We're in Virginia now for some prep before heading overseas. Eric's been working on a master's class that's been really hard, but really good. It's one of those one-week intensive courses. In class for 8 hours, then 300 or more pages of thick books to read in the evenings. Fun fun...it's good though.

So, we're just working on getting settled in to our new lives out here. Some differences: lots of curvy roads without shoulders and the southern accents! It's different from back home in Des Moines, but what we'll hit over in Asia will be much different still. Looking forward to it!

Trip to Cali

Before leaving the country, we took a trip to California to visit Andrea's brother and sister. We started by flying into San Fran and borrowing some camping equipment for a couple of days in Yosemite. The time there included amazing views, hiking to waterfalls, food bins for anything that smelled (no food left in your car), and making friends with a couple of neighboring kids. We detoured back through Monterey where we saw jellyfish, sea otters, and sea horses at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and then drove up a not-so-scenic coast to meet up with the family. We were impressed though with the variety of crops in the fields and orchards.

In San Francisco we saw the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge, drove up to cool look-outs, and went to the beach. The Knapp family and Aunt Marlene came over for dinner one night. We went with Shana and Tyler on a ferry to Alcatraz. The three sisters went on a run in matching pink UnderArmour, and the guys (minus Mike) went golfing. We power-walked to fireworks on the 4th and wrestled in the grass after the finale got overtaken with brown smoke! After church we had a great brunch at the Knapps' along with seeing their goats, chickens, and Cutco knives. (not all together) We BARTed into downtown with Patrick to check out the Samurai exhibit at the Asian Art Museum but missed the ferry to Angel Island. This meant shopping instead at Zara and H&M. Ahh.... On our last day Eric went to Angel Island, and we all had more good hang out time. There was also a less-than-9-mile run, Apple lessons, the Milk Pail Market, Trader Joe's and dinner at Melissa's.

It was really sad to leave, but we found gas at the last minute to refill our rental car and caught our red-eye flight back to Des Moines. I do believe a wonderful time was had by all.

And now it's back to the real world and the reality that we need to pack up our entire apartment...

Sigh...