I’ve been trying to chisel out some time to write a blog post, but somehow that hasn’t happened for what has turned into months.  I came across a surplus of time this morning by accident, thinking church started an hour earlier than it does.  Lucky for us both, I have time to tell you what we’ve been up to since we left Philadelphia.

If you don’t already know, we have our very own apartment in Berkeley, CA.  We were helped immensely by a few friends who let us stay with them before we got our own place to live. We also got to dog sit some of the best dogs ever.

Does it ever sicken anyone what an animal lover I am?:)

While we have spent just about every weekend since moving in shopping for things to fill our apartment (that is another post entirely) we have had some time to enjoy California living.  We live fairly close to the Marina and we like to go there on occasion. We are close to a lot of other natural attractions and I am excited to start checking them out soon too!

Not long after arriving in CA, we attended not one but TWO weddings, on a Tuesday no less.  Funny huh?

During which we got to spend some long overdue hangout time with Scarlet, Jon and Carrie’s adorable baby.

San Francisco has been good to us since we’ve been here and has actually had nice weather overall.  My main reason for not wanting to live this far north in the Bay Area was the weather, but it hasn’t been too bad.  If you aren’t familiar with the quote, Mark Twain once said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was the summer in San Francisco.”

Another reason I’ve decided living in Berkeley/San Francisco isn’t that bad is that it is a tourist destination! Specifically for three of my friends who have already been here!  It was so great to see Becca, I hadn’t seen her since college!

Burke’s dad visited a couple weekends including Fathers’ Day when we took him to an Oakland A’s game.  The next weekend he came up he was helping us move into our apartment!

If you’re curious about the details of our apartment, stay that way.  We are still getting settled and far from ready to post any photos.  I can tell you it’s in a fairly nice area of Berkeley (not too nice, obviously, since Burke’s bike was just stolen) and it is spaciously small.  Small because it is the most basic floor plan, but spacious because we are struggling to fill it.

The other biggest aspect of our lives right now (and for the foreseeable future) is our new employment.  I’m working at an interior design firm in San Francisco and Burke is working with a company that contracts with Google.  All in all, AMAZING.

In our next post I’ll tell you about how reverse culture shock/ “reentry” back into the US may have caught up with us.