My cup of coffee this afternoon had a special Inauguration sleeve.

The red, white and blue sleeve on the Starbucks cup featured a quote by Abraham Lincoln. The Inauguration of course, is tomorrow. This will be the second Presidential Inauguration since we moved to the United States. I had absolutely no desire to go to this Inauguration in person, knowing how large the crowds would be, and the freezing weather strengthens my feelings.

Even in North Carolina there's snow predicted for tomorrow -- the first snowfall this year here, up to two or three inches.

The other night we were at Crabtree Mall in Raleigh. It was rather quiet.

The shopping season is over and the recession must have its influence also. The Whitehall Jewelers was closed; the company went bankrupt a few weeks ago. Circuit City, a big electronics retailer went out of business also.

We found a sofa! Yesterday morning we visited the remaining furniture stores on Glenwood Avenue; we have practically visited all of them. In the very last store that we visited we found the sofa we immediately loved. It will be delivered this week.

We added a new desk to the study room tonight.

I brought the box up the stairs: 67 lbs, or 30 kg in a big clunky box.

Tonight we made shiitake mushrooms with angel hair pasta.

The mushrooms are sauteed in onion, garlic and olive oil, and then made into a nice sauce with wine, chicken stock and some cream.

It's served with a very thin pasta, and topped with Parmesan cheese and some parsley.

The album for our wedding pictures arrived on Friday.

This weekend we're printing and arranging our pictures.

Last week was a shorter working week, so it still felt a bit like a vacation. So after three weeks it's really back to work.

Yesterday we ordered an album for our wedding pictures. We've been going through the pictures and are almost ready for on-line viewing them.

We also went looking for a new sofa yesterday. We went to 6 different stores, but haven't made a decision yet.

From Durham, North Carolina, we wish you a great 2009!

- Sasha & Guus

After a wonderful wedding and honeymoon, we arrived back home.

This weekend we've gone through 700 pictures, sorting and selecting, and we're getting close to a very nice selection of pictures for the printed and online albums.

Last night Jonathan and Irena and the kids were here; to stay in style we had a Mexican dinner with Coronas.