a long overdue blog post

Can you believe it's been three months since I've posted? I can't. Time is moving so quickly.

Here are some things that happened in the last three months:
- we moved to our new house
- both sets of our parents came to visit us
- we experienced our first Boston snowfall
- we traveled home for Thanksgiving

So where to start?

The house is only partially clean so I will withhold some pictures until I've tidied it. But here are a few carefully framed photos to hide the messiness (complete with Christmas decorations!):

We have two living rooms (it's a weird layout). We've set up our Christmas tree in the front room. I will take a better picture of the front room later on this week because we're expecting our new couch to be delivered on Wednesday!

Our other living room has a fireplace. We're still figuring out what to put on the mantle. But right now it's being filled with our "The Greatest Gift" advent ornaments. Thanks Lea!

One challenge in finding a place to live in Boston was finding somewhere with enough space for our table. Luckily this house does have a space.

Patrick is working on converting this wardrobe into a sewing wardrobe for me. I've already put some stuff in there but eventually I'll have a sewing table that folds down from it.

You can tell we've turned into New Englanders by the number of coats and boots we've amassed. (And scarves and hats and gloves, but you can't see those.) And you can tell we're city dwellers because we now have our own personal shopping cart (the blue thing). We live a block from the grocery store so I just walk with my little cart there. When we moved here a coat closet wasn't even on our list of things that would be nice to have. Now I'd put it at the top of the list for sure. When you have to take off ten things as soon as you hit the door it's nice to have a place for them!

More later. Our company holiday party is tonight so we're off to the masquerade ball!

Do you ever wake up in the morning and think to yourself, "Is this really my life?" For us, the past month or so has felt mostly like a really long, really strange vacation. Lots of takeout, lots of different places to stay, living mostly out of a couple suitcases, being with unfamiliar people in unfamiliar places. But I think the dust has started to settle and we're realizing that this is our new rhythm of life, which is simultaneously comforting and terrifying. It's comforting in that we're not waiting for something to happen--to arrive home or finish a degree or start a job. It's terrifying in that this is for real. There's no "home" for us to go back to, no matter how much we want to return. I can picture our little townhome perfectly in my memory and I can't tell you how much I want to curl up on that couch with my favorite blanket and a cup of coffee and watch the birds eat from the feeder. I want to go to the lab and catch up with Toni, Tania, and Ellie (my best friend coworkers) and for us to get ice cream together. But even if I were to return, that world isn't there any more. Someone else lives in our home. Toni is in Wilmington. There are no degrees left to finish! It's a little unsettling.

But I am so incredibly thankful for so many things. In particular, so many of our friends and family have gone before us in many ways and are leading the way for us. It's unfair that they had to navigate alone (or perhaps the Lord had others go before them, too), but I am so thankful that they have. I am thankful for Cal and Lea Queener, who picked up and moved half the world away from their friends and families, and are living proof that it's survivable. I'm thankful for Bethany Bush, who moved to Boston six years ago, found a quality church and pointed me to it. I'm thankful for Barry and Kelly Kaldenbach, who taught us to play board games, because we've already made so many friends around that one hobby. And I'm thankful for my mom and dad with their continual encouragement. Dad told me that every time he's started a new job it's taken him six months to settle in, make friends, and start feeling good about his work. That means I'm not the only one who's had a hard time finding my place and learning all there is to know about work.

I hope that we are going before someone else and can one day pass on knowledge, hope, and comfort as these precious people do for us.

We are thankful for our friends at Park Street Church. I don't know if I've written about it before but it's within walking distance to our current dwelling so we've decided to stick there at least until we move. The church has shown us incredible hospitality. We've been to two welcome dinners (one churchwide and one for 20s and 30s). A couple in our small group had us over for dinner and games last Monday night. Today a dozen of us gathered here for a potluck lunch and games. We feel so at home among these friends. At work the relationship building is challenging, but at church, united under Christ, we have quickly found belonging.

