It's Official!

Karl gets "hooded" by his Dissertation Advisor, Robert Inman, on Sunday evening.

Shake and take.



Proud parents!

The Wharton School PhD class of 2008...well, those who came to the ceremony.

One of the speakers advised the grads to be like LedZepplin: Loud, Confident, and Wrong.

It was a fun reception, complete with sushi, fruit & cheese, and dessert.



Karl with his son and the city he studied in his paper.

Karl's parents threw him a party beforehand.

Adam and his Aunt Steph at the party.

"LiLi" and Adam (Grandpa Mac in the background)

Our friends Retna, Gus, and Peter attended.


So did Heidi and Andrew! (and Kristen, too, but I didn't get a pic of her. Oops!)



the cake


future Wharton grad?

Introducing Dr. Karl Russo

After a very admirable six years of toil, yesterday my husband handed in a copy of his dissertation to the graduate office. He's finished! No more classes to attend, papers to write, or revisions to make! Here he is celebrating at Devon Seafood Grill in Philadelphia last night. Doesn't he look relaxed?

Easter 2008

We spent Adam's first Easter weekend in Newtown Square, PA, with his Grandpa and Grandma Russo and Aunt Karen. We worshiped at our beloved Tenth Presbyterian in the morning, and spent time together as a family for the afternoon.

Like my outfit?

Wow, is this for me???

Mom, Dad, you're going to have to work hard if you want to top this.


Adam had a little lamb

Let me show you how this book works.

What is this?

Any guesses? Hint: Karl took this picture. It's one of his favorite pieces of nostalgia in Philadelphia. It took a bit of retouching before I could clearly read what it says.

A 2007 Retrospective

What a year this has been. On January 1, 2007, Karl and I lived by ourselves in row home in downtown Philadelphia. I was employed as a public school music teacher while writing my master's thesis. Karl was a full-time graduate student. Karl was planning on applying for jobs in several cities, but we had no idea where we might be living once the school year was over. We were hoping for a child, but would not discover that I was pregnant until the following day.

On January 2, I watched with delight as the line on my pregnancy test turned pink.

In February, we trekked down to DC for Karl's first job interviews.

Karl accepted a job offer in March. We began researching the real estate market in DC and talking to folks from our church who were interested in buying our Philadelphia home.

I spent most of April trying to complete my master's thesis. I don't remember many details about my topic anymore, but I do remember multiple technology failures, such as crazy margins in MS Word, countless printer failures, and flashdrive chaos. I didn't ask Karl about his memories from this month. I'm not sure if I want to make him relive the stress of being married to an irritable, fatigued, pregnant student.

In May, I marched in Temple's commencement ceremonies, finally completing the master's degree that I began working on in 2001.

June is sort of a blur. From what we can recall, we decided to forgo selling the house in Philadelphia in order to rent to our friends. We selected our home in DC and began the sometimes humorous, sometimes nauseating process of closing on that home. (The process included no less than 4 home appraisals, 3 mortgage companies, 2 mortgage brokers, 2 insurance policies, 2 price adjustments, and, as we like to say, "a partridge in a pear tree.")

We finally closed on the home in July. We moved in the same night and were delighted as friends from our new church helped us to settle in.

I spent most of August unpacking boxes and painting the nursery, while Karl studied the finer details of the federal tax code at his new job.

The Lord gave us Adam in September.

I don't need to recount the rest of the year to you, blog readers, since it is already recorded here.

So, as you can see, 2007 was a banner year. It reminds us very much of 2004, which is the year that we got engaged, got married, and bought our first home. The two intervening years have been wonderful, but relatively uneventful. Kind of like treading water.

It makes us wonder what 2010 will be like. We have been joking that perhaps we will buy a third home and have another child in that year? We certainly wouldn't mind two years of relatively uneventful living until then.

A Visit to Philly

The homesickness bug bit, so we packed our bags and headed to Philadelphia for the long Columbus Day weekend. Having been unable to travel in my final weeks of pregnancy, this was my first overnight trip since our move in the beginning of July. Our good friend Kim Dengler was kind enough to host us for our three night stay.

We had an uneventful drive down late Friday night. There was some traffic, but overall it was a pleasant journey. We stopped at a McDonald's in Delaware along the way so both Adam and his parents could eat. Karl ordered a cherry pie, which they were out of. So he ordered an apple pie. None of those. As he switched his order to a sundae, the ice cream machine broke. The manager generously offered Karl anything on the menu he wanted, free of charge. So he ordered an orange juice (the only other sweet thing available) and got a very large one for free!

On Saturday, we spent some time in our favorite Philly haunts. We went to the Italian Market in both the morning and afternoon. First, we had $3 bacon, egg, hash brown, and toast breakfasts at a little hole-n-the-wall eatery. Then we went to the famous kitchen store, Fante's and picked up some odds and ends. Next, we went to the Spice Corner, which carries every dry item you would ever need for your pantry. Planning a pasta making session for the near future, I purchased some semolina flour along with beet and spinach powder for tri-color pasta.

We had lunch at the famous Lorenzo's Pizza at the corner of 9th & Christian. We've found that they just don't make anything close to that in DC! (We also bought some of their dough to bring home and freeze.)

In the evening, we met up with Gus, Retna, and Kristen. We had dinner at an Indonesian restaurant in South Philly, then retired to Gus & Retna's home to watch the Philly's game.

On Sunday, we attended the services at Tenth Presbyterian. This was like coming home for us. This is the place we met, the place we were married, and the place where many of our dearest friends worship. Adam got to meet many new people, including his Aunt Karen. Adam did very well despite all of the overstimulation of strangers touching his toes and rubbing his head all day. His eyes were wide open as we left in the evening, but he slept well at night! After evening service, we joined some friends for dinner at Applebee's.

On Columbus Day, we headed to the Independence Mall area. We visited my old workplace, where all of my former teacher colleagues ooh'd and ahh'd over Adam's blonde hair and blue eyes. While in the area, we picked up some delicious buttercreams and caramels from our favorite chocolatier, Lore's. Then we joined our friends Luke and Debra, and their children Thomas and Nathaniel, for lunch at their home. Debra prepared a delicious and authentic Norwegian meal, which included Sweedish meatballs, Ligonberry jelly, Fiskeboller, potatoes, and an apple salad. For dessert we had stoopwaffels, which I would describe as a pizelle with a thickened maple syrup-like filling. Delicious!

We left for DC in the mid-afternoon. We were sorry to leave our beloved city again, but glad to be back to our home routine. We remarked along the way about how much we would love to live in Philadelphia again, yet how much we know that God has us where he wants us right now.

Adam and his daddy in front of Daddy's favorite Rittenhouse Square statue

First time in Rittenhouse Square: He seems to sleep through all of his firsts!