Good things come to those who wait...

The plane, the truck, and the diplomatic visas all came.  The snow was cleared, the sun was shining, and thinking-ahead-Legs brought plenty of cookies for an inter-country drive.  Pancho's brother hit a skunk on the way to get us the morning we moved but aside from the lingering smell, everything went as planned!

So here we are about a month and a half later still trying to get our heads on straight.  No matter what anyone ever tells you, moving to another country is hard work, even if it's just Canada!  There are very few posts in the Foreign Service that don't provide housing and this is one of them so our first monster task was to find a place to live.  The Vancouver rental market moves fast (as in people fighting to turn in rental applications with deposit checks in hand at the first showing of a unit) and we lost a few places due to the additional processes required by the Consulate but then we found a perfect condo, in a perfect location, with a perfect landlord who was willing to wait.

We moved two weeks ago in and slept on a blow-up mattress before the IKEA beds we ordered arrived and hopefully at the end of this week our shipment from India will bring us our couch, plates, bed sheets, pans, and everything else we need to make life work.  We have settled into our routines and are starting to love life in the city more each day.

This experience has been incredible both professionally and personally.  The professional culture of this post is completely different from what I've experienced thus far and the work I am doing here is the reason we joined the Foreign Service.  I feel passionate again about my career and supported by amazing leadership--levels of support equal to what I felt from leadership at FEMA and which I knew I'd be lucky to find again.  The bigger question is whether or not it is realistic to find subsequent assignments with a similar professional culture.  We found out that I will bid mid-level for our third tour which means that we will not have another directed assignment.  A group of Career Development Officers direct entry-level generalists to their first two posts and after that, officers apply for positions where they are interested in serving.  There is still a bid list that is released when it is our group's turn to bid but we get to put in applications and lobby for jobs we want in places we'd like to go.  This new process will help us end up in a place that is best for our family at this point in our lives and allow me to plan my career in order to progress in the organization.  We still have another year here before our bid list is released so for now it's time to just live in the moment and enjoy Vancouver.

Pancho, Thumper, and Flipper are all doing great.  Thumper recently spent his nap time wadding up toilet paper and stuffing it up his nose until it started to bleed a little and he escaped his room to get more tissue.  Pancho found him and had to use tweezers to get all the tissue out of his nose. Start of a new nose stuffing phase?  I sincerely hope not.

Flipper is close to rolling over and has developed quite the personality.  He prefers to be carried everywhere and makes it very clear when he is the slightest bit uncomfortable.  He has also started to giggle which makes us all smile.

Pancho is officially our Relocation Support Specialist and is the most amazing husband and father I could ever have imagined.  He even showed up outside my work with fresh flowers on Valentines Day and took me ice skating while Hippie Grandma was in town.

We just got back from our first hike and our first suspension bridge.  We went to the lesser-known but free Lee Canyon suspension bridge and hiked around some beautiful waterfalls.  The weather has been pretty rainy but spring is definitely here and the flowers are starting to bud!  Until next time...

Twin Falls at Lee Canyon

West End near Stanley Park

There's water everywhere in Vancouver!

Even the rocks are happy

The Waiting Game..or 'Just In Time' Traveling?

Thumper and I (Legs) went to the library tonight and the first book he picked was so incredibly appropriate, I just had to blog and write my own version.

Oh The Places You'll Go
Dr. Seuss

"You can get so confused
that you'll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place...

...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting."

We have done more waiting in the last three months than I can remember doing in the last few years! After hours and hours of time spent getting things "in order," we still find ourselves waiting for things out of our control. On the eve of our supposed departure. So, I add this, Dr. Seuss:

Waiting for diplomatic visas to be done
Or a UPS plane to come
Or a delivery truck to load
Or the icy cold snow to be cleared from the road
Or housing to go through
Or to finally stop moving to a place that is new.
We are just waiting.

