let it snow

We are enjoying so much seeing the pictures of everyone back home playing in the snow! Mercifully, we were spared the worst of the winter storm this weekend. We got about six inches...which to southern ears sounds like a crisis, but really and truly it is not a big deal here. But let me tell you, it's not because northerners are tougher. It's because the snow is pure powder here. It's so cold that the snow won't even pack into snowballs or roll into a snowman, and it stays like that for days and days. It snowed a couple inches last weekend, and a lot of that had melted before Friday but most of it just stayed on the ground like powdered sugar. It's stayed so cold that there's no chance for the snow to melt and refreeze, making ice.

There are also snowplows that scrape and treat the roads. I wouldn't drive during a snowstorm like it was yesterday because the plows can't keep up when it's falling so fast. But today it'd be fine to drive. Our winter strategy is to not drive if we can help it, though.

We had Monday off so we did enjoy the snow then. We took a walk along the river a couple blocks from our house.

Otherwise we just sat around in our pajamas, which was pretty great. We had traveled to be with Patrick's family due to his aunt's passing. Although a sad occasion it was a good visit. We were also able to grab a meal with my parents, so that was nice.

It's been an eventful week. Our friend Melva from graduate school moved up a couple weeks ago, so we had her over for dinner on Thursday. Through a range of events too complicated yet boring to explain, three other friends ended up at our house so it was nice to have some company. We love having people over but are pretty far removed from most folks we know, so it's a rarity. On Friday we had an outing at work to an ice skating rink. My coworker, Josh, who plays ice hockey, tried to help me learn to skate because I am pretty pitiful. But I am convinced I could learn with some practice! There's a free rink across the street from our house. I'm thinking about buying some skates because it'd be nice to be able to do something outside on really cold days. We went out with our friends Mark and Kimberly on Friday to finally see the Star Wars movie. Yesterday we did pretty much nothing but watch the snow fall. It probably started around 3pm and didn't stop until sometime overnight.

I have this problem where back home, when it snowed we ate brownies and cookies and other treats because it was a special occasion. This is translating to me feeling the need to eat junk food pretty much all the time, since snow's on the ground! We did make cookies yesterday. The cookbook said that they were good for you because of the oatmeal and pecans in them (never mind the three sticks of butter, cup of brown sugar, and the whole bag of chocolate chips)...

Last night when planning for church we weren't sure how the roads would be this morning so we decided to go to a church within walking distance--Evangelical Baptist Church in Newton. Not that we had low expectations, but I think we were both pleasantly surprised. It's about a 15 minute walk (or an 8 minute bus ride + walk, or a 3 minute drive, with free parking, in a adequately sized parking lot, which is a huge deal here!). It's a small congregation but it felt comfortable to be a visitor. The teaching was solid, and the people were incredibly friendly. So I think we will visit again.

It's interesting trying to sort through what's really important in a church after you have checked off the essentials of good doctrine. What if a church is really convenient but you don't like the style? What if a church has people you naturally click with but is far away? What about the offered programs, congregational diversity, dedication to outreach, or a thousand other factors? I have a list of things in my head that are important but it's difficult to know how to weight each factor. I think there are definitely wrong choices but I don't know that there's a single right choice. But all in all I am pleased to report that in a widely unchurched city there are many sound churches to choose from.

Until next time!

Happy new year!

Ever since we got home from our travels (and honestly, probably a few weeks before that) I've been meaning to write. I wanted to take some more pictures of our house because a lot of you are curious, and I've been waiting for the house to get clean to do that. But, this post is inspired by a dear friend, who came to our clean-on-the-main-floor-only house last weekend, and said, "Gosh, I don't know how you keep all this space clean!" And I thought to myself what a blessing it has been over the years to walk into friends' messy houses, take a deep breath, and realize they don't have it together either. Thanks for letting me into your lives and not putting up facades. Here's my version of that.

Our living room is overtaken by all kinds of stuff. My grand plan was to get all the Christmas decorations put away Sunday and to get the house clean before going back to work. But Patrick has had an excruciating headache since Sunday morning so that's thrown a wrench in plans, and that's fine! There are more important things than housework. Cleanliness is not necessarily next to godliness.

You'll also notice we've dragged the extra couch into the living room (temporarily). We had the joy of hosting some dear friends on New Year's Eve to watch the Clemson game, so with this setup we could all sit comfortably together! We are so thankful for our sweet friends and the time we get to spend together.

We have a pantry, which is really exciting to me.

If you go upstairs, here is our bedroom. Patrick is hanging curtains that a kind coworker gave us in hopes of reducing the road noise that comes through our bedroom window.

We are looking for a new bedspread. In the meantime my grandparents got us a king sized, sherpa lined electric blanket that has been keeping us toasty warm during the freeing cold nights.

We have a nice bathroom off of our bedroom:

 It has a bathtub in the corner you can't see.

On that same floor is laundry, a bathroom, and two small bedrooms. One of those is set up as a spare-spare bedroom. The other is set up as a little office for us to share.

So far we haven't worked from home too often but it's nice to have the space in case we can't get to work one day (and so we can play computer games together).

If you go up the last flight of stairs, you get to the guest suite (which actually is clean, since we never go in it!) Please come stay with us here. It's super cozy. That open door is a bathroom.

I didn't take pictures of the garage or basement but you get the picture :)

So that's real life for you. Here's to a year of celebrating everyday living instead of waiting for things to line up better or turn out perfect before letting others in.

We had our first accumulating snow about a week ago. Sunrise is ~7:15 and sunset ~4:30 so unfortunately I didn't get any pictures in the broad daylight, except for the top one, which is our rooftop garden at work.

Call me a naive southerner, but I was genuinely surprised by how difficult it was to get around outside walking. I thought, oh, this city is used to the snow, so the sidewalks will be totally safe. Not true, at least for this snow! Ice is just as slippery here as it is in SC. 

The cold really hasn't been that bad. Even when it was 6F when I left for work yesterday. We made the decision early on to spend as much as was necessary (within reason) to keep us warm for the winter. I've not regretted my purchases so far. I bought nice boots, coat, gloves, hat, scarves, socks, and long underwear, and if I am wearing all that I can honestly say the cold is not a big deal (yet). 

Here's a quick list of some things going on:
- We had a really nice visit with friends and family over Christmas. We are so thankful we got to see so many people we love. We miss you all.
- We are still considering what to do about church. We love, love, love Park Street Church, but with it being far away we're trying to decide whether it's wise to try to find church closer. Less commute time translates into more willingness and more time to serve.
- In February I'll be escaping to CA for a week for some training, so it will be nice to see some warmer weather then.
- Paid time off is great. We're experiencing this for the first time in our lives.
- Please do pray for Patrick's headache. The doctor is sending him to an ENT specialist but it'd be nice if the pain would let up.
- We started playing Pandemic Legacy with some friends this past weekend. Super fun if you're looking for a new game and are up for a challenge.

Until next time, take care!

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!