Boy Oh Boyers

As you might have noticed, there has been a serious gap in Pictures of the Day. This is because it's been a crazy and wonderful few weeks. I finished my Ph.D. on July 28th and since then have been avoiding anything remotely equivalent to "work." Yes, Pictures of the Day are fun, but sometimes (just sometimes) they are a chore. But I'm back in the groove now. Here's what we've been up to.

I had a conference for work in Orlando, so I drove there and dropped Rowan off with Gram and Aunt Julie. He commenced having a marvelous time, evidence of which you will soon see in Pictures of the Day!

Tom flew down to Orlando to meet me when my conference was over, and we drove to the Keys to celebrate our wedding anniversary (number 6, if you're counting) and to celebrate my completion of 5 years of very hard work toward my doctorate. Here's a picture of us on the balcony of our hotel. You can view all the underwater photos from the trip in my picasa album.

For the past five years, I have been working toward my Ph.D (doctorate) in Computer Science. This involved taking classes during the first couple of years, and then doing research and writing many published papers and finally a dissertation. This morning at 9:00am I defended that dissertation; this means that a committee of four professors asked me lots of questions and judged whether my work was acceptable for the degree to be awarded. I am happy to say that I was successful, and with the exception of some university paperwork, I am officially finished with my degree! I think it will take me some time to adjust to no longer being a student. But I'll adjust quickly to being called "Dr. Boyer," so if you want to do that, go right ahead. :-)

They give you a little bit of space at the beginning of your dissertation to acknowledge people that have helped you along the way to finishing the work, but I could have taken 100 pages to do that instead of just the 2 that I did use. To all my family and friends who have sacrificed their time and energy in so many ways over the long years I've been in school, I don't have the words to tell you how much I appreciate your sacrifice. Thank you.

We're catching up on some pictures, and I don't think I ever posted a link to all of the pictures from when Rowan and I went to Jacksonville Beach with Aunt Julie and Uncle Bob. That was a great couple of days of sun and fun (actually I should say shade and fun, since our strategy involved being on the beach only late in the evening and early in the morning). Anyway, it was FUN! :-) Clicking the photo below will take you to the picasa album with all the pictures.

I couldn't resist making this video to celebrate Rowan's third birthday. We're so thankful to have him as our little boy. Enjoy!

It was a very busy weekend! We had a great time celebrating Rowan's birthday and Independence Day. We spent lots of time outside and lots of time with friends. Unfortunately it seems that a catastrophic memory card error has resulted in the loss of all photos from Rowan's birthday party. I'm still trying to recover them, but I have a feeling they are gone for good. You should have seen it...Rowan, Kayla, Ander, and Karis all sitting at a little table eating a birthday dinner surrounded by decorations and balloons. It was precious and so much fun.

Here's a picture that did survive, but not from the birthday party. It's from the Independence Day celebration fireworks, where some very nice firemen let Rowan and Karis sit in their fire truck! A truck parked nearby happened to be "Engine 3" and since it was Rowan's third birthday we couldn't resist the photo op!

I'm still in Pittsburgh, but had to share with you this photo Gram sent me, of Rowan having tons of fun (and obviously getting very dirty)! I can't wait to see you tomorrow, Rowan!

A couple of days after I got on the plane to go to Pittsburgh, Daddy and Uncle Tim drove Rowan south to meet Gram and Aunt Julie "halfway." I called to see how everyone was doing, and Tom said somberly, "Something is wrong with Rowan." Tom went on to describe a swollen, red, gunky eye that Rowan had woken up with. It sounded pretty icky, so I encouraged the guys to find a Saturday clinic at a city along the way and get it looked at. That idea did not appeal to Tom, who would rather...um...perform the most awful household chore I can think of than go to anything resembling a hospital! :-) Thankfully Rowan seemed comfortable enough that they decided to wait it out, but when Gram and Aunt Julie assessed the situation they decided a trip to a clinic was in order. Being a Saturday evening by that time, it was off to the friendly neighborhood ER where I understand that Rowan was a model patient. The diagnosis was contagious conjunctivitis.

Oh man, I just remembered that I forgot to call his preschool and tell them. He is very happy there, but preschoolers sure are a germy bunch.

Well, off to sleep! Got a presentation tomorrow. Here's a picture of the model patient.

I'm attending a conference in Pittsburgh, and I've really been enjoying Rowan's preschool webcam. Today between technical sessions I peeked at the webcam feed, and noticed that Rowan seemed to always be right next to the teacher. During circle time, art time, and lunch time, there he is, right next to her (he's in the bottom right of the picture here). Lack of assertiveness isn't really an issue for him. It's difficult to tell whether from the very low-resolution images whether he's snuck into the role of teacher's pet or what, but he certainly does seem to get a lot of loving attention. :-)

Every evening Rowan and I go sit outside and look for fireflies and bats. It's really a precious summer routine for us. We wait until dusk, go sit either in the front or back yard, and point out to each other anything of interest. Last night gave rise to a couple of hilarious quotes from Rowan that I just had to share.

The sun was setting, and up in the sky the clouds looked pink instead of white. It was quite striking. Rowan said, "How did they get that way? Daddy must have climbed up on the roof with crayons and colored those clouds pink!"

We heard a baby crying at one of our neighbor's houses. Rowan said, "I hear a baby crying. That means it does not like its mom and dad."

Our neighbor stepped outside onto his back porch and called to his dog whose name is Jake. Rowan said, "Woah! I just heard a weird cricket! Its chirp sounded like, 'JAKE.'"

The baby cried again, and Rowan said, "Maybe it is my baby. I had a baby sister, but she died." (I know this one seems a little somber, but it's actually kind of funny given that I'm pretty sure he has no idea what "died" actually means, and that I have been told my sister Julie also fabricated stories about a fictitious sibling when she was young. If this kind of creativity runs in the family, I can't wait to hear the whoppers Rowan will tell in a couple of years.)

I spent seven days away from the boys in California at a research conference. I enjoyed all the intellectually stimulating conference sessions and presenting my own work to get feedback on it, an essential part of research life. I squeezed in a little time for diving on Catalina Island, just a short ferry ride off the California coast. I had hoped to swim with sea lions, but it turns out I didn't go to the right island for that. Nonetheless, it was spectacular diving. And hilariously, it was the coldest water I've ever been diving in, registering a nippy 57 degrees on my dive computer. Of course, that's what the wetsuit is for, so I was comfy. You can view the album of all my pictures.

Flying home from LAX I had a connection in Cincinnati. We were delayed leaving by about 45 minutes, and of course it's common for a 45 minute delay to turn into a 4 hour delay, so I was a little emotional already and second-guessing my choice to fly through Cincinnati to avoid the very hot taxiing conditions and long runway wait times that I knew I would have faced in Atlanta. By the time our flight took off, I was so relieved, and I was so eager to get home and hug Rowan, that I actually cried for a good part of the second flight! The flight attendant took pity on me and tried to help out with a little comedy routine, which I'll admit was certainly...uh...distracting. ;-) So was the 95 degree heat I came home to! Youch.