Dancin'

One of Evelyn's favorite things lately is to dance...  Here's a quick video we shot this past weekend.  While the lyrics to this song leave something to be desired, she absolutely loves it and will dance anytime it comes on!  Even in her carseat- if you've never seen a kid dance in a carseat, you're truly missing out! :-)

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful time visiting our friends Kirsten, Eric, Tom, Victoria, Matt and Chantelle in North Carolina for thanksgiving.  It was quite a long drive, but well-worth it!!   Here are some pics!! 

In our post-turkey trot tees!!

Matt and Ev

This jumper was mine when I was her age! I love it!

 4 pies to choose from!

Channy and her pie!

KV and some mustache cup silliness while out Black Friday shopping!

Ev trying on her new slippers

Me and V!

 The girls on the slide!

 Auntie Kirsten and Ev reading the magazines!

 The crew at dinner!

 Thanksgiving dinner pic!  Ev is clearly enjoying her food!

Khaya is the crayon caper!

We are in North Carolina for thanksgiving. Went out to brewery in Durham tonight and came home to this. Khaya is officially the crayon caper.


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The Crayon Caper is....

Not Khaya.
The crayon stayed where I put it all day long.

Where in the world is this little girl hiding these crayons???

(Certainly, being the great scientist I am, I will repeat this experiment. Everyone knows nothing ever works the first time. And if it does, it's likely not real. ;-) )

The case of the Crayon Caper...

Crayons keep disappearing at our house. 32 of them, to be exact, in a little over 2 months. 24 generics, 3 "giant" Crayolas... and most recently- five normal Crayolas.  Those five- Gone overnight last Saturday.  Poof!

Knowing Miss Ev is a smart and mischievous one, we have searched EVERYWHERE. All the obvious and non-obvious spots. Nothing. Not a single wax-covered-by-paper trace.

Our friend Kathryn suggested last night, that maybe, just maybe Khaya is eating them.  Well you know, she's been known to eat weirder things, so it's completely plausible. Plus, Brendon thinks he thinks he saw some colored poo in the yard the other day.  So, today I set a trap. One half of a blue crayon. Laying in the middle of the living room floor. As if Evelyn had left it there.

I'll let you know how this case shapes up, when I get home...

Patagonia.

Brendon and I are gear junkies... especially when it comes to our clothes. I think between us, have about 12 winter jackets. Literally. One of our favorite brands is Patagonia.
For those of you in the know: Enough said.
For those of you not, well, suffice it to say that Patagonia has good quality, durable clothing that's nice looking as well.  Unfortunately, all that comes with a decent price tag.
I'm not sure if you knew this, but the only Patagonia outlet in the nation is Dillon, Montana. Lucky us.
At any rate, due to this fine little fact, Miss Evelyn now has a decent amount of this good quality, durable clothing. (Thanks, G-ma and G-pa Lucas!)  Sometimes Brendon and I do get a little jealous of the little packages that come in the mail for Miss Evelyn-- usually there's something from Patagonia!!
Here she is, hamming it up for the camera, in her pink, down Patagonia jacket.

We can't keep everything, and so each season, a lot of her things are donated forward, but this is one we might be keeping for her lifetime. It certainly will last that long!

The Ryman!

One more thing checked off of our "things to do while we live in Nashville" list!
Last night we were lucky enough to take in a show at The Ryman. What's The Ryman?  Well, it's a number of things, and you can learn about them here, but most notably, the Grand Ole Opry was performed there for years and years before it moved to its bigger spot at Opryland. It's an intimate little venue with amazing acoustics and anyone from Nashville will tell you it's the best place to see a show-- maybe the best in the US. (Certainly one of the oldest- the first show was played there in 1890!)
The auditorium was dark, so pics of Lady Antebellum -the group we went to see- are a bit dark, but there are a number of them here.  Instead, here's a few pics I took of the good looking folks in the room with my new iPhone. (Yup! After 2 years and 5 months of our old iPhones, B and I got our new iPhones!... Still figuring the new cameras out...)

Many thanks to Justin, who hooked us up with the tickets!!!

Coffey Lab Happy Hour Club

I don't know if I've ever commented on this blog about how much I like my co-workers. Certainly, if you've read some of my work-related posts, or held a conversation with me in the last 16 months since I've been a postdoc, you'd know that my postdoc has been really challenging, in that the level of good, aggressive science that occurs in the Coffey lab is, well, fairly high up there.  There is certainly nothing relaxing about it, and whenever my mom calls to ask how we are, I say, "good."  Then she asks how my job is, I say, "stressful."  This is and will be the answer, I'm sure, until I take a new position in a few years!  Don't get me wrong, I am glad I chose the lab I did, it's just I haven't seen <60 hour work week since grad school.

So, luckily, in addition to an awesome [tolerant] husband and wonderful daughter, I have a whole bunch of cool-cat coworkers who make me laugh and I absolutely love working with.

Right now, my boss is currently biking across the only paved road in Bhutan. In his absence, I'd say I've been pretty impressed that the hard workers in the Coffey lab have kept up with the hard work.  The Coffey lab has about 15 people in it (plus or minus 2-3 undergraduates, depending on the term), but there's a group of us that will sometimes take a break and head out early to happy hour. We've lost a few in our club, recently, due to PhD graduations and babies being born, but last Friday, we took this chance, with the boss away, and headed out to PF Changs.  Yum.   A bunch of happy scientists!

 Left to Right: Greg, MD/PhD; Doc P; Yang, PhD, Emily, Grad Student; Michelle, PhD; and Daniel, technician.

First haircut!

Well, we made it 2 days shy of Ev's 21st month on this Earth, but we finally did it. We gave Ev a haircut. Her bangs were hanging in her face constantly, and the back of her head was basically, a mullet. Ok, it wasn't that bad, but it definitely needed some help.  She did pretty well. As you can imagine, she wasn't overjoyed to sit and have it cut (we baited her with some of dad's fresh-baked bread with jam), but overall it was a success! 

(A pic from a few days ago. Note the bangs hanging down in her eyes.)

The front, post-cut.

 The sides/back post-cut.

Arrington Vineyards!

Last night we trekked to Arrington Vineyards with our good friends, The Meeks (Justin, Kathryn and Miss Elsa), as well as The Everetts (Emma and Miss Iris-- Chris was unfortunately out of town).  Some of the grapes are grown on site, but the majority of the grapes are brought in from the Pacific Northwest, so we get a little bit of home, each time we visit. Every weekend the vineyard has Music in the Vines event where you can come with a picnic basket, buy a bottle of wine and let the kiddos roam around on their gorgeous property while listening to live music.  This is exactly what we did last night and had SUCH a nice time!   

Visit from Auntie Kirsten

A couple of weekends ago, we had the pleasure of a visit from our good friend, Kirsten.  She and her husband Eric are some of our best friends from my grad school years in Portland.  They currently live in Durham, NC where she is a postdoctoral researcher for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.    We had a blast with Auntie Kirsten as we drug her around to Gentry Farm (we just had to go again) and to the Loveless Cafe, a Nashville institution.  Brendon and I hadn't been there yet-- and we all agree the biscuits are even better than advertised!!  Here are some pics from her trip.  We can't wait to see her (and Eric, and some of our other good pals) in North Carolina for Thanksgiving!