2014 Pre-Christmas Update

Ok delinquent blogger here...  Lucas and I got a little swept up in moving and new jobs and dissertation/paper writing and (of course) MOUNTAINS!  I'd say the lack of blog posts during good weather months will be fairly predictable.  

So now for the updates:
Summer was mostly hiking/climbing/moving, and we'll post a nice Summer reflection post later with highlights from our trips.  It's always nice to look through summer pictures in January/February when the weather seems to be the dreariest here.

Today we'll mostly focus on updates for work/moving.  For me, I am currently a high school math/science teacher and dorm parent at a boarding school.  That means in addition to teaching, I live with the boarding school students in the dorm!  Lucas, Kaia, and Toby are able to live with me, and we have a very nice 2BR apartment.

To re-iterate the idea that we live in the dorm, a view down the hallway looking out my apartment door looks like this:

Every single one of those doors is the room of one or two high school girls, and you're only seeing a small section of the dorm area!

My door looks like this, and was artfully decorated by my prefects :)

Lucas' first graduate advisor moved to Baltimore mid-PhD, and his second advisor moved to Denver this week.  That means that Lucas is now advisorless in WA.  Good thing he's defending this March!  He's currently looking for a postdoc, so if you know of a good one send it his way ;)


Both of us are enjoying living in a boarding school.  We have formal dinners with the students (this one is Thanksgiving):

(this was Lucas' attempt at a full table selfie)

We take them go-karting:

Early morning Black Friday Shopping (taken at 6:30am by our vehicle of choice):

And on many other adventures...

Lucas and I are entertaining ourselves with very tame adventures since we're crazy-go-nuts busy, and I'm still healing from a stress fracture that developed in September (probably from climbing too many mountains...).  We've mostly been enjoying walks by the water front, pulling pranks on students and other dorm parents (hehe), and decorating for Christmas:

Student's door decorating contest

Fall along the Tacoma waterfront

A view from the ferry terminal on Vashon Island, WA

                                     

Kaia!

And to prove that Lucas is still alive despite nights spent babysitting his experiments in the lab:

This PhD is brought to you by:  "MORE COFFEE"