Other than the homesickness, though, things really are good. We are enjoying so many small things right now and I never want to forget the sense of humble gratitude we feel now. I remember when I started graduate school and my apartment had a thermostat and a dishwasher. That was such a big deal at the time, and even now I appreciate those small luxuries so much. So I really want to continually treasure the good things we have and not take them for granted. Here are some things we are treasuring right now:

- Being able to pick up lunch, dinner, or a snack while we're out and not having to worry about  the money
- Google stocks sparkling water (one of my very favorite treats) in all their microkitchens
- The locker rooms at the gym are really nice and never crowded
- The weather is still warm and beautiful
- We work eight hours a day and then go home guilt free
- We don't have to pack lunch every day (Google provides it)
- Being able to plan a little more long term (saving for retirement, making some bigger purchases, etc.)
- Paid sick time

On a less philosophical note, we did some furniture shopping this weekend. The entire city of Boston moves September 1 (80%+ of leases in the city begin then). We went to Ikea, which was a terrible idea. But we also went to a furniture store called Jordan's, which was not crowded at all and a whole lot nicer. We bought a new mattress and found a couch that we like. We will have to wait to get into our townhome to take some measurements before we move forward on any of that, though.

We also spent some time at Community Boating this weekend. Yesterday we took the "Shore School" class that teaches sailing principles. Today we went out kayaking along the Esplanade for about an hour. It was a really nice day and it was great to be outside for a couple hours.

On to a nice four day work week, and we'll spend next weekend in RI with a former professor!

First week at Google Cambridge

This past week was our first week at work in our actual offices!

Most of the week, for both of us, was spent learning. As with any new job there's a lot to learn, but especially here. There are so many things that are unique to Google that even if we had studied publicly-known material all summer we still wouldn't have been close to prepared. But that's okay, everyone expects you to spend a long time learning.

For me, on top of learning Google things, there's a lot of airline things to learn. Airlines are really complicated. Here's an article on airfare pricing: https://flightfox.com/tradecraft/how-do-airlines-set-prices --and that's just pricing, not even things like which airlines play nice with each other, or which seats are available at what times, or anything like that! Now, of course, the computer does all the hard work of calculation, but unless you know all the variables going in to the calculation working on the code doesn't make a lick of sense. And then there are the airline and airport abbreviations that everyone except me knows by heart. So for now when someone uses an acronym I write it down in my notebook to look up later and during the meeting I just make up a meaning for it that makes the meeting more entertaining.

My coworkers have been nice so far. One of my coworkers gave me a little lecture on Friday about a piece of technology and for his example he used pizza and its parts (pizza, pepperoni, etc.) so we're on the same wavelength :) I also did my first bugfix on Friday, so I can say I actually contributed something to Google overall!

The office is neat. It's really big, covering three buildings. We have a rooftop garden that's nice. Our coffeeshop brews the same kind of coffee Victoria (my sister) brews in Charleston so that makes me happy. My best friends so far are the receptionist, the barista, and the technical support intern, because all three have been lifesavers.

Every floor has a theme relating to a subway stop on the public transit here. My floor's theme is Wonderland, which was once a beach theme park. So on my floor we have a claw machine, photo booth, and fun house mirrors. Each floor also has a little kitchen with free snacks and drinks, and each kitchen has a special treat in it. My floor's special treat is ice cream. Patrick's floor is sailing themed and has gourmet coffee. Probably our favorite floor in our building is aquarium themed. I don't know what that kitchen has for its special treat but there is a really fun aquarium there that we like to look at.

The little things I appreciate:
- My desk can be sitting or standing
- It's not freezing cold like every other place I've ever worked
- I sit near windows looking over a grassy rooftop
- In the kitchen there's a sparkling water dispenser (has always been a treat for me)
- There's always fresh fruit
- Pretty much every day there's been a fish option for lunch
- Friday is pizza day

That's pretty much the story about work. Oh! Except we got paid on Friday. So that was really exciting, haha.

Tuesday we went back to Park Street Church to try out a different small group. We also visited there Sunday morning. We've met a lot of people there our age and have already become friends. Patrick played games with several of the guys on Thursday night. I met up with one of the ladies on Thursday and we've decided to do some one on one Bible study together. Last night, we had a few people over for dinner and games, and this week we're going over to one couple's house for dinner and meeting up with another couple at a pizza place. So they've been very kind and hospitable and we are so thankful. The only little snag is that it's a long commute from where we'll be living. It's really close to work so weeknight things are no problem but Sunday mornings would be a little tougher. So we're trying to figure out what to do about that, as we'd really prefer to be able to get to church using public transit. From Watertown it'd take over an hour on transit to get to Redemption Hill, so that's not seeming to be an option. From Watertown to Park Street is about 45-50 minutes. There are a couple churches less than a mile away from our future home that we think we'll check out once we move there, because that'd be convenient.

