Merry Christmas 2009!

The Grahams’ Annual Report

Quarter 1- January-March 2009
• We attended our college friend Paul and Rachel’s wedding in Georgia in January.
• In February, we made a trip to CA to see Doug’s sister Dawn and her husband Nate (and their dog Bailey). They live near Monterrey, and we enjoyed hiking, many rainbows, the Aquarium, and kayaking with Dawn, sea lions and sea otters.
• At the end of February, Daru impaled herself on something during a jaunt in the woods. After emergency surgery and a long night, she was basically back to normal; the vet said she was a lucky dog.
• In March, we made maple syrup from our 3 sugar maples. Doug hauled the sap up the hill daily for us to boil. We made about 12 oz.; we’re not sure we will repeat it, but it was fun to try once!

Quarter 2- April-June 2009
• We had a great time in May with Robin, Steve, Matthew and Ellie at ImagineRIT, the innovation fair at RIT, and we also made it to the Lilac Festival this year!
• Rebekah graduated with a PhD in mathematics from the University of MT in May as well, so we attempted to attend her graduation. After missing our connecting flight, we spent a night in Denver, but we did get to attend the celebrations afterwards with the Johnson and Yates families.
• In May, we also made some trips alone. Doug went to the AAPA conference in San Diego and met up with some friends from MUSC there while Rachel went to NC to watch Dee and Shan’s kids while they went to a conference.
• At the end of May, we attended the wedding reception for Rachel’s cousin Joshua and his wife Karis in the Adirondacks. It was a fun celebration and we enjoyed seeing the area as well.
• At the end of June, we sadly said good-bye to our friend (and pastor) Allison who moved to Seattle for a new job which suits her well- but it was still sad!

Quarter 3- July- September 2009
• We took a roundabout vacation in July starting with the annual 4th of July weekend at Delta with the Grahams. From Delta, we travelled to NYC to meet up with some friends from SC. Next, we spent a few days camping at Ricketts Glen in the Poconos (well worth the trip!), and then drove to DC for a night to see our college friend Danielle and Grace. From DC, we went to WV to Rachel’s cousin Laura’s wedding to Ryan, and on our way home from there, we stopped to see our friends Michael and Mindy and their week old baby Molly!
• We hosted the annual Lee family reunion in July; we were all happy Grandma Lee was able to come!
• In August, Rebekah and Ryan moved to Houghton and we helped in the moving process at this end.
• Rachel celebrated a milestone birthday this year after a weekend gathering with the Houghton gang. She celebrated her actual birthday with Doug, Ryan and Rebekah at the Strong Museum of Play.
• Rachel taught 5 labs a week this semester starting in September and took on the role of advisor for the math and science club. It has been fun to help them get involved with events like making a float for Roberts Homecoming.

Quarter 4- October- December 2009
• At the beginning of October, we attended Houghton’s homecoming with Rachel’s family. The following week, we traveled to Tully to see Doug’s parents so that we could tell our families in person that we are expecting a baby in April 2010. Baby Micro (gender unknown) will be the first grandchild on Rachel’s side and the seventh on Doug’s side. While we are excited, we are starting to feel the realities of impending parenthood, and we can’t even begin to explain to the dog and cat what is coming! Micro will be getting a new cousin at the end of April, as Dawn and Nate are also expecting their first baby.
• This quarter has been full of many house projects-- from getting a new furnace, to painting, to getting new carpet. We are grateful for a lot of family (read: free) help!
• We celebrated Thanksgiving in Houghton with Rachel’s family and one of Rebekah’s students. We are still working on Möbius (their cat) and Daru being friends, but we are making some progress.
• Doug celebrated his birthday in early December. He continues to enjoy his work as a PA in the surgery department (most days). We have both been thankful this year for steady jobs which we enjoy.
• We have been blessed in many ways by the love of family and friends this year. We appreciate the many opportunities we have had to share experiences with family and friends from near and far! As we look ahead to the many changes coming our way in 2010, we are most grateful for an unchanging God who is faithful in all situations. We pray that this season you will know the peace that comes from knowing He is in control.

With love,
Doug, Rachel, Micro, Daru and Kina Graham
137 Glenview Lane
Rochester, NY 14609
doug_graham77@yahoo.com
rmjgraham@gmail.com
updated occasionally (like today): rachelanddoug.blogspot.com

Turkeys in the trees

Thanksgiving Eve we saw a bunch of turkeys in the trees but it was too dark to get a picture, so when we got up on Thanksgiving, we saw them still there. I didn't get a great picture obviously, but we scared them away when we took Daru by and at least 12 flew off the branches of different trees.

