Our New World - Columbia

Hello Friends! We've finally settled into our new surroundings enough to share some of what we've been up to over the last couple of months. Our hard drive has been bursting with pictures and video from the last year (first time parents, remember to put an external hard drive on your baby wish list!) :) so we haven't been able to upload anything for a long time. The good news is we now have our external hard drive! The bad news is that our camera was stolen before we could upload everything. But not to despair! We still have most of the highlights!
 
Stefan is finished with law school!  Hurraaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!  We celebrated with family in May and are relieved to be done, though I am certain we will look back on this time with fondness--and a good degree of thankfulness that it is only a once in a lifetime occurrence. ;)  We are mighty, mighty proud of Stefan and his accomplishments.
 
Here are some highlights from the weekend:

 

Our family

Celebration dinner

Evelyn at Commencement

Stefan and his mom

Stefan's grandpa

The K family (minus two)

Stefan with my family (minus quite a few)

The Larsens (Evelyn found yet another way to put a J.D. to use...)

Uncle Mark

Sunset on an era.

We have settled into our home here with relative ease and despite the usual inconveniences associated with moving, are getting a chance to enjoy Evelyn without being preoccupied with the demands of school and job searching.  Columbia is a vibrant little city and there are many young families and great parks, libraries, pools, etc. though usually we spend our days at home, which I am thoroughly enjoying.  A major bonus of our new apartment is the screened-in porch (below) as it gives Evie a safe place to play outdoors and will hopefully get some use as a painting studio in the not so distant future.

We've already had some visitors, including Stefan's brother Greg and his bride, Kerrie (it's less than a year so I guess she's still a bride.), my parents and brother, our friends the Petts (as well as their pets, Luna and Capt. Nemo) and my sister and her family!  They came after the camera stealing incident so we have proof of their visit to share.  Evelyn was over the moon about getting to play with her cousins!!!  Little does she know this is only a taste of what's in store:

 Come back soon!