Yesterday we registered for Community Boating and took the sailboat rigging class. I can now rig a sailboat! (Patrick already knew how but had to take the class anyways.) Next is shore school, which we might tackle today or sometime this week, and then we'll be able to take out sailboats if we want.

The (only) grocery store near us is kind of fancy. Most notably it has more varieties of cheese than I knew existed. I got "everything bagel" flavored cheese, which was pretty tasty. I also bought some cauliflower that was naturally orange. It's a strange adjustment to make, not really needing to have food in the house. We keep cereal for the mornings, and I've been making dinner most nights, but we don't really need snacks or leftovers because work feeds us all day.

Otherwise it's been pretty low key. Not sure what we'll do this afternoon--maybe shore school, maybe Museum of Science, maybe some looking at furniture?

We miss you all. Start planning your visits!

week 2 in Boston + week 1 at work (in California)

So I haven't been the greatest at keeping up with the blog. And I'm still super backlogged from Yellowstone. I'm also not doing too great managing work and personal e-mails together. Oh well, I'll get it together eventually.

Week 2 in Boston

Actually, it was kind of boring. By Friday we were starting to get bored and antsy without anything structured to do and were getting kind of tired of making up things to keep us entertained. So I guess it's a good thing that we started work when we did!

We did do a few fun things though. On Tuesday we decided to buy a membership to the Museum of Science. Actually going to the museum that day was kind of a poor decision because it was a rainy day in the summer so there were a billion kids there. But the parts of the museum we made it to were pretty cool, especially the lightning show. 

That night we visited a small group at Park Street Church, which had been recommended to us from multiple friends and family members. We met a bunch of other young couples and felt right at home with them. 

On Wednesday we went to a free concert at the Hatch Shell. A couple friends from church the night before joined us as well. 

On Thursday we looked at potential places to live. The first townhome we looked at was pretty much our dream house. It had every single thing we wanted. We signed a lease for it today! It's a little further commute than we hoped for (about 40 minutes on public transit). But it's a block from the river (with bike and running trails), a block from a grocery store, across the street from the park and a short walk to the bus stop. It's less than 10 years old and everything's in really good shape. It's just a tradeoff we had to make because anything closer in is like 200 years old or very tiny. It would have been really hard (psychologically) on us to move out here, have great jobs, and live in a smaller and older place than we lived in as grad students!

On Friday afternoon we checked out the Community Boat House orientation. I think Patrick and I will join! You pay a yearly membership fee and then all the classes are free to take and the boats are free to use. In addition to sailboats they have kayaks, windsurfing, and stand up paddleboards, so I think it will be fun.

On Saturday we moved to our new apartment in the heart of the city. I was sad to leave the hotel (free breakfast! free dinner! free cleaning!) but at the same time we're glad to have a little more space. It's pretty nice here.

Starting Work in California

On Sunday we flew from Boston to San Francisco. Besides having to wait 2 hours for our rental car travels went smooth. We reported to work on Monday morning at 8.

Our orientation/training was mostly fun. We were assigned our Noogler (new googler) propeller hats on Tuesday. We found the ball pit:

We went to a company-wide meeting on Thursday where we got to see our CEOs speak, and then we all celebrated the release of Android Marshmallow (new cell phone software) with dancing and marshmallow treats.

We flew back to Boston on Saturday. Sunday morning we visited Park Street Church for the morning service.

We'll update at the end of the week about our first week here in the Cambridge office!

first week in Boston

We made it!

Overall our experience here has been good.

Monday: Landed in Boston about 2pm. Took until 4:30pm to get to our hotel. We were tired and grumpy. We ordered pizza and it made us feel much better.

Tuesday: Our anniversary! We felt even better after getting a good night's sleep. We took it easy in the morning and our car arrived (from being shipped) with no damage, so that was good news.

