New Beginnings

It's been ages since we wrote a blog, so I figured I'd update those that we don't talk to on a regular basis on what we've been doing.  Since our last entry we've made a trip to MI to throw a wedding reception/open house and spent a week vacationing at Houghton Lake with the entire Womble Clan.  Since then, we've been to a few baseball games and helped some good friends of ours get ready to move to Knoxville, TN.  We'll post some pictures from our adventures in the near future (hopefully). 

Also, I've had two interviews-- both of them with UC-Merced.  They must have liked me because they offered me the job!  After talking it over with Atalie, family, etc. and praying, we decided that I should take it.  I sent my acceptance email on Labor Day and the paperwork was processed this past week.  My official title will be "Research Associate III" and I'll be working at the Sierra Nevada Research Institute in Merced, CA (housed in UC-Merced).  I'll be the project leader in charge of maintaining a bunch of field instruments up in the mountains, downloading the data off of them, processing the data, writing reports (ew...), and presenting the findings at meetings.  It's a bit above my head but will be a good growing experience.  The catch is that the start date is October 4th-- so we are packing up and moving out on the 22nd of this month.  It looks like I'll be spending my birthday packing the truck...  We're excited (and nervous) about the move but ready to get on with this adventure!  Now I must get back to filling boxes...

Digging out the lamp that I packed around-- oops.

The living room, with half of our belongings in it.