Impressions of our new land

We've been here in Green Bay nearly a month now (save for an 8 day trip to Newfoundland, Canada) and are starting to settle in to our new surroundings. Some early impressions:

• Green Bay has more sports bars/pubs per capita than any place I've ever lived (and sadly, some fairly high DUI rates to go along with them)
  
• We seem to have traded the crunchy-granola/hippy/outdoorsy/academic look of Corvallis for more of the tattoo-sporting/leather/biker/dairy-farmer look
• Most surprising, Wisconsin drivers are EXTREMELY aggressive - they tailgate, speed, weave, you name it! Maybe the caution they have to exhibit on the roads throughout the cold weather months builds up into a maniacal driving fervor in the summer time?
  

Despite these observations, we find the people here to be very warm and friendly and we're enjoying exploring around our new area for good hiking spots, nice restaurants, etc. And oh, the cheese!! We had our first social outing recently, when we were invited by some fellow UW-GB faculty to attend one of the local Green Bay Bullfrog baseball games - at $6/ticket, it was a cheap and fun way to spend a Friday night.

Nate is slowing getting organized in his new office on campus, which is about a 15 min. drive from our house. He lucked out and got an office with a window - from his vantage point, he can watch cliff swallows, which nest on the nearby buildings.

Just 6 weeks until my due date as of today, which is sort of hard to believe. Below are the latest belly shots, from weeks 30 and 33. (I think my belly looks even bigger because of how white it is compared to my face, chest and arms!)
And here's a shot of our 'nursery', which is coming together nicely, thanks to some recent Craigs List purchases, generous hand-me-downs, and wonderful new gifts from family and friends.

For those who may be interested in more about our recent trip to "The Rock" (as the locals call Newfoundland), here's a link to Nate's photos from our trip.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14468926@N02/sets/72157621640043180/
We were up there to attend the wedding of our dear friends Brian and Jacqui. Jacqui grew up in the small town of Twillingate, known as the "Iceberg capital of the world"! Nate was their wedding photographer. Highlights of our trip included hikes through beautiful coastal scenery, icebergs, whale sightings, nesting puffin colonies, and enjoying time with the friendly locals.

Welcome to Packerland

We've arrived in Green Bay! Our second cross-country move in 10 months went about as smoothly as the first. We lucked out and had great weather the entire 3.5 day drive (save for some light rain while we were unpacking at the new house). Some observations along the way:

• lots of DOT road projects along the way - economic stimulus plan at work?
• most scenic stretch: Spokane, WA to Bozeman, MT
• most unique roadkill (thankfully not ours): dead moose (female) west of Missoula, MT
• most common roadkill: skunk
  
• amazing rock formations driving through T. Roosevelt National Park in western ND (see photo below)

We pulled our 26' Penske truck, towing the Honda Civic with Nate's blue kayak on top, some 2150 miles, filled up on diesel (MUCH cheaper than last summers prices!) 7 times, and made innumerable "7 months pregnant" bathroom pit-stops for me.



When we arrived at our new rental house at 170 Taft Street, Green Bay WI 54301, we met our new landlords and learned one important lesson about renting sight-unseen: be sure to specify your height! Turns out that the entire second floor has a ceiling height of approx. 6.5", with door jams a few inches shy of that. This means that Nate, who also happens to be 6'5" tall, won't be spending as much time up here as we originally thought! We changed our original plans about making our bedroom be one of the two upstairs, for the sake of Nate's sanity and his forehead. We'll both still make our way up plenty often to use the home office area, shower, and visit the baby's room. And, actually, after just a day or two of living here, we both seem to be adjusting to the low ceiling heights (easy for me to say, just shy of 6'!).This weekend, our plan is to check out the Green Bay Farmers Market, said to be in existence since 1917 (?!) and take in the highly acclaimed fireworks display tomorrow night. More news to come as we settle in to our new surroundings.