The key priority for the day was getting a Charlie Card, which gets you on public transit. So we walked to the nearest subway stop...where they didn't have Charlie Cards. But we were able to work it out by going to the CharlieCard store in Downtown Crossing.

Most of the day we spent shopping. Patrick forgot to pack: tennis shoes, dress pants, dress shoes, and a raincoat...all of which are kind of necessities! So we got him geared up for the most part. We  also were glad we were shopping when an epic hailstorm came through (quarter-sized hail) while we were in the mall.

We went out to dinner at Legal Sea Foods, which is everything we hoped and dreamed it would be and more. Seriously, we're still talking about how good our dinner was that night. Worth every penny.

We also took our traditional anniversary picture:

Wednesday: We got Patrick a raincoat (due to that hailstorm). We set up parking for our next residence--parking wasn't included in our corporate housing package. Can you believe we're paying almost $400 a month to park our car?! But mostly we just wandered around.

Thursday: We took a duck boat tour in the morning, which was fairly fun. It ended in the Charlestown Navy Yard so we took the opportunity to go on a ranger-led walk to Bunker Hill. We climbed all 294 stairs of the monument to see the view from the top. We shopped more.

Friday: We met up with Jon and Leigh Chasteen, some pastors of a church affiliated with our (home?) church, Crosspoint, for coffee. Since we have no friends here yet, it was nice to just talk to some other people! Jon and Leigh are very kindhearted. We ate some lunch then headed into the city. The highlight of the afternoon was going to the Haymarket, which is where people buy up the produce the grocery stores don't want and then sell it for really cheap. It's like Aldi on steroids.

This is $17.50 worth of produce. 3lbs of potatoes, 2 bunches asparagus, 3lbs clementines, 2 peaches, 10 plums, 3 ears of corn, 7 limes, 3 lbs of onions, 1 lb of snow peas, 1 pint purple figs, 1 lb mushrooms, 1 lb grapes, 1 head lettuce.

Most of it was good. I had to throw out the green beans today because they were moldy, but they probably would have been okay on Friday if I cooked them when I got home. So don't hate on the Haymarket. It's using up produce that would just get thrown out if no one bought it.

We watched Selma. It was a good movie.

Saturday: We actually took it easy most of the day. We have been walking a lot. 

We went to Penzey's Spices in the morning. I had taken the move as an opportunity to throw out all my (very old) spices and start over. I got about 30 spices for just under $100 and they're really high quality. And all the same size and shape jars. So in my opinon, totally worth the money.

I also went on a nice run down the Alewife Brook Greenway and the Minuteman bike path. One thing I love about the city is all the safe places to walk and run. And along the greenways and bike paths there are big trees and plenty of wildlife.

Oh, and we were both craving cookies at 10pm. So we went to the grocery store and bought some. Don't judge us. :)

Sunday: We visited Redemption Hill church this morning. We spent the afternoon driving aimlessly around the neighborhoods of Boston trying to decide where we might want to live. (We eliminated some at least!) We took a walk to Spy Pond park and enjoyed the 70 degree F weather.

Other observations:

- We've only heard a couple "Boston" accents. We understand most people just fine (and I think they understand us). It's a really international city!

- Our hotel is really nice. We were surprised to find that they also include light dinner four nights of the week, so it's been good to not have to cook. It's pretty awesome to be able to have hot breakfast every morning (without preparing it myself!) and to sleep in a king sized bed.

- We'll be moving into our next apartment next Saturday. We're on the 22nd floor!

- People are actually kind and courteous here in our experience. Even in the Haymarket. Just ask before you touch the vegetables, carry correct change, and you'll be fine. Say please and thank you to the bus drivers. Show common courtesy and you'll likely get it back! But...don't make eye contact or people will get creeped out, haha.

Thanks for all your support and prayers. We love and miss you all!

On our way to Boston!

I'll pick up on the Yellowstone series later. Moving kind of took over our lives for a while. We're waiting in the airport for our flight in!

We have two weeks until work starts. Our first week will be in California, then we'll be back in Boston for the foreseeable future. Between now and October we'll be looking for a church and a place to live, so prayers appreciated for that!

