Settling in

The typical joys, frusterations, and exhaustion of settling in continues here. Elena is in the process of transitioning to her new school, the 'Lab School' at Virginia Tech. (apparently being the daughter of two scientists isn't enough - we must send her to be studied by other scientists). It's really a top notch program, and we should know - we are daycare snobs. This innovative daycare is integrated with their department of Human development, overseen by professors and integrated with their elder day program (the neighbors next door - who they plant flowers with and hear stories from). It's right on campus, just a short distance from our building. Elena has stayed two mornings by herself, next week we will work up to naps.

Jake and I are in the annoying process of sorting out being in a new department...I have a phone but no internet, jake has no phone, no internet. Jake has computers, I don't yet. It's frustrating to have to learn everything all over again, copiers, travel, how to buy supplies. Graduate students start arriving at the end of this week.

We are still figuring out where things are - we got lost looking for stores yesterday and took several scenic loops through Christiansburg along the way. We love our car, the Rav4 has been performing like a champ (we've already put 2000 miles on it!) and getting around 30 mpg. But we miss having bikes and are starting to itch for two wheelers. Turns out to be more difficult to find what we are looking for - we want dutch bikes with gears, mules that are ready for kids seats, groceries, saddle bags. Every bike in town seems to be those bike with all those fancy gears - and I firmly believe that a new bike should not rival the price of a used car. Hopefully we will work our options out soon, we are tiring of driving to work and to the farmers market.