The few boxes we have are packed but we don't have our passports--they are en route from DC with our diplomatic visas. UPS overnight to arrive tomorrow, customer pick-up so we can get them quicker. Our housing can't be reserved until we have our visas in hand. Brother in-law is ready to help us move but only has the weekend. Post will change the reservation to Monday if the visas aren't here by noon tomorrow, but then we will have to leave all our things behind until someone can help. Maybe I can still fit the one pair of heels I found at Fred Meyer just today (from a selection of eight size nine women's shoes) in our car next to the two suits I bought the day we drove two hours to a mall only to have the trip cut short by the need to complete more *urgent* paperwork. Thanks to a Kinkos' printer and the copy shop's scanner.

So, if the winter storms across the nation don't affect the arrival of our visas, if post can change our housing to take us Friday or Saturday, and if there are no problems between, then we are moving tomorrow morning. But we are tired of waiting and wandering and I can't put my clothes in my suitcase yet for the sole reason that I like how it feels to have them hung in a closet and not knowing if we are leaving tomorrow, or next week, or never, makes me only a little crazy.

This is my rant. I hope to write from Vancouver tomorrow. And will eat more cookies and stare at my closet of clothes hanging nicely in hangers if our passports don't come.

Three months and a baby later

I thought our last blog post gave some meaning to the blog name, Drifting World Citizens, but it turns out the last three months have the cross-country road trip beat!

First I should finish where I left off in October. We left New Mexico the morning of the hot air balloon festival in Albuquerque and got to see hundreds of balloons scatter as the sun came up. We drove on to Arizona and headed south through an amazing mountain pass where we stopped just in time for Thumper to throw up all over Pancho! The drive ended at my good friend's home surrounded by cactus and wild horses. It was so fun to see such a welcoming face. After Coolidge, AZ we headed up to Kingman for a night of rest before our big Grand Canyon adventure!

Hot Air Balloon Festival
Albuquerque, NM

Beautiful pass through AZ

Real Cactus!!
Southern AZ

The Federal government, and thereby the national park at the Grand Canyon, was still shut down so we found our way to the Hualapai Indian Reservation and braved unseasonably cold weather to walk along the southern rim of the Grand Canyon. It was on my bucket list for a reason and we were not disappointed.

No caption necessary.  Amazing.

From the a Grand Canyon we traveled south again before heading north up to the Pacific Northwest for the last leg of our journey. We stopped to see good friends at Camp Pendleton and family outside of Oakland. I won Thumper a purple Halloween bear from a claw machine in a Denny's somewhere between California and Oregon, now his favorite long past the holiday, and we stayed with more family in Oregon. By this time Thumper and Pancho had had enough road trip...while pregnant Legs could have kept going for days! Thumper asked over and over when he could get out of the car and we told him once we get to Washington he could get out. The second we announced we had crossed the Columbia River, he yelled from the back seat, I can get out now!!! I want to get out!!

San Clemente, CA

Washington State at last!

We stopped to surprise my mother in Eastern Washington and then drove to our *final* destination. I can't begin to describe the relief we felt coming home. The last year has been a hard one for us and driving across open land with no timeline to arrive in the arms of friends and family has been healing in more ways than one.

Columbia River

Home.

Now, on to what we have been doing since October! We settled in for about a week and then took a bunch of small trips to visit more friends and family. Legs found a daytime water aerobics class full of old ladies who were beyond excited for baby. Thumper played in parks and was spoiled by many a grandparent. Pancho did a 21 mile day hike in trail shoes and too much snow at the Enchantment Lakes and hiked locally at least twice per week. We enjoyed the time we had just as a family of three until December 17th when Flipper made us an even happier family of four!

Flipper, you might ask? Yes. Big Foot sounds too mean although it is more accurate. Flipper was born with giant feet that extend into the text on his commemorative footprint certificate. He moves them just as much as Thumper did but has a hard time fitting into his age appropriate outfits because his feet are so long.

In the past few weeks we have stayed somewhere new every four days and after three months of 'drifting,' we cannot wait to settle into our temporary housing in Vancouver. Yes, temporary. It saves us from having to line up housing prior to our arrival and heck, three months in one place sounds like heaven even if we do have to move again at the end of it.

