Some Pictures of School

This is a view of the "quad" area outside my house, as viewed from my room:

My room being unpacked (and the middle drawer to my dresser that keeps falling forward on its own) 

Our kitchen/dining table:

Our HUGE living room, with a nice fireplace:

The other side of the living room as you keep looking towards the front of the house: 

Our house is pretty nice and has great open rooms.  One of the ladies that works in the office and has been taking us around (us being the new hire teachers) said that "The Pink House (as mine is better known as) is well know for its parties!  So, I know it is a lot of pressure, but once Erin and Meghann get back, I expect there to be a party in a week or so!"  I just laughed, but our house is nice and large for gatherings... :)  I expect there will be a few!

Some views of the outside of our home.  So cute!! 

Now, I am not sure why the first picture is in sideways, but my room is the two windows on the top floor kind of above the front door stoop; I am in the top front corner of the house. (You can see where my room is more easily in the first picture-  I am the two open windows on the second floor...)

I took a little walk around the campus tonight before we had dinner at the presidents house, and took some pictures of the buildings, and different places around grounds (it is going to be a challenge getting used to calling it "campus" and not "grounds"... silly UVA and its traditions...)  Anyways, my favorite spot is in this garden, called Dafina Garden, that was built in memory of this girl, a student, who was killed in a car accident right outside the gates to ACS.  Her parents were huge artists and so they were able to build this garden with the support of many artists around the area, who donated structures and different work to the space.  The garden is absolutely beautiful, and I think it will become my favorite spot on the grounds.  Tom, on our tour, said it is a popular hang out spot for a lot of the students, which I thought was great.  Here are a few pictures of the garden and its beautiful art and sculptures.  I will save the rest of the pics of grounds for a later post.  

My favorite sculpture is this tree with the heart in the center of the branches.  I think it is absolutely beautiful.  I am bummed I cannot seem to figure out how to rotate the picture and get it to appear rotated on the blog (bc it looks the way I want on the computer)

   

There is also a zen garden, which is in need of some weeding, but is also really nice.  Maybe I will take on a weeding task in some of my free time ;) We will see how that goes.  (also, sorry again for the rotated picture)