We bought a house!

So today, Sarah and I bought a house. After a stressful few pre-closing weeks, we closed on our new house in the north of DC today!

Closing is a strange process that involves signing a large number of forms with very small writing. Also; just like my PhD certificate, the Deed for our house was not the gold-embossed parchment I expected, but I was not too disappointed...

However, after the paper-trail; we were delighted to have the keys to the new house:

I was also a little shell shocked, as demonstrated on our after-purchase celebratory lunch:

Here is a picture of our new house, we'll be moving in over the coming weeks:

My first American Thanksgiving

We spent my first American thanksgiving in Minnesota this weekend, seeing my new niece!

Heading back today after a great weekend, will post some photos soon. For now, here is one photo of her:

DC Monuments

This weekend, Sarah and I enjoyed a beautiful day in DC seeing some of the monuments. For example, we saw Abraham Lincoln:

The Korea memorial was chilling:

I also saw the White House (from a distance, admittedly):

What I liked most, however, was the pickup hockey games in the street in front of the white house, which is blocked off for security!

All in all, beautiful weather coming up to Thanksgiving....

Skyline Drive in Autumn

This weekend, we headed back to Skyline Drive in Shenandoah, Virginia, to see the National Park in autumn before it gets too cold!

Firstly, we went to the visitor Center at Dickey Ridge, and took a short walk around there. Here's the view from the top:

The walk took us past a cemetery of an early homestead in the area:

We continued out drive, and saw some amazing views. The tree's were beautiful:

Finally, we took a walk from the road along the Appalachian trail, starting here. We also used this as an opportunity for us to model one of Sarah's new crotchet creations and get some good photos:

I think the hat is brilliant. We (I was heavily involved....) have made a similar, smaller, one for our niece as a thanksgiving present.

The Mound Building Ants @ Little Bennet Regional Park

This weekend, we visited Little Bennet Regional Park, one junction north of Germantown on the I-270. It's getting colder out, there are not many leaves left on the trees and I had to finally put on my winter coat.

The area also contains one of the largest populations of Allheny mound building ant, which build large mounds in the forest. These ant's are cool; building multiple mounds connected by tunnels in a single colony, killing nearby trees with formic and farming aphids (ants being one of the only other species that farm other species, including aphids and fungi). Ants are very, very cool.

Here is a picture of me near the giant ant mounds:

Also, here is a picture of Sarah near a downed tree. We are not sure if it was the work of ants, or beavers. Who can tell?

Rally to Restore Sanity

Last week, we took my parents to DC on Sunday to see the Rally to Restore Sanity. The Rally was organized by Comedy Central, and we foolishly thought - it'll be busy, but its not a proper rally, so it won't be THAT busy.

This was proved false as we reached Shady Grove Metro Station to find one of the longest lines I've ever seen snaking out of the station. On getting to the Rally, accompanied by crowds of people swarming onto the Mall, we realised that whilst the rally was focused on Sanity; the nearness to Halloween led to a wide proliferation of crazy costumes:

The signs were even better:

We managed to have a picnic on the Mall before the rally by staying further down away from the crowds. It was fun, picnicing whilst all the craziness went on around us!

However, people kept flowing in, and eventually even where we were became standing room only!

There was a great feeling at the event, and everyone was polite and friendly, despite the crazy crowds. After enjoying some of the music and seeing more costumes and signs, we ran for it and got a not too crowded train out of the city.

We even got home in time to see John Stewart's final speech on TV! A great day and I was amazed at all the crowds - I have ever seen so many people together at one event before...