Finished

I want to give a quick update for now and I can hopefully return fully tomorrow.

Yesterday at 2 p.m., Phil defended his doctoral dissertation. This a 6 year ordeal with lots of struggles and other issue. After a 50 minute Power Point presentation, (which he did really well with), we {the general audience that was not a member of his committee} were asked to leave the room. Phil told his father and I that the next part is the committee asking whatever question they come up with. This can take between 90 minutes to 2 hours. After almost an hour, Phil was excused while the committee deliberated. I think he was the most unglued for the next ten minutes. There was no calming him or anything. Once the longest 10 minutes of Phil's life passed, he was asked back into the room and was congratulated by his committee. He passed with a vote of 5-0!! He finally did it. He earned his PhD!! He was beyond thrilled as he should be. He worked very hard and he deserves it more than anything!

We went back to the apartment where his mom was watching Jillian. We toasted to Phil and had a piece of yummy cake. Phil's parents had to hurry home and left shortly thereafter. I ordered IHOP to go for dinner because Phil finally got his appetite back. The sky was looking a little sketchy, but we figured it was just rain. When we were almost done with dinner, we got a text via Twitter about storms headed our way. We ended up retreating to a local church where we ended up in the basement due to the MASSIVE hail. {We're talking up to 5"} In fact, several nearby windows were busted completely out and it was a very scary experience. {I'm pretty sure it was so bad because two storms merged together on top of the metro area and it was just a really bad situation} Once we got home, we noticed one of our windows was completely busted out as well. Miraculously, none of our personal possessions, (minus a few paper items on the table), were damaged at all, but glass was everywhere. Jillian wasn't able to sleep until 11 or so and woke up around 6:45 am. Yeah, not a great night overall.

I did cry a little bit. I just felt like yesterday was supposed to be ALL about Phil and celebrating his amazing accomplishment. Instead, we had to deal with adult stuff and he didn't even get to sleep in today :( We have another round of bad storms tonight so it may end up being the same situation. I can tell Phil's a little sad, but we should get a break weather-wise after tomorrow.

Since I haven't shown off my beautiful girl, I'll leave you with this gem :)

{At Julia's Med School Graduation Saturday}

{Yes, she was asleep nearly the whole time!}

Take care of yourselves and have a good day!