Day 3: Grand Teton and first day in Yellowstone

I'm being lazy and waiting for Patrick to sort through the photos for each day before I write the blog posts. But he's slowed down a bit on that the past few days so I might have to step up and sort through some.

Our third day of vacation, we checked out of the hotel in Jackson and that night we would stay in West Yellowstone, about 125 miles away. The drive between Jackson and West Yellowstone (at least the one we took) goes through both Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. So we spent half the day in Grand Teton, caught a couple things in Yellowstone to break up the drive, and then headed up to where we were staying.

We started the morning with a boat ride across Jenny Lake, where there's a trailhead for two hikes: Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point. We hiked up to Hidden Falls, which was very crowded, but it was an easy half-mile hike so we didn't expect anything different.

From there, the trail usually is just another 0.2 miles up to Inspiration Point. But this summer they're doing trail maintenance, so the hike was about a 3 mile round trip from the trailhead. It was slow and steep. And it was really hot out. 

We met another family while hiking. They were from Philadelphia and had two teenaged boys. Their family had a list of national parks they were working through. The wife's favorite national park (so far) was Arches. I don't remember what the rest of the family said, but I know they had good things to say about Acadia, which will likely be our next trip.

But the view at the top was pretty excellent.

You can tell (or maybe you can't) that it was a little bit hazier this day. Apparently the wildfires in Washington were blowing smoke this far, so by the time we returned a week later you couldn't see the Tetons nearly as well. I'm so glad we took lots of pictures the first two days.

We  took a picture at the sign on the way out.

...and took a picture on the way in to Yellowstone!

We stopped in the Biscuit Basin to take a break from our driving.

We checked into our hotel in West Yellowstone at probably 6pm or so. No refrigerator. No microwave. No Internet. (Also precious little courtesy from the hotel staff.) But really we just needed a place to sleep so that's okay.

West Yellowstone is kind of like Gatlinburg or Myrtle Beach--mostly expensive and kitschy. There's about eight square blocks of restaurants and shops, all walkable. Out west there's not a lot of variety in food, though. Most offerings fall under the category of "American"--burgers, pizza, steak, no vegetables. So it was a challenge sometimes finding good food. But that night we ate at a taco bus (not a truck) and it was good and cheap.

We wandered around the shops and restaurants a little then turned in for the night. Next day: Old Faithful and a whole bunch more geothermal features!

the pre-adventure: Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks (days 1 and 2)

As a celebration of my graduation and having jobs and in recognition that soon we'll have to actually count vacation days, we decided to take a vacation this summer to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. We just got back from it a couple days ago. We're still going through all the pictures to pick out the best ones.

Overall--what an incredible trip. We had so much fun. It was really great to not check my e-mail or Facebook for two weeks. I brought my iPad but resolved to not touch either of those things for the time we were on the trip. Over the course of the summer I've been slowly disconnecting from both e-mail and Facebook to try to have a healthier balance--more of a check once or twice a day rhythm than a check every time you're bored or have a spare minute habit. To my delight, even after letting both go for two weeks, I look back and can say that I didn't miss much at all! Sure, there were e-mails to be answered but probably only 20 out of the 100 or so I got were actually important. And the important things that people shared on Facebook were things that people actually told me about through some other media (phone, text, news article, etc.). So my new resolution is to not waste so much time looking at things that just don't matter.

We left on the 23rd, flying from Charlotte to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We were really tired when we got in. We spent some time walking around Jackson and saw their nightly "gunfight" in the town square, then got some rest.

The next day, we went to Grand Teton National Park. We bought bear spray (which, thankfully, we didn't have to use). Then we started enjoying the scenery around us.

The Tetons were formed exactly like they look like they were (at least to me). The earth's crust just got pushed up above another section of the earth's crust. Then they were shaped by glaciers and weather. For scale, that brown dot in the middle of the frame below is me standing out in the middle of the plain leading up to the Tetons.

 Then we set off on our first hike, a round trip to Taggart and Bradley Lakes. We saw a mama and baby moose along the way.

 

The hike was pleasant. Along the way to Taggart Lake, we met a family who are missionaries in Istanbul through Cru, so that was kind of cool. The hike went through a lot of different kinds of terrain with views of the Tetons the whole time.

