Yara's Last Days (in Lebanon)

November news: A few weeks ago we had our first trip to the ER as a married couple. It was lovely. Jad, who kindly was doing the dishes after lunch, gave himself a deep cut in his thumb when a glass broke. He got 3 stitches as a souvenir and was told by one of his (many) female classmates, "Well, I hope you learned your lesson. You shouldn't be doing dishes anyway." Hmmph.

In other news, we went to the beach again on November 6. Swam and everything. We love Mediterranean autumn! Jad is continuing to do well in his classes and is enjoying his profs and classmates. I am getting a lot busier with my work for HOME and have also started volunteering at St. Jude's children's cancer center near our house.

Sadly, we had to bid farewell to Yara this past week. She has headed to NY to start her grown-up job and while we are so proud of her, we are very sad to see her go. So, in typical Lebanese fashion, we decided to live up her last week as much as humanly possible. And we did. A few highlights of the week were hosting our first family dinner party, a late night out at MusicHall, and several consecutive dinners ending around 2am.

This past week marked Eid al Adha and Jad enjoyed 4 days of vacation. On one afternoon, we traveled to Dlebta (Nina's cousins' hometown) to enjoy the gorgeous weather, beautiful views, and old style Lebanese architecture.

As a side note, Lebanon has been making some CNN headlines not only for Ahmadinejad's visit last month, but also for this. We are so proud.