Welcome Home Nicodemus!

Nye's New Years surprise was getting to adopt Nicodemus aka the cutest snake in the world.

Yep, I know you're saying, "a snake?" Well Nye's been asking for one for his birthday for the past few years. And, we've been holding off on getting one for a variety of reasons. Nicodemus used to live in the exhibit offices as the Children's Museum and Nye has known and liked him for years. So when our friend Valerie asked if we'd be interested in adopting him we felt the stars had aligned so that Nye could finally have his snake.

Nicodemus is a Gray king snake. He is about 2 1/2 feet long and as thick as your thumb. He's extremely gentle, mild mannered, and quite handsome with his gray, black, and red stripes. He is used to being handled by adults and being around kids.

A big plus he came with all the gear we'd need. Since joining the household he has been granted the title "the quietest and least stinky pet we own" by Arch on many occasions. Now we just have to figure out how to transport Nicodemus to California!

Big News! We're Moving to San Jose, CA

So, our big news is that we're moving to San Jose, CA. I was offered a job at the Children's Discover Museum of San Jose. It's a wonderful museum and the staff are terrific. Our challenge now is to figure out how to make the whole move happen quickly. My start date is February 9th. Ack!!

Arch and traveled out to San Jose over the weekend of Jan 18th to check out town and scout for neighborhoods, schools, transportation, etc. Thanks to the advice of a number of friends who either live or have lived in San Jose we were able to narrow down our options a tiny bit. We enjoyed all the places we visited but Willow Glen felt most livable to us and is fairly close to the museum.

We had the chance to visit a couple of potential apartments and decided to take a short term lease at Hidden Willows. (See the picture above.) It is a very quite green complex and has amenities that seem quite luxurious to us NYC cramped apartment dwellers (dishwasher, pool, health club, washing machines very nearby.) Still we hope stay for a short time since we'd like to purchase a home of our own as soon as we're able to.

Our planned move will take place during Nye's school vacation week 2/16-20. We're busy getting all our ducks in a row. There are fun little surprises that keep popping up like the San Jose school's TB test requirements, needing cat vaccination records to take them on the plane. We haven't even begun to figure out how we'll move Nicodemus, Nye's new snake. (Yep, snakes on a plane or maybe not.)

All in all its a big crazy adventure but we're still excited. Ask me how I feel in few more weeks and the answer might be quite different!