1. We should be moving into our house on September 3rd - if I made Chief, I would be nearing the end of induction season and would have put everything on B to get settled in.  And I would miss the fun of making our first house, our first home.

2. I’m just getting to a new command and don’t know anyone.  This will give me time to get to know the ship, get to know my shipmates, and it will be much more enjoyable to know people (assuming I make it in the next 3 years!) so I can have a great mentor and enjoy the cameraderie of those going through it with me.  It sucks not knowing anyone at a time like that.

3. It gives me time to develop my knowledge as a first class.  A Chief is supposed to be a subject matter expert and I have much to learn still!

4. That bottle of champagne will be that much more aged when we finally open it.

And lastly, most importantly, what ties the rest of the reasons together:

5. Everything happens for a reason.

Keeping hope for next year…

I had this nice post about our househunting but I think it’s going to have to wait until we know more.  Suffice it to say, the househunting continues.

Just wanted to keep the Claque up-to-date on the haps with the Sigs.

There is a lot going on right now that I’d like to write about but I’m going to have to wait a little bit to make it all public.  We’re still househunting and have stayed with the very gracious Niki until tonight; tonight, we’re going to a hotel closer to the base.

In the meantime we’re doing little things here and there - we’ve picked up the car, I am getting my license today (hopefully), and we’re doing a lot of back-and-forth driving between the base and Niki’s (close to an hour each way) so we’ve been doing a lot of eating out.  

I forgot that one of the greatest parts of America is free water.  Yes, I said it: Free water ranks right up there with free speech.   We sit down, and we get water, and it just keeps getting poured into our cups, and now we don’t have to yell at the kids that that one cup of water from the $4 bottle has to last their entire meal.  Last night we went out for Thai food and we all ate and drank for a total of $25.  That was including the tip.  I love America!

Hotel living starts tonight and hopefully we’ll be in a permanent place soon where I can tell you all everything that’s been going on.  Til then…drink lots of free water!

We’re back in America!

It is great to be back but there is still quite a bit of stress involved as we try to figure out where we’re going to live.  In the meantime, we’re staying with our friend Niki, which has been wonderful in so many ways - the kids play great with her kids, and B and I have someone to spend time with during the day as we adjust back to being here.

Speaking of adjusting, considering the 9 hour time difference, we have adjusted to that part of things very well.  It helped that by the time we finally got in, after 27 hours of traveling, we were exhausted and had no problem sleeping.  Last night I was up at 3am for an hour or so but went back to sleep until a more reasonable hour.

There was drama in Madrid as they didn’t want to let us get on the plane with the cats.  We ended up purchasing soft carriers and shoving them under the seats in front of us, which couldn’t have been wonderful for them but then again, it’s not wonderful for anyone to be stuck in one spot for an almost-10 hour flight and then another 5 hour flight. Cat or hoomin.  It was also great that they put us all over the plane, so Isak was in row 17 in the middle, Anja was in row 39 in the middle, I was in row 30 in the middle and B was in row 34 in the middle.  Which meant not only were we not sitting near each other, but for us to check on the kids meant we had to ask someone else to get out so we could get up.  Fortunately I had the most bubbly cheerleader-esque girl from Baton Rouge, LA sitting next to me who, every time I asked if I could get up, bounced out of her seat with the same excitement as being told she just won the lottery.  I didn’t quite know how to deal with all that enthusiasm.

Back to the present: tomorrow I try to get my driver’s license (if Wisconsin’s DMV will be helpful) and then we can pick up our car and start actively finding a place to live.  In the meantime, we spent the afternoon on the beach at Lake Washington where I roasted in the sun…how is it that we picked orders somewhere that we were looking forward to being cold and rainy, and it’s sunny and in the 80s every day?  And no A/C…it’s a bit ridiculous.

We’re glad to be back, and to have cell phones in the U.S.  Helloooo free calls from 7pm to 7am!

Because most of my readers (if I even have any left) are my close friends and family, pretty much everyone already knows without my having posted about it that we’re moving back to Washington where I am going to be stationed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.  It’s going to be a great career opportunity and I’m looking forward to getting started, but it’s a bit overwhelming to think about the pace my life is about to hit.  Going from Spain, land of mañana, to an aircraft carrier, land of…well…not land at all but rather nuclear-powered floating highly armed sovereign U.S. territory warship…need I say more?

As many people know, our stay here in Spain has not been quite what we expected it to be.  I’ve always said, and still maintain, that I would have loved Spain if we actually got to live in Spain.  Instead we lived on base, where all of our neighbors - fantastic as most of them have been - are American.  The base is all things American - American TV, American radio, American grocery stores, cars, coffee, language, culture.  And while I love my culture and am prouder than ever to be an American (living in another country can do that to a person), we came here with the hopes and expectations of being immersed in a new culture and we hoped to make friends and learn to speak Spanish well and appreciate everything the culture had to offer.

But I digress.  We’re leaving in 3 days, 13 hours and 11 minutes. 

The time snuck up on us a few weeks ago and I decided, rather firmly, that I was not leaving Spain without traveling more.  So 2 weekends ago a friend of mine and I left the kids at home (with B) and flew up to Barcelona where I soaked up the abundant sun, walked La Rambla and the Gothic Quarter, visited Gaudi’s architectural masterpieces, and, naturally, got my Visa check card number stolen.  Fortunately I put a stop to the payments to Renfe (the train), RyanAir and Vueling, lastminute.com travel agency, and various restaurants and hotels.

The crappy part about having your Visa check card number stolen when you’re moving is that you have nowhere reliable to send a replacement card to. And when you’ve shipped out your entire wallet with your debit card and remaining credit card (who does that?!), that puts you in a bit of a pickle financially.  Good thing I have a responsible spouse who does not do such silly things as ship a wallet out in his household goods.

Upon my return from Barcelona, I worked for 2 days and then B & I had our (10 years late) honeymoon - I took 4 days of leave and we drove our questionably reliable “Rota beater” to Sevilla and hopped a flight to Paris where we spent 3 magical days hitting all the major sights - Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, Arc du Triomphe, the Champs Elysses, the Musee Orsay, the Louvre, Versaille, Moulin Rouge, and even coffee at Amelie’s employer, Les Deux Moulins.  All finished with 300 steps up to the top of the Sacre Couer basilica to take in the spectacular view of Paris.  In between was stuffed with pain au chocolat, meringues, nutella-and-almond-filled crepes, cafe au lait, comte cheese, fabulous sandwiches, rich dinners, and copious amounts of red wine.

We got off the plane, drove back to the base where we picked up our kids, cleaned the house, slept for a few hours and then had a whirlwind of activity - we packed out our remaining household goods and put a “for sale” sign on our car.  On our way back from the office where I made the sign, the car battery died (naturally) and we had to buy a new battery, and while B was in the store buying the battery someone saw the sign and wanted the car.  In a half an hour we went from stressing about what to do with a car when we were leaving in 3 days to having sold the car and being ready to go.

All that’s left now is to pack and do some last-minute cleaning ’round the house.  And then it’s off to Everett, back to the cool and rainy weather that we actually really love.  I think I’ve had enough of this sun now.  I’m ready to be back in America.