We have now completed our move from Massachusetts to Maryland. There are still boxes to be unpacked, but we have a generally livable house and are slowly figuring out our way around the area.

Can you guess which of these is MA and which is MD?

or

I’ll give you a hint: our new house has two malls and at least four large shopping centers within 15 minutes of us.  Our old house had one small shopping center and the mall was a thirty minute drive. On the plus side, we have already found some good restaurants nearby and have both a Trader Joe’s and a farm stand with fresh produce quite close. We also have bike trails close to our house, although we haven’t explored them yet. I think we’ll get used to it in time!

(The pictures above may be a slightly biased comparison. There are in fact some nice green areas nearby and it is not all shopping centers!)

The lack of posts to this blog has been due to Megan and me being a bit busy—in the last few months we’ve defended our Ph.D.s, gotten new jobs, and moved to Maryland. Leaving Amherst and all the great friends we’ve made there over the last six years was tough, but we’ve already had some visitors to our new home and hope to have many more in the future!

From a BBQ after Megan’s defense:

and from our going away party: