Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end, yeah

Here are the last few photos from our old life (although Eric may have some gems on his phone that will surface in a few months).

Everyone decided they loved art class. Eric was the teacher. I was the teacher's assistant.

John had a fever the day Eric left on his European tour, so I took him to the Botanical Garden.

Duck duck goose!

John looks really sick, doesn't he.

The old Halloween costumes were found - Edie and John claimed the bear, while Oscar was very happy with the elephant.

In our own driveway! Maybe the same one that was caught in the fall and introduced to the turtle sandbox!

Rocks Zuzeum

Baba Yaga and I made our own expedition to Yellow Branch Falls, where I saw a snail. Oscar had found a snail the day before when we walked at Chicken Log Run, and carried it all the way back to the car and placed it on the potting bench once we got home. Then it ran away. But see, there are more snails in the world!

Oscar's end-of-kindergarten celebration. They sang several very long songs. Then we watched a very long slideshow including separate pictures of each child holding a sign saying what they wanted to be when they grow up (Oscar: "Scientist". My man! Demario: "Teenager" Several children: "Vetrenarian"[sic]) and then in cap and gown and then at the beginning of the year and then at the end of the year whoof! Finally many rounds of pictures and back to the classroom for....another song! A nice long one! And then cake and then I escaped from that crazy atmosphere to pick Eric up from the airport. He was so sorry he missed this celebration.

Moving day shenanigans. The children were so happy to watch shows in their nest of all the bedding.

All the stuff we planned to take with us in the U-Haul trailer (including the cats) got shut up in here so the movers wouldn't take it. The trailer ended up not happening because the U-Haul place was incompetent, so we rented a truck that we only half-filled. I drove the truck with Oscar as co-pilot. Eric drove the minivan with John and Edie and the cats, and had shoulder soreness for the next week from reaching behind him blindly to recover lamby, the iPad, snacks, bottles, etc.

Edie fell in love with these balloons, and they stuck around for days. She kept biting them, and enough air had leaked out that this didn't pop them.

Cuties at the Taco Bell - our lunch break in North Carolina, after going to the one Wells Fargo open on Saturday for the cashier's check we needed to buy our house on Monday! No Wells Fargos in one hundred miles of Lansing!

But we really made it! Garage was lost in the East Lansing hotel, and it turned out he was hiding inside the bed's box spring, so he did come back to us! Cats are amazing hiders and also the worst. 

We love our house. We love our neighborhood. We love.....we love East Lansing. We can't wait for y'all to come visit! We have room for everyone!

We made it!

We have arrived in MI and are settling in sooooo happily. But there's a small bit of catching-up to do before I can share our new existence as proud Michiganders. And Michigeese.

I went to London too! I didn't take many picture at the actual conference, because the PR people were taking pictures, posting them to twitter, and they were immediately displayed on the giant screens of live twitter feeds - too much cognitive feedback!

I gave my talk a few hours after I arrived after an overnight flight, so almost an out-of-body experience - especially since they hadn't gotten the AC working yet and there were bright lights shining right in my face, hoo boy that was hot! But the talk was well-received and immediately posted to social media. I began by saying "Seeds are not rocks" since (almost) everyone else was talking about human biology, and that got picked up on the twitter feed. Surreal! And then I wandered around the conference for a few days, listening to people talk about their human genetics problems, and wondered what exactly I was supposed to do there.

But the best part was I had a free Saturday, and got to visit Dani at the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst Place. I rode the train down and that was impressively pleasant. I got in trouble with the conductor for having a ticket to Hamstead Heath instead of Haywards Heath, but his machine was broken so I got off with a warning only and didn't have to pay their exorbitant fines. When I got there, I strolled around the grounds and felt at home immediately. And then Dani and I drove to Brighton! Where Lydia partied down with the redcoats! It was exactly like Ocean City, but through a mirror.

And now, the proof. I tried to emulate Eric's excellent selfie style.

Green walls at the hotel!

The Thames and old London Hospital, directly across the river from the conference

London Bridge

Dani had to make liquid nitrogen ice cream all day for attendees of Kew's Science Days.

Ferns for lunch!

Giant sequoia. Just chillin'

Who wants to go for a bathe? (It was not actually stinky.)

Fowl.

Handsomest azalea (still blooming at the end of May!)

Hut made of rooted willow(?) canes

The stream feeding the bathing pond

Even the roadside gravel was different!

Who's looking at me?

Gimme five!

These trees are crazy: Araucaria araucana.

A magnolia!

Adorable hydrangea

Now I entered the forest and things got real.

There's a pheasant to the left of the two trees at the right. He was a real jerk about getting photographed and kept faking me out!

Oooo!

Brighton

The best/worst memento

Our home office is now all set up so I can post freely. Yay!