The Christmas Holidays

Wow it has been a busy few days.

Christmas was wonderful. We spent Christmas morning together relaxing and opening gifts and then the girls came over after lunch and we enjoyed a second Christmas morning. The girls seemed to have a great time and I heard later were telling their friends what a great time that they had.



It was also a special Christmas for me. Outside of the fact that this was the first Christmas with Laura as my wife, both her and the girls made it wonderfully memorable.

Laura continually surprised me with thoughtful gifts but the one that stood out was one that started on our honeymoon. We were in Dundee, Oregon wine tasting and we had gone to one of our favorite vineyards Chelhalem. When we walked into the tasting room I saw this beautiful painting called "End of the Storm". We immediately asked if we could buy it but we were not able to get in touch with the artist while we were in Oregon. Well Christmas morning Laura brought down a large box and I opened it to find not just a copy of the painting but in fact the one that had been hanging in the tasting room. It is a beautiful painting with a lot of meaning to us - a wonderful gift.



After lunch, when the girls came over Martika also surprised me with artwork. Both myself and Laura loved the drawing she gave us last year so I was very excited to see her wrapped gift, obviously artwork. What surprised me was both the subject and how wonderful this painting looked. Tika has always known I loved old Detroit steel but this painting is just so unique and I cannot wait to hang it in our TV room.



Outside of Christmas we have been to two great movies, The Fighter and True Grit, and done some serious cooking, rack of lamb on Christmas day and a roast of beef with mushroom gravy, stuffed Portobello mushrooms, carrots in a port reduction, crisp potatoes, garlic broccoli with a white cake for dessert on Boxing Day. A few days off for me will allow me to catch up and then a plan for roast duck for New Years Day dinner.

And for all those that we have not reached out to over the last few days we hope you had a wonderful and happy Holiday and we truly hope that you have a Happy and Prosperous New Year.



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Christmas ... or at least getting ready for it

On Sunday the girls came over and decorated our tree with us ...

They were all really excited when Laura gave them each an ornament and those were the first ones on the tree. In fact you can see Sam's in the picture. The red "light" is actually a beautiful glass bird that Laura thought looked like the birds in Angry Birds. If you follow the twitter feed you will already have seen Tika's, a very nice Senators ornament, and for Kris a beautifully painted reindeer ornament. I think it came out looking wonderful.





After the tree was decorated .... well then they wanted to put presents under the tree. And yes they are anxious for Christmas to get here.

Happy Holidays


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They say a picture is worth a thousand words.....

........and probably then some at 3:30 am when it is 20 degrees out and you are standing in the middle of the road in your pj's and Uggs looking at a brilliant sight that hasn't revealed itself to anyone in over 300 years. I don't know what I found more touching, the eclipse or my husband giving me his gloves and leading me by the hand and pointing to the sky to show me what he had discovered, hidden while I slept. He worries now that he didn't get a photo with his "real"camera to capture the image, but in my mind it will stay forever.........lying in bed I could hear him walking from window to window, in anticipation, in excitement of finding it for me. I heard him on the stairs, maybe a higher window on our third floor would coax it out of the sky. Then, the "ah ha" moment. He raced to get me nearly tripping on the stairs and stood over the bed his voice shaking with excitement whispering "sweetie I see it! I see it! I am sorry to wake you up again but if we walk out I will show you. I found it. You just have to walk out the front door and there it is" He hurried to get my coat still apologizing for waking me and opened the front door to show me. That is the picture that will stay in my head forever. Then I saw the eclipse, which paled in comparison.

Thank you for all of your congratulations on the patents. I am often asked why I live in Ashburn commuting 2-3 hours each way to work in Maryland. Sometimes I ask myself the same question, anyone would after 4-6 hours in the car, a full day at work, and a 4 am workout at the gym. Then on Thursday evening I make my way home and open the door and I see the 4 reasons I make the trip day in and day out: Gary and the girls. Not patents. And its all worth it.

Honey, a picture is worth a thousand words, and this one says you hung the moon for me.

Laura :-)

A really bad picture .....

of the lunar eclipse.

