Just Checking

It's been a long time since I posted. Let's see if this is easier to use. Amy and Clif have been married for 2 1/2 years now and are expecting their first child at the end of June! I'm going to be a grandma!

Wedding 2009

After 4 years of living together, Amy and Clif finally tied the knot on September 6, 2009! This event was held at Pleasant Home in Oak Park with a ceremony involving chocolate, followed by a

lovely reception. True to the newlyweds wishes, the food did not include meat but the lasagna (or eggplant parmesan) was so good that I don't think any guests noticed. And all four of Amy's grandparents were able to attend!

Amy's Wedding Shower

Last Sunday my sister-in-law Carole hosted a wedding shower for Amy at her home with help from her little daughter Julia.

                                                      

No wedding shower is complete without a silly game!  Guests were divided into teams with instructions to create a wedding ensemble made from toilet paper. Melissa, Amy's high school friend and David, Carole's 9 ear old son agreed to be the models. Here's Team One:

    

                    And Team 2:

                                                               
Gifts included beautiful Waterford flutes:

                                                    

a machine knit afghan:
                                                       
 a time-saving appliance:

                       

                            

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Now that I have a new computer (MacPowerbook) I think I'll be able to post more often. Although the old family G4 has provided nearly a decade of faithful service, it seems that the old machine was slowing things down considerably. How nice to be able to download photos from the camera in a few minutes instead of half an hour!! 

Tonight we celebrated Herman and Carolyn Laude's 60th wedding anniversary at a family dinner. To my delight, all three kids were there, a rare event these days. 

I guess I can get back to my knitting now!

I'm Still Here

It's been a long time since I posted. Lots of stuff has happened over the last ten months. Sean made it safely back from his cross country bicycle trip, as did our mini-van which was their service vehicle. Not bad for a 10 year old piece of machinery with over 150,000 miles on it! The Illini 4000 for Cancer raised $50,000 for the American Cancer Society. Not bad for a first effort.
Sean planned the route for the 2008 team-they are riding from New York to Seattle this year. butwill not be with them this time. He will log many miles in the minivan this summer commuting up to Deerfield for his summer job/internship with Walgreens.

One of the reasons that I haven't kept up with this blog is that I discovered Ravelry!

Hello Sean 2 or Our Weekend in DC

Dear Sean- Well. another July 4th is drawing to a close. I can hear the sounds of clandestine fireworks in the background. Dad and I spent a pleasant afternoon with Grandma and Grandpa Laude looking at old family photographs.

We also spent some time looking at old photos with your other grandparents this past weekend during our quick trip to DC. Grandma Huang is ambulatory again after her recent pelvic fracture. She and Grandpa enjoyed a respite from Goodwin House food by dining out with Dad and I on two consecutive nights-Italian on Friday and Peking duck on Saturday. (The Peking Gourmet Restaurant in Virginia is popular with the Bush family. Both George Sr. and Dubya have dined there with their entourages.) We spent the rest of the evenings reading your blog and looking at old Huang family photos. Grandpa Huang has a huge collection of slides which he is starting to convert in order to save them for posterity (ie: you and your siblings).

I'm still having difficulty formatting my photos and text! We did spend all day Saturday at the new Air and Space Museum out in Chantilly, VA, next to Dulles Airport. It's basically an enormous hangar filled with original air and spacecraft-no replicas here. The collection includes the space shuttle Enterprise (which never actually went into outer space, accounting for it's pristine condition), the Enola Gay (which dropped the first Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima-those B-29 bombers are HUGE)and an entire Concorde airliner. Dad spent a whole hour looking at engines while I got aerobic exercise circumavigating the vast exhibit floor.

We also managed a brief visit to the Mall where the annual Folklife Festival was in full swing.
Northern Ireland was one of the featured countries this year. We spoke with employees of Harland and Wolff, the company that built the Titanic and sniffed Bushmill Whiskey.





And of course-the main reason for our trip, the Nazaretz-Radjou wedding. They were blessed with perfect weather-sunshine and low humidity for the outdoor ceremony. The reception was a blast. After several shots of vodka, Dad was a willing dance partner!



Congratulations to Anna and Saeid!

Good luck on the rest of your journey through the mountains, son. love, Mom

Hello Sean!!

Dear Sean- As you pedal away across the USA with the Illini 4000 for Cancer, here's an update on the events you've been missing at home. First of all, we enjoyed visiting with you when the group stopped by in the Chicago area. Hope you enjoyed the strudel from Pompeii!


The cicadas made their 17 year appearance around Memorial Day, slowly emerging from the ground and making their way up tree trunks, shedding exoskeletons on the way. Their noise was deafening at times, especially when temperatures were warm. Dad had to wear earphones when working in the yard! I think most of the males are dead now as their high pitched whine is gone. All that remains is for the eggs to hatch. The larvae will fall to the ground and dig in for another 17 years.



Amy's graduation from Loyola's Stritch Medical School on June 3 was a joyous occasion. It took place at the Grand Ballroom at the end of Navy Pier. Afterwards, we were treated to a great buffet and a panoramic view of Lake Michigan. As you know, your Grandpa Huang came into town for the occasion. He and Grandma have been faithfully reading your blog. By the way, in deference to us older folks-is there any way you can increase the size of the font to make it easier to read???

Finally- my cousin Roger the endocrinologist came from Sidney, Australia with his wife Carol (also an endocrinologist) to attend the American Diabetes Association meeting in Chicago. We managed to meet them for lunch at Heaven on Seven. His visit has piqued my interest in visiting The Land Down Under someday.

Well-that's about it for now since I can't figure out how to get text underneath the last photo.
Will post pics from our recent trip to DC. You would have enjoyed seeing the new Air and Space Museum. Happy Fourth of July!!!! love, Mom