I’d like to introduce you all to my new daughter: Zurhi Tolani Azizat Pelumi Emmanuella Alake Omolade Huntoon. There are a bunch of meanings to those names, but I’m not going to bore you with all the details. Basically, some are from us, some are from parents, and per Yoruba (my wife’s) culture, certain names come based on which day of the week a child is born. In any case, we went off the reservation and chose a first name outside both of our cultures; the root of “Zurhi” is from the Arabic zurh meaning “prayer”. However, we originally picked the Swahili version of the name, Zuri, meaning beautiful. But over the duration of the pregnancy, with all of the struggles, we determined that “prayer” was much more befitting.

She is the joy of my life, and I can’t wait for you all to meet her. That day may be awhile off for many, so let’s just get started by posting up some photos for y’all: It’s so easy to see divine power and intelligence when your newborn is in your arms. Life rules.

She joined us in this world on Thursday, August 30th, 2007 at 10:18pm. She weighed 6 lbs, 8 oz and was 22 inches long. Gorgeous doesn’t even begin to describe my feelings for how beautiful she is; she absolutely takes my breath away.The family was all there to welcome her into the world, and another part of the community welcomed her in this Sunday. She is protected and guarded on all sides by proud parents, older brother, grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins, godparents and friends. Thank you for your patience and space while we recover from a pretty intense and long couple of weeks.

In such a good way…
Greg