Apologies for the lapse on our weblog. It has been a busy couple of weeks since our return from Philly as we get back into life in NC and prepare for our trip to Ethiopia. Hopefully we will not overlook anything important. I am not looking forward to our 12 hour layover in Frankfurt en-route. Even though it will give us a chance to explore Frankfurt a little, I am guessing we will be pretty beat a couple of hours into it.

We had some friends over for dinner last night and finally baked the 8-lb turkey breast Marc won at a local Turkey Trot back in November. We made a Harissa seasoning based on Marcus Samuelsson's African cookbook to baste the turkey with and boy was it good! We now have enough leftovers to feed us the rest of the week before we leave for Ethiopia. I've also taken to baking the NY Times no-knead bread at least once a week -- it's a must try for anyone who is new to bread-making.

It will take some adapting to the elevation in Addis (~ 7600 ft), so doing anything physical the first week may be tough (especially for me given my wimpy lungs). Hopefully we will both be able to find good areas to run at and take advantage of being at this altitude. It will do both our lung capacities (VO2 max) some good. We will make sure to take lots of pictures, but it is unlikely we will have much opportunity to download them onto the internet for sharing until we get back to the US. So, keep reading this blog for the written updates and we will eventually get the photos up to go with them.

Marc left this afternoon for Houston where he will be racing in the USA Half Marathon Championship on Sunday AM. Wish him luck!

~ Shuwen