We have now been living displaced for 26 days, in this same small hotel room for 20 of those 26 days.  It’s an Extended Stay “Deluxe”, which offers a kitchenette with a microwave, stove, oven and fridge.  These things have made living here just a tad bit easier to deal with since we can make eggs and pizza and other somewhat home-y things to eat instead of fast food. 

However, the room remains a small, cooped up space which offers us no privacy from each other and as such, tension can get a bit high.  We have a game, and some paper for drawing and writing, and of course there’s TV.  The other day I bought a few books, a book for each kid, and today as tension in the kids was mounting, I decided off with the TV and on, instead, with the books. 

Due to the lack of space, the kiddos share a bed to sit on to read, and though Isak refuses to sleep on it with her - she’s a pain in the butt to him when it’s time to go to sleep - it’s the only comfortable place for him to read.  So there they were together, on the bed, and Anja is very obviously getting frustrated with him.  I couldn’t understand why as Isak was just laying there on his half of the bed, reading.  Her whininess increased until Isak finally demanded, “What?!” to which she replied, “You’re thinking something of me, you’re thinking in your mind, ‘She’s doing something wrooooooooong, she’s not doing it right!’”

Ah, this is so much fun.

I didn’t realize it’s been only one month since I wrote last.  Not much has happened in the last month…except…

I went to San Antonio, TX for a Legalman conference where I got to meet up with a lot of old friends as well as meeting a lot of new people.

We shipped our car and our household goods.  Sniff sniff.  I miss my stuff.

It’s a little bit unsettling knowing that all your stuff is in one place, away from you, with a bunch of other people’s stuff, sailing across the oceans.

We celebrated our anniversary.  10 years - unbelievable.  We went out for a lovely dinner at our favorite Spanish restaurant, Las Tinajas.  I got a beautiful ring that I am just in love with…

Also this past month, I have had a bunch of doctor’s appointments in preparation for my reenlistment.  I got good news:  my eyes are fine and I brought my cholesterol down 50 points. (!)  I reenlist next Saturday.  This means, if I continue reenlisting on that date, and I get out of the Navy at 20 years, I will retire the day before my 40th birthday.  That would be pretty awesome.  Well, except for the whole turning 40 part.

We move back to Everett in 34 days.  34 days!!  Hard to believe.  The Chief’s board meets next Monday so I’m anxious to find out how that will turn out this year.

The kids are out of school for the summer.  Anja had respectable “grades” the past semester (they don’t get A/B/C grades) and Isak made us so proud with his last semester reporting straight As.  2 A+s, 2 As, and 1 A-.  He is very motivated by the financial reward he gets for straight As - $2 per A (25¢ per B, nothing for Cs and below).  If he brings home straight As, it doubles so he could get $40 per semester.  If he brings home all 4 semesters of straight As, I’ll round that $160 up to $200 at the end of the school year.

To close with a funny story, Anja just came up to me as I was typing and said, “Mamma!  We still need to get backtized!”  Isak said, “Nooo, Anja, we need to get vackinated.“  Anja clarified, “No! We need to get backtized where they dump you in the water that they know your spirit of God.”

They’ll be so disappointed by the Unitarian church.

Hi everyone.  I am still in Bahrain working on this investigation, which is very interesting but also has become tiring - 14 hour days without any days off becomes tiring after…a day.  And it’s obviously been more than a day now. 

I wrote today to give B an update about my travel plans and received a response too good not to share:

Same old here… I am actually baking sugar and chocolate chip cookies for Anja’s class… Yep…and I think I am finally totally converted, I think I am lactating.

Milk and cookies, anyone?

“Just to let you know, I’m going to be using chopsticks from now on.  I’m not really a silverware kind of girl anymore.”

Two priceless quotes while the kids were watching the movie:

Anja: “Mamma, was this in color when you were a kid?”

Isak: “Legos!  I didn’t know they had Legos when you were a kid!”

And then poor Anja cried when the “lobster” killed the baby ant.

Losers sweepers!

And that is all.