With Me: I finally feel like I am settled in. When we first moved in I tried very hard to find a typical 9 to 5 job. While the first few days of lounging around the apartment were fun and relaxing, it quickly became very boring and I started getting more desperate in my search for a job.  After a week of applying for office-type jobs, I decided to create a profile on a nanny service website and see what happened (against the advice of my sister who has actual nanny experience). Within just a few days I had some leads and a few days after that I got my first nanny job. Because this job was only offering 20 or so hours a week I left my profile up online to see if anyone else would be interested. Two more families contacted me over the next month and the first family that hired me referred me to their neighbor. Now I work for four families and am very busy. I feel lucky that all of the families I work for are very kind and welcoming. I think they all have had nannies/regular babysitters before so the kids knew a bit what to expect when I showed up. The first family that hired me has three boys that are 4, 3, and 1. They are quite a handful and the learning curve with them was very steep. I think the biggest challenge so far has been getting used to being around adults all day who are rational and if not nice, at least polite, to being around little kids all day that have a hard time controlling their feelings or keeping themselves occupied. I mentioned that the learning curve for this family was steep, but now that I have been with them for about a month, things are settled in and I am really enjoying myself. The first time I helped them talk through their feelings and prevent a meltdown I felt the same wave of satisfaction that I used to feel when I got an A on a test!

With Baxter: I think he likes school, I’m not totally sure since he comes home so tired at the end of every day and just needs some time to relax. I like hearing about things he is learning in his classes or seminars. Two of his classes are math classes and I hate math so we don’t talk too much about those. The other day we were driving to the grocery store and he was telling me about an interesting panel discussion he went to. It reminded me of a very interesting editorial I had read on the New York Times website. I asked him if he had ever heard of the author. It turns out he did because that author was on the panel!

With Us: We were called as CTR B teachers in our ward. I will admit it right here, at first I was a little disappointed that I wasn’t going to be able to go to Relief Society and make friends. But both Baxter and I enjoy it and this last Sunday we spent the rest of the day laughing about funny things our class did or said during our lesson or during sharing time. Our kids are six and seven.  I think that’s old enough to sit through a lesson and want to participate and young enough to still want to impress their teachers. They also really like hangman so we find a way to incorporate that into every lesson.

Even though I don’t get to go to Relief Society and Baxter doesn’t get to go to Priesthood we are making friends. Our ward has a number of graduate students in it and they have all been very welcoming. Also there are quite a few BYU guys in Baxter’s department, including one in his cohort. We definitely don’t feel like the “new guys” anymore (well at least I don’t).

(I don’t have any recent pictures. This is one we took in St. Louis when we were driving to New Jersey in August this past summer).

Before driving up to New Jersey we stayed with B’s family for a few days in Arlington. It was great to see everyone. The entire family hasn’t been together since before Baxter and I were married, over a year and a half ago. One day Baxter, his sister Liz, and I went to the Museum of American History on the Mall for a few hours and then met up with everyone else by the river (There is an exhibit there called “The Price of Freedom” that we all thought was very interesting). Between Marc and Baxter’s dad there were enough bikes for everyone. We rode up to the Capitol building and watched the sun set while listening to a concert on the steps by the Navy band. Then we rode back past the Washington, World War II, and the Lincoln Memorial in the dark.

It is hard to make out in this picture, but this is in front of the Lincoln Memorial where Martin Luther King stood when he gave the “I Have a Dream” speech.

This summer we visited my parents on Lopez Island, Washington. Lopez Island is part of the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound. We had a lot of fun visiting the Farmer’s Market, taking a trip to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, going on hikes around the island, and visiting Victoria in British Columbia.

The trip to B.C. was particularly eventful. Since we were leaving the country and entering Canada by boat we had to check in with customs. We brought our passports along with us, hitched a ride into the city with a nice gentlemen listening to Celine Dion, and enjoyed our afternoon. However, once we were ready to go back to the U.S. the boat had problems changing gears and so we couldn’t reach top speeds. Couple that with the choppy water and it made for a very slow, seasick-inducing trip home, especially for Baxter. More than one of us had to cover our heads and avoid looking at the water. We tried to call customs to let them know we were coming back but our phone connection was cut off before I could give them my information. When we finally arrived at our home harbor, we called customs again. They promptly told us we needed to report immediately at the nearby customs station, which given the broken boat meant another two hours of seasickness. Thankfully the engine worked on the trip to the customs house.  But once we arrived, it was closed, so we waited in the dark for an hour before an immigration official arrived, who generously let us go home without any major penalty after thoroughly searching the boat. On our trip back to Lopez it was so dark Baxter had to sit on the bow of the boat to make sure we didn’t run in to anything. Turns out immigration officials on the water thought a boat speeding home in the dark was suspicious looking, so we got pulled over! We made it back to the house at 1:30 in the morning, and while we both had a nice time, I don’t think Baxter will want to visit Canada by boat again any time soon.

Baxter admires the view of Watmough Bay

Baxter and my step dad overlook Watmough Bay

Baxter and I in front of the Empress Hotel in Victoria, BC

My fun-loving and adventuresome step dad at the helm of the “Seawalker”

Baxter enjoying the view of Friday Harbor

My mom and my step dad enjoying Shark Reef Sanctuary

There are no sharks at Shark Reef Sanctuary, but there are a lot of seals

On one side of my parents house is a harbor, on the other is a horse pasture.

Agate Beach

Waiting for the ferry to go home

We have been in Princeton now for about a week. The weather is lovely, the trees are green, and there is ivy all over the buildings. We went out to eat last night at a Chinese place on Nassau street and then took a stroll around the town. We’re excited to be here and Baxter is excited for school to start.