three days as new englanders...

Here are pictures from our quick CT trip last weekend... before it all gets buried in more Christmas stuff!! And be warned I was a little snap happy with my new birthday present...

Once again, we were in the Groton/New London area on north side of the Long Island Sound. Two hours from New York, two hours from Boston. There's a Naval Submarine base there and also the Coast Guard Academy. Pretty cool stuff.

After a dark and very very rainy arrival Sunday evening (in which we seriously questioned what we had gotten ourselves into in seemingly the middle of nowhere)























(but in which Ryan was happy and could easily survive considering the seven ESPN channels on our tv. apparently the ESPN headquarters are in CT)










Anyway, Monday turned out to be a beautiful day.
We spent the morning on a "tour" of the area with our assigned realtor, checking out the various areas and communities. It's a different region than what we're used to- that's for sure. Everything seems quite laid back... but a different laid back than MidWest laid back. I don't really know how to explain it. Very small town feeling... only one Target and one mall in the whole area and it was out on the far edge of the "metropolitan". We saw only two McDonalds the whole time we were there.
But.
To say the scenery is gorgeous is an understatement.
You're at the most, ten minutes from the water no matter where you're at;
















These are the views from everywhere, looking out at the sound and the mouth of the Thames river
















































































































Ryan spent Monday afternoon in meetings and at the lab. Here's where he would be working

































And here's what you'd be looking at across the street from the above picture
















On Tuesday we drove around the area some more, pinpointed a few houses we could afford
(hint: NOT this)















and then headed to the airport early to take a nice scenic drive along the coastline to Rhode Island. It was amazing. I would so love to come back and vacation here. It was perfect.












































Okay, a little chilly and completely deserted,















but I can imagine in the summer it'd be pretty much perfect.















******
So you should know that as eager as they were to recruit Ryan to join their labs in CT, they asked for a quick decision/answer and after a few more days of prayer and deliberation Ryan declined thier offer for a job there. It's just not the place for us right now. Great place to visit, just not where we want to live and not where Ryan wants to work.

So things are still in limbo, we're still searching and wondering what's coming down the pike for us. Keep praying for us as more options and decisions come to fruition.