I woke up just after 3 - no alarm - just woke up. La asked that I get her up as well. First I went to every window to see if we had to go outside and while the north-south orientation of the house is nice it sucks when you want to see an event in the western sky. We quickly bundled up and went outside at the peak - and saw nothing.

Being 3:30 and cold left little desire to spend looking so La went back to bed while I sat up wondering why. Then it dawned on me that the peak with the lights around here would not be easy to see.

I threw on a jacket, went outside and looked west - just as some guy 372 years ago did. And I saw what he saw - the moon coming out of a full eclipse.

I ran in and woke Laura again and though she seemed less than thrilled to be woken again she perked up when she saw the eclipse.

She is back asleep - while I am too wired. Yes I am very much still a little kid inside.

Wait til Christmas :-)

Location : 42433 Greenside Dr, Ashburn, VA 20148,
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CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!

Last week Laura had to meet with some lawyers from DC. It was a good thing that she was meeting with them because they are the ones that have been working on getting her two patents filed. So now her patents are official - with patent numbers assigned by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

US20100159463
FAST RESULTS HYBRID CAPTURE ASSAY AND SYSTEM
The present invention comprises a method that provides fast and reliable results for detecting the presence of a target nucleic acid molecule in a sample.

US20100105060
FAST RESULTS HYBRID CAPTURE ASSAY ON AN AUTOMATED PLATFORM
The present invention comprises a method that provides fast and reliable results for detecting the presence of a target nucleic acid molecule in a sample

The patents were applied for based upon the work her and her colleagues have done over the years but it is very exciting for the patents to be out.

I was very excited when she told me about these because I know how hard she has worked on Care and the chemistry and automated tools used for it have been invaluable for other programs as well. I also know what an effort it is to get patents through the system and the award shows that what she has done is innovative and unique - very much like her.

So a big congratulations to her and her team for all their work.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

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Boys and their toys

Yesterday my early Christmas gift came.

I bought us an Apple TV. So here I am expecting this medium sized box to arrive with this new toy and Fedex brings this tiny little box. I unpacked it and plugged it in and had it hooked up to NetFlix and Flickr in no time.

Then I found out about the cool stuff - like the fact that if I have home-sharing turned on in iTunes I can play music upstairs on my TV.

So now my TV can let me watch movies online when I want, look at my pictures and play my music along with radio stations.

I am so geeked out ..... as he writes this from his iPad


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Food Adventures

Many people know that i like to eat. When i say that it is not that I like to eat for the sake of eating. Nor is it that I like to eat volumes of food that would feed third world villages for the day, even though I have been known to put down 7 or 8 chili dogs and a couple of beers. What I mean is that i enjoy good food. I know when food is really good because then I do not need much of it - I just enjoy it.

So why bring this up? Well until tonight i had never tasted brussel sprouts, at least not that i remember. It is not that i have avoided them it is just i never have had the driving desire or have had them on my plate. So this morning I mentioned to Laura that i wanted to try a new recipe. We decided on a horseradish encrusted pork loin with sweet potatoes and brussel sprouts.

Well yes i was unsure on the addition of the sprouts but it turns out that they are not as bad as I imagined. In fact i will try them again - done a slightly different way - to see if I turkey do like them. I did these roasted in the oven then tossed in some lime juice.

So I learned something today - sometimes you just have to get adventurous - who knows what you will find.

.... cu


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Lord of the Flies

Last night myself, Laura, Sam and Kris took in our first play as a family. The motivation behind the play was that Sam helped build a large part of the sets for it. This year she is taking drama as an elective and is part of the drama club. She spent many Saturday afternoons at school helping to build the platforms for the sets, paper-macheing and painting. I had never been to one of their high school plays so I was pleasantly surprised when I walked in and saw the set - it looked fantastic and the picture does not do it justice.


The play was very good. It was a great adaptation of the book and all the people involved did a great job. The costumes were fantastic, the sets impressive, and the lighting, stage management and the acting were all very good.

I think it is safe to say we all thoroughly enjoyed it.


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Location:Ryan Rd,Ashburn,United States

Happy Birthday Michelle!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!


Wanted to wish my little sister a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Hope you have a fun day.