DC is Amazing!

Just a quick update...

Work is awesome.  DC is awesome.  Life is awesome.  

Our orientation class had the honor of attending an event celebrating Amelia Earhart with remarks by Secretary Clinton (here) which was both powerful and energizing.  You can't see me in the video but I'm in row two :-)

We finally got our UAB shipment which means that we now have all of our clothes, shoes, pictures, toys for Thumper, and our printer.  However, living without all of it for the past month made us wonder if we really need all of the stuff we have...really, we thought about just refusing the shipment but figured we ought to give it a few days with our old stuff and see how it feels.  Thumper vetoed and we will be keeping all of his toys.

Our New Lives Have Begun

Pancho:

We're finally here in Arlington, VA, only a couple miles from the National Mall, and we LOVE it!  It was a long road trip in our little car with all of our pieces, but it was great to see the country.  We didn't have much time to stop and sight-see, but we were able to quickly explore Giltner, NE where my family immigrated from Germany, and Harrisonburg, VA, the home to Legs' friend MC and my uncle Walter.

There seems to be so much to do here, and the weather has been amazing for exploring.  I walked to the Marine Corps War Memorial with Thumper and Bambi the other day.  It was very impressive to see, but also sad to see all of the wars the Marines have taken part in and to think about how many people have lost their lives in our many wars.  Not far away from the War Memorial is the Arlington National Cemetery, which is even more surreal to quantify how many people have died serving our country.  There is a beautiful Carillon (sort of bell tower) gifted to the United States from the Netherlands for our involvement and support in World War II that plays music that can be heard at both the National Cemetery and the War Memorial.  Overall the experience there was sublime.

Thank you to all of our family for being so patient with us contacting everyone.  We are far more busy than we anticipated with the Foreign Service.  We've heard from several people that the pace slows down dramatically after A-100 training, but for now Legs and I are both very busy with classes, briefs, training, and entertaining our newly mobile Thumper.  Maybe he just needed a good week to think about crawling in the car before he could figure it out.  We will do our best to get in touch with everyone soon, but for now the blog and occasional phone calls/skype dates are the best we can do.

Lewisburg, WV

We made it to West Virginia and like it so much we have decided to stay!  Until Saturday at least...  It has proven harder than we thought to find reasonable pet friendly hotels in the Arlington area (one I found charges a $75 per day pet fee on top of a nearly $200 per night room rate!!) so we will just stay here until Saturday when will finish our trip and check in to our apartment.  Lewisburg won the national Coolest Small Town award in 2011 so it can't be a bad place to stay for a while!

Cool your jets until the weekend...we probably won't post for a bit.  I've got shopping to do!

The Last Time Zone

We made it to Louisville, KY tonight and have finally made it into the Eastern Standard Time zone!  We will stay in West Virginia tomorrow night and then finish our trip on Thursday.  We can't check into our apartment until Saturday so we will find a nearby hotel and rest up.  It is surreal to think that I am starting a new job on Monday.  I don't even have shoes yet!  Friday will definitely include some shopping :-)  Pancho will begrudgingly accompany me so he can search for a hat to replace his irreplaceable hat with a bottle opener on the bill (which he sadly lost).

We have been driving 6-8 hours per day and are getting tired.  We will be happy to unpack our things and get settled!  Just in time for daylight savings and the loss of our 4th hour on this trip!  Thumper's seems to be irritated by these alterations to his schedule...

In case you are worried, the weather is fine here in Kentucky and there are no current storm warnings.  We have also visited the FEMA ready.gov website to beef up our tornado preparedness.

Goodnight!

Nebraska II

Pancho:

When driving into the Kititas Valley from Yakima my grandmother would point out over the dashboard and say, "God's country."  One firm statement with no room for questions or comments.  I'm not religious, but I would definitely agree with her that it was a beautiful view, and thinking about it now brings back wonderful memories of growing up in what she would call "God's Country."  I'm quite certain that if she were in the car with us driving through Wyoming she would point out over the dashboard and say, "Hell."

As Legs has already informed everyone, we've made it to Omaha, Nebraska and it feels amazing to be out of the FREEEEEZING cold.  I got to meet Legs' 5-month old niece this afternoon and she is absolutely adorable.  She came into the world fighting for her life, but she had nothing but happiness and joy in her eyes today.  It was quite a treat to meet her on our road-trip, and her mother and grandmother even made me dinner :-)  It was great by the way.

Now that we're out of familiar territory and we've said all of our goodbye's I have started to realize how much I am going to miss everyone in the Northwest.  Legs, Thumper, and I have an amazing support system and we can't thank all of you enough for being who you are.

Nebraska

So happy to see Nebraska after the crazy weather in Wyoming!  There was snow throughout the state and it sure was cold!  The roads were dry and clear which was helpful until we hit the 50+ mph winds that blew the giant snow berms across the highway like a sand storm.  I cannot describe to you how weird (and scary) this was.  We also saw six consecutive signs that read "Severe wind gusts next 5 miles; hazardous conditions possible..." clearly they meant "next 30 miles."

Pancho and I realized that we don't know anyone from Wyoming and after driving through, concluded that not many people live there and those who do must not know what else is outside the state otherwise they would relocate.  Happy to be in flat and snow-free Nebraska and hoping snow is a thing of the past as we continue on.  Also happy that our hotel tonight offered us cookies and milk :-)

We are one day away from my cousin and sweet new niece!!

Road Trip!

Just a quick update from the road...

We started our trip across the country on Wednesday and after a lot of hard goodbyes and a very snowy mountain pass we stopped in Eastern Washington to see my 93 year old grandmother.  I have to say that was the hardest goodbye for me as it is possible that was the last time I will see her.  She looked as beautiful as ever and I so cherish the opportunity to tell her how much I love her.

We hit more snow and made it to Boise on Thursday...got room service and fell asleep fast!

Today we traveled through Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming.  Snow everywhere!  The roads are all clear but the mountains are covered.  We will share pictures soon.  South West Wyoming is beautiful and the scenery sure is changing from the familiar Pacific Northwest.

Thumper has been sick which has been pretty challenging but the last two days he has been doing much better...and sleeping much better!

We continue to watch the news each night and will be sure to monitor storm warnings as we drive through the Midwest.  The recent tornadoes and continued tornado warnings do not look like they will affect our safety although we may drive through some areas that experienced damages (hard to say from looking at the map now).

Nebraska tomorrow!

Legs