Our story begins with a happy surprise.  I finished my PhD at UNC on July 17th, and just a couple days later, we packed up a POD and the beloved Subaru, and started the drive across the country.

We had a wonderful time exploring the country, seeing friends and family, going on adventures and hikes, and plenty of time to discuss everything.  The future, our careers, our goals, our plans.  We are planners.  We don't jump in to things.

We arrived in Davis, unloaded the POD into Paw paw's house, said our goodbyes, and headed to San Francisco, where I was about to start my new job at Stanford.  The first few weeks were intense, getting oriented, finding our way around, long hours of commuting, and lots of apartment hunting.

Then it all fell into place.  We found a tiny, but adorable, cottage in the fanciest neighborhood in Menlo Park, just blocks away from my work.  We both fell in love with our jobs and their potential.  We felt almost settled.

And then the surprise.  The exhaustion and emotions were not simply due to our crazy first few weeks. We had another little scientist tagging along...

So as any good scientists do, here we will keep our "lab notebook."