So, we live up to our blog name and have come full circle from where we left off two years ago. I just celebrated my oh-shit-I-turn-30-next-year birthday but I've got high hopes for 29. Our experiences this past year have made our little family stronger than ever and through some trial and error, we know what our boundaries are as they relate to work and life. What a ride!

Catfish, Hushpuppies, and Enchiladas--or how I can't find the ipad charger.

My intention was to blog each morning...but then the ipad battery died and I keep leaving the charger in a bag in the car at night!

Today we are in New Mexico, headed to Arizona.  Yesterday we stayed in Amarillo, TX, the day before in Oklahoma after driving through Arkansas.  I (Legs), tried catfish for the first time and had some amazing hushpuppies in Oklahoma (I thought of you Dad...they even offered me collard greens but I just couldn't take it that far).  I have been waiting to eat enchiladas until we hit Texas but our hotel in Amarillo had a nice dinner so we missed our chance in TX and made up for it in New Mexico.  However, they sent us to the best 'New Mexican' restaurant rather than the best 'Mexican' restaurant and it wasn't quite what I was looking for.  It was tasty, but it was definitely American-Mexican food.  Thumper figured out that we order things from the server and each time she came by our table he'd smile really big and say, "I want more water.  I want more milk."  We are still working on manners :-)

Thumper is also learning how to get what he wants...quickly.  When he feels he has been in the car long enough he will start by saying, "Not going in car too long mama?" and when I tell him that we have a few more hours to go he says, "I need a diaper change mama...I go poop mama" and then starts screaming until we pull over to discover that he just wanted to get out of the car.  He has been a trooper though and some days are a little better than others.  He has his own semi truck to play with and he really likes watching all the big rigs go by.  We stop at Pilot gas stations so he can stretch his legs and watch the trucks in the parking lot.  Depending on his mood, he cries when one he really likes gets back on the road, it's very sweet.

It has been amazing driving through the country.  The days can be long with a toddler, a dog, and a pregnant lady...but Pancho still manages to rub my back at night and we both enjoy talking all day as we drive through the open spaces we've been dreaming about.  So far, we feel like we could live in Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, or Hendersonville, NC---although, the further West we get the more at home we feel.

Tonight we will stay outside of Phoenix with an old college friend of mine who we can't wait to see!  We will stop for lunch with Pancho's Marine Corps buddy and his wife and then we are off to visit the Grand Canyon.  Don't think the government shutdown will stop us, we have a plan.  The Grand Canyon is not all National Park land, in fact, a good portion is on Native American land which is not closed.  SO, we are going to the Hualapai reservation to visit the Grand Canyon West and will spend two nights in the area so we can have a full day to take in nature and see our second of many wonders of the world (remember or trip to the Taj Mahal this spring)!

After the Grand Canyon we are off to Southern California to see the ocean (a wonder of the world in my opinion--I've been day dreaming of the ocean for almost two years now) and Pancho's best friend from High School.  They have a big family of their own and are still making space for our crew to stay the night.  We are so grateful to have such wonderful friends!

Once we hit the westernmost states we will head North...not quite sure where we will be stopping along the way other than my wonderful cousin's house near Sacramento.  Just about one more week of road trip before we get to settle back into small town life and get ready for another baby!

As Pancho says, 'happy travels!'

Road Trip!

We left DC and somehow managed to fit everything in our car for our next big adventure! On day one we made it to North Carolina and stayed with my wonderful aunt and uncle who welcomed our crew with open arms and BBQ. We got to visit and enjoy coffee in rocking chairs on the porch looking out at trees and listening to crickets. Thumper ran free in the grass and played with every new toy he could find--he even got to pick one out to take with on the trip. It was so nice to see family, the first family we have seen in nine months, and we are grateful for their love and extreme hospitality! The next day we headed onward to Tennessee and stopped a little before Nashville. We gained an hour from Central time and tried to visit a state park (yes, those are still open!), but we got there three minutes before closing time and had to settle for subway and TV. The countryside here is beautiful and we saw the most amazing sunset over the corn fields last night.

In other news, I got in to see a doctor before we left DC and everything is going well! We will do a growth scan once we get settled in WA and I continue to monitor my blood sugars. It was a very reassuring visit and I was happy to be asked those follow up questions when I mentioned frequent Braxton hicks and lower back pain...in India I was told to lift with my knees, not my back, instead of say, trying to rule out pre-term labor :)

Pancho is still hoping to run an ultra marathon this fall (anything bigger than 26.2miles) and has been running each morning we have been back...which gives me time to blog before Thumper opens his eyes! Maybe this trip will be better documented than the last...stay tuned!

Back in the US

So, it has been a while and a whole lot has happened!  Due to medical reasons we left Hyderabad for good. It was a very hard decision and a long and stressful process once we made the decision. With no formal onward assignment, they landed us in DC for a few weeks before we head home and start maternity leave. We don't know where we are going next but are looking forward to some time to just be a family and get the medical care we need. The trip home was a grand 42 hours complete with pet complications but we made it! There were many things we were looking forward to in the US (and we have surely been taking advantage of since our return) but we have found ourselves unexpectedly dealing with reverse culture shock. It is neither good nor bad but it leaves me, legs, feeling a little lost in the world.

We decided to buy a car and road trip home--this time we will go South. I don't think anyone, in any culture, enjoys the car buying process! We survived and came out with a Subaru that looks just like our old Hyundai but with four doors; the Hyundai we drove from West to East, along the Northern route, when we started this adventure almost two years ago. I've had a few breakdowns since being back, for a variety of reasons--mostly that we have been struggling for a few months now and I just keep getting more pregnant which doesn't make any of it easier to deal with--and Pancho bought me a prenatal massage, took me and Thumper to a French bistro for lunch, and went with me to pick out a few new fall sweaters. I sure am lucky.

I am hoping to see a doctor before we start our road trip but not having an address, state of residence, onward assignment, or actual medical records from India, it is challenging to set these things up!  We aren't sure when we are going to start our trip but hopefully it will be this week...pending the government shutdown decision.

Thumper is a whole new little boy being able to run free in the grass, ride the metro, and go outside without being touched or photographed. He gets excited each time an airplane goes by and keeps asking to walk to the local fire station. It looks like a trip to Gravelly Point Park is in order this evening!

Making a Babies R Us registry again and trying to decide on a color of Ergo baby carrier makes me happy in the short term and seeing the rest of the country with just my little family in our new car promises to be healing. The Grand Canyon is on my bucket list!

India, it's not you, it's me...

This post has been a long time coming.  No, we are not breaking up with India.  In fact, we are apologizing and starting a fresh relationship.

See, the truth is, while India has definitely been an adjustment, the problem isn't the country or the people.  I, legs, have realized that there are other factors about my job that have really affected our morale at post.  Recognizing that the organizational culture might or might not fit our family's needs has been very hard--particularly because of how much time and effort I put in to get here.  It doesn't mean that we want to leave, it just means that we are finding our selves particularly introspective trying to identify what is important to us right now and how we can get our needs met while pursuing this career.  Either way, in the end, it's not you, India, it's me and I'm sorry.

India is different but it is truly incredible.  Once you find your place in Hyderabad the city becomes that much more familiar.  I drive just about anywhere now and that freedom has been huge for us.  Yesterday, we ran errands all over the city and it was *almost* like any other weekend in the States.  I posted a while back about our relationship with our driver and yesterday he invited us to spend a very special holiday with his joint family in their home.  It was that much more special for us after really starting over with India.  Again, we are reminded why we wanted to live this life despite the challenges.  The only question in the next few years is whether or not the culture of the agency is a good fit for us.  But isn't that the question everywhere we work?

Mehindi done at the Eid festival by our friend's nieces...I was surrounded by women, all of us sitting on the floor in saris or kurtas, little kids watching intently as the girls did both of my hands...lots of giggling...amazing.