go back and check it out a bit more.

September 2009

(NOTE: Doing some back-posting here...)


We are still waiting to decide what to call this eye color. It looks different at different times, and it seems to maybe still be changing. Most of the time it's a grayish-blue on the outside and brown around the pupil, but sometimes they look green. I guess we'll have to wait and see!


Caroline is working on perfecting her walking skills. We've been on a quest for shoes for her, since she spent the last 13 months of her life barefoot. It is so much fun shopping for a girl!


She is holding off on talking for the moment; she won't even give us a "Mama" or "Dada." You can tell by the look on her face that she is just soaking it all in. Her FAVORITE game is to go around the house, the yard, the store, or anywhere and point to things. She doesn't grab them, just wants to gently touch them. She makes a little "hmm?" sound and expects you to name the object. This can go on for hours. I am waiting for the day when all of this knowledge she is accumulating will come spewing out of her mouth. We'll see.



In my continuing efforts to scale back on costs in our lives and live frugally, I decided to groom the dogs myself. They are $30 each every time we get them groomed, and we had clippers on hand, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I called in reinforcements (Erin), and we went to town. It actually turned out better than I expected! And we saved $60. Worth it.


We took a trip down to P'cola to visit the fam. It was a quick trip, but we enjoyed the time hanging out together, shopping, and of course watching football. We got Caroline's ears pierced while we were there, and they are too cute! She looks so girly now. I love it. She cried for just a minute, but we were able to distract her by the jumpy-bungee thing they had set up in the mall and by the puppies in the pet store.