Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Snow, snow, snow!

Sorry I have taken so long to have a response to the last post. The main reason is that I wanted to tell my MCF people first before too many people knew. So last night, I announced to MCF that...

We are moving to Vermont!

I am going to the University of Vermont next year to work on my masters in Classics. I am really, really excited...albeit, very nervous as well! I received a fellowship, which means I will have full tuition plus a stipend, with no work duties.

In case you are wondering where Vermont is...here you go:


It is about as north as you can get in New England. We will be 1 hour south of Montreal, 3 1/2 hours from Boston, 5 hours from New York, and 13 hours from Prince Edward Island (which means Courtney and I will be taking a road trip thataway and pretending that we are Anne Shirley).

**I need to add a sidenote here...as I have been fooling around on mapquest, I just realized there is a tool that will tell you the lowest and highest gas prices in a city...oh my goodness! I am very excited...I have a "thing" about gas. It was in hiding last year, because all gas in Malawi is the same price (because it's government controlled) but I like to get the very cheapest gas I can in real life.**

Here is a picture of the countryside of Vermont. Isn't it gorgeous? Its a really small state, 2nd in population only to Wyoming, but very rural. There are lots of farms, and 1/4 of those farms are organic. There is also a Maple syrup festival.


Here is the school. It's really cold up there. Like the average high in the summer is 81 degrees. So we are going to be stocking up on winter clothes.


This is Church Street Marketplace. It's this beautiful open air marketplace in Burlington with fun shops and restaurants. Burlington is the largest city in Vermont, but only has 38 thousand (although I think its really more like 110 thousand if you count all of the surrounding cities and towns).


More pictures of the campus...

and more...


Anyway, we will be moving sometime at the end of this summer. I will keep ya'll updated. In some ways, moving to Vermont is scarier than moving to Malawi. At ABC, we at least knew there would be a core group of Christians there. But Vermont is very liberal and does not have a lot of Christians (I'm not saying the two have to be linked...I'm just stating what Vermont is like). There is one PCA church with 50 members in all of Vermont.

But I really think we will love it there. There are more artisans per capita in Vermont, tons of local and organic restaurants and grocery stores, tons of historic places, beautiful scenery, Lake Champlain, and SNOW!

Oh, and Jason, since you guessed right, I will send you some Maple Syrup next year!

6 comments:

Courtney said...

No fair! I wasn't allowed to guess! :( That's ok. We'll have to figure out ways to see each other. Thanksgiving together, maybe?

The Robbins & Co said...

I KNEW IT!!!! It's so funny but I feel like I've been hearing a lot about Vermont lately. My little sister is moving there in 4 weeks to do a summer internship. My mom's best friend just wrote a book about moving to Vermont from Memphis-actually, you should read it. It's hilarious and very fitting since you are a southern gal movin' north as well! It's called Whistling Dixie in a Nor' Easter by Lisa Patton.
Anyways, I am so excited for y'all although I was hoping you'd be moving somewhere closer to the mid-west :)

Gamard said...

YES!!! :). I'm gonna hold you guys to that. We need to make sure we get together before you head out! I know you were wondering about my status, but I'm kind of still in limbo at this point, lol. I will let you know when I actually know. Good luck in VT, I know a guy up there who works at a graphic design firm and is a big snowboarder and a really good guy, but I don't know if you'll even be in the same area, lol, but I can still give you his number if you want to know the best places to hit the slopes or whatnot.

Unknown said...

Yay for moving! How exciting. I'm glad you finally found a Classics program to get yourself into; I'm jealous!

Mary Mel said...

So excited for y'all! I have always heard that Vermont is beautiful!

Sheryl said...

We are very happy for you two, even though we were praying for you to move to Florida!