On the trestle with a train

We took a weekend trip to Letchworth State Park with the Math and Science Club and headed up to the railroad trestle. When I heard the train whistle blow, I ran off the bridge, but Doug and some others stayed on with the train.

Rock Star

A while back we had a Rock Band, chocolate cake and sausage party with our young adult group. We discussed wearing costumes so we would be like rock stars, but only some of us (read: the Grahams) took this idea seriously enough to carry it out....Doug is on call tonight and is still at work and has 2 cases to go so he can't prevent me from posting this rock star photo ;)!

Young buck

My aunt said when we moved here that we would grow to hate the derr, but I don't feel like I do yet even though they do like to munch on all things green. I watched this spike eat our tree for awhile until Daru scared him away.

Hiking the M

The University of Montana is the only college with a mountain on campus so they put a big concrete M in the middle of it, you can hike to it and then buy a t-shirt that says "I hiked the M" though I suppose they would not prevent you from buying the t-shirt even if you didn't hike it. Last summer, some kids had started a fire near the M so we couldn't hike it because the trail was closed, so we finally had this experience this year. Here you see part of the M and part of Missoula.

The Pinata

We tried in vain to break the pinata with a frisbee but ended up resorting to the field hockey stick method.

See we were there!

Doug and I were a little underdressed for the event...

Where did May go?

We had a crazy busy May with lots of travel adventures and family activities and fun. In the middle of May we headed for Rebekah's graduation with a PhD in mathematics. While our airline adventures (don't travel with us!) did not allow us to actually make it to the graduation, we arrived right after it was over and recreated it to simulate the experience minus the speakers and all the other graduates.

Everything's coming up lilacs

This week marks the beginning of the festival season in Rochester with the most famous festival- the Lilac Festival in Highland Park. We took a picnic there to see the lilacs, and I must admit I was impressed by the variety of types and colors.

Wiscoy Creek

We got to visit Wiscoy on our way back from Houghton last weekend. If the water were warmer, we would have gone in, but we did hike/crawl all the way up to the dam at the top.

A Perilous Journey

This ant ventured across the bunny ear cactus which is pricklier than it looks...if you touch it at least!

More Lamberton

Doug thinks this should be called string of peas....

14 oz.

After hours and days of boiling, we think we have about 14 oz of syrup that is passable as actual maple syrup. These photos are from the first batch and beginning of the second.

Lamberton Conservatory

Doug and I visited Lamberton Conservatory in Highland Park a few weeks ago so I could prepare for an upcoming field trip. I really liked the desert room. I learned that cactus spines are actually modified leaves and serve not only as protection from being eaten but also as sun protection (for some cacti that have a million spines). Here you see a Golden Barrel Cactus in the upper left, a Bunny Ear Cactus in the lower left and I don't remember the other 2 kinds!
Side note: if you google Lamberton Conservatory, Neil Cowley's website comes up as the 5th entry I think (we went to college with Neil).

A Lucky Dog

Daru had a run-in with some object in the woods last weekend and had to go to the vet for surgery. In the bottom left, she is recovering from the surgery. The top left shows some of her shaved chest and leg (for the IV) and the right side shows Daru in her day wear. She has to wear the lamp shade and shoes to keep from scratching her stitches out. The vet said she was a lucky dog since there were no major organ injuries.

I love seahorses

The Monterey Aquarium is opening a new exhibit on seahorses on April, 6th so Dawn and Nate will have to enjoy it for us, but we did get to ses a couple of different kinds of seahorses in their regular exhibits. Doug took this photo.

Not a great photo

But it has a better story! This is a female octopus with her eggs. Before we got there, she had left the eggs unattended and an unsuspecting starfish was climbing the window toward them (to eat them?). The mother octopus (though they don't think the eggs are fertile) jetted over, pried the starfishes arms off the window with her tentacles and threw it on the ground. I wish I had seen it!

Crab and more

I can't remember what kind of crab this is, but it is pretty scary looking (or it would be if it were larger!). We were really interested in the decorator crabs we saw, but we didn't get any pictures of them.

Monterey Bay

These are some facebook rejects- Andrew psots his blog rejects on fb and I post my fb rejects on my blog...

Meterology

We visited the Rochester Museum and Science Center when my family came at Christmas. Here Ryan practices weather forecasting for some weather incident that I don't remember. You could e-mail the video of your forecast to someone. We were entertained by ourselves.