Taggart Lake was pretty and it felt good to stick our feet in the cold water after the hike.

We continued on to Bradley Lake, which wasn't worth the trip by itself, but there was a pretty good elevation gain so you could see down on Taggart Lake. 

 After that hike I don't think I've ever been so dirty in my entire life. We were covered in sunscreen, bug spray, and so much dust that it looked like our legs were three shades darker than normal.

We drove up to the top edge of the park, stopping several places along the way. Signal Mountain offered a near 360 degree view around the park.

About dusk, we went to Oxbow Bend (on the Snake River) to look for wildlife. The most wildlife we saw was mosquitos! I think they actually thrive on the DEET there. We did see an eagle from a distance, and a beaver swimming. The river was so still that you could see the reflection of the Tetons in it.

We drove back to Jackson and packed up--we would stay in West Yellowstone the next night. We were hoping to go out and see the stars. There was also potential of seeing the northern lights but it ended up clouding so much in the evening that we thought the likelihood of that was low. Plus we were tired from hiking, so overall I think the good night's sleep was the best decision.

Well that's it for the first two days! I'm trying to keep it bite-sized so I don't have to spend a half-day writing about anything. More updates later as I have time.

New Adventures: Q&A

Neither of us are great bloggers but a lot of people have been asking us about our upcoming adventures, so here we are to resurrect the blog and answer some questions! These are the ones we get consistently.

What new adventures?
Patrick and I are moving to Boston to work for Google as software engineers!

Why are you going to work for Google?
Honest to goodness, the opportunity just fell in our lap and we felt like it was where the Lord was leading us. The work seems interesting, the pay seems excellent (especially in comparison to graduate school!), it seems that Google cares for its employees, I didn't hate Boston when I lived there for a couple months, and our families don't hate the idea of us moving there. Our church also has a church plant up there and there is much work to be done for the sake of the Gospel in the northeast. Oh, and after all the hassle of the Ph.D., I decided I didn't want to be a professor. At least at the moment. So it just seems like all the pieces fell into place.

Why are you moving so far away?
We know, we didn't want to move that far either. But Boston's only a two hour, $75 dollar flight from Charlotte. And again, it just seemed like this opportunity was the right fit.

When are you moving?
The movers come July 29. Our flight to Boston is August 3.

Do you need help moving?
Nope! Google is taking good care of us and hiring movers that will pack and load everything, then unload it all on the other side. They're also shipping our car. And I'm going to hire someone to clean the house because I hate move-out cleaning and don't want to spend my final few hours in a place I love doing something I hate.

When are you coming back?
I have no idea. To visit, it will take a little bit of time to build up vacation days. Permanently, unless the Lord calls us to stay up there, we'd like to stay at least 4 years because part of our payment is in stock that vests over four years, then ideally we'd like to make it back closer to family.

Where exactly will you be living?
Google has graciously provided us corporate housing until mid-October. So for those ten weeks or so we'll be living in the Financial District in downtown Boston in a furnished apartment. After that we'll be looking for a permanent place to stay.

What kind of place are you looking for?
Well, primarily we're trying to find a place where our three closest communities will overlap the best--our neighborhood, our coworkers, and our church. We'd like something with 3+ beds, 2+ baths, a garage, and either a basement or a garage spot for a second car (so Patrick can have some space to work with his tools). It'd be nice if it were a less than 30 minute commute on public transit to the Kendall/MIT stop where Google is. A yard would also be nice. We're aware that finding all these things in a city might be tricky or impossible. However we're also confident that God will provide the right place for us.

Are you going to go to Redemption Hill Church?
(Redemption Hill Church is in the same network as our church here.) We're not sure because of the housing situation. The Boston metro area is large and depending on where we lived it could be a really long commute to Redemption Hill. It's hard to love and serve a community you don't live in--in college, both of us separately tried to be a part of churches 30-45 minutes away, and it's taxing. So we'll find some quality churches and settle down somewhere within reasonable distance to one of them.

When can we hang out?
We're going to plan a couple going away parties here in Clemson, so if you live in this area hopefully you can make it to one of those. If you live in Fort Mill or Columbia, we hope we can fit all of you in during the next few weeks! Also you are welcome to plan a trip to Boston to come visit us.