Hasta luego USA...

Time to get caught up.

Zoe with some of our stuff.

Well we've arrived and mobilizing the whole family was no small feat. The past few months were some of the most frustrating and stressful yet oddly exciting times that our little family has experienced. The fact that we all survived relatively unscathed is testament to the fact that we have an amazing support system of friends and family. I think everyone in our life played at least a small part in either keeping us sane or helping us with the heavy lifting (sometimes literally).

One of the bigger frustrations over the past few months was the condo. Despite our best efforts, as of our departure on September 8th, the place still hadn't sold and we hadn't found a tenant. The fate of 1300 Taylor Street #4 is now in the hands of the property manager. Hopefully they'll rent that puppy soon.

The other major downer was that we couldn't get Tootsie on our flights. It was a last minute scramble and we almost pulled it off. If we had TWO more days to play with we could have gotten her international health certificate endorsed by the USDA and her rabies vaccine would have been within the right timeframe and it would have been a go. We're now looking into flying her over solo and if that doesn't work she'll come back with Mike in December when he goes to DC for a training. We will get her here so we can continue to call this blog Travel Dog without too much guilt.

Our empty condo after pack-out.

One of the more exciting things was living through our first USG pack-out. It was like a SWAT team of master wrappers descended on us. Four guys showed up, spread out and started packing anything and everything they saw so fast that at this point I wouldn't be surprised if we find a used kitchen sponge packed in one of the boxes. The most stressful part of that day was when Mike's wallet went missing about 2 hours into the pack-out. At one point we were all just staring at each other contemplating the prospect of having to unpack each box to find his wallet. Thankfully upon one last check in the car, we found it under the front seat, PHEW!

Rosie, Chris, Brett, Jamie, Anna and Erin visiting us on the roof.

After the condo was emptied, we moved into a sweet pad at the Newseum Residences downtown. It was a great place for us to spend the last week or so of our time in DC. I highly recommend it to anybody else in temporary housing with the USG in DC because they will give you the government hotel rate for a 2 bedroom apt with a full kitchen. The building also had a decent gym (completely unused by us) and a great roof deck (definitely underutilized by us).

Grillmaster Grimland.

During our last week or so in town we tried to pack in as much time with friends as possible. I had a happy hour with Chemonics and USFS/IP colleagues at the 18th Street Lounge, we did a kiddie happy hour at The Reef with friends, and then Brian and Sara (Mike's Peace Corps friends) hosted an amazing farewell BBQ for us. They went completely overboard as is customary when Sara hosts anything. I think it was the first BBQ I had ever been to with Kobe beef on the grill. It was a total blast and a great send-off.

Grammy Jo and Pop at Dulles.

After the BBQ we pretty much packed up and headed to the airport. We were in for a bit of a surprise when the car to take us to the airport arrived. Despite telling the company that we needed the biggest vehicle they had, they sent a Town Car.  Um, 2 adults, 2 kids, 5 giant suitcases, 2 carseats and a pack and play ain't gonna fit in a Town Car. Luckily, the Manellas had planned to come to the airport to help with the kids and had plenty of room in their car for our bags. We were so glad they were there to help with the kids at the airport while Mike was at the ticket counter for at least 30 minutes getting Zoe and Zack's tickets re-issued. Always fun when you get to the ticket counter and your kids don't have tickets! There's really nothing to say about the flights because the kids were AWESOME!!! They both went to sleep after dinner and slept almost the whole way.

Settling in for the 9.5 hour flight from Dulles to Vienna.

Next post will be about us getting settled in. Hopefully I can stay on top of things better to keep these short and sweet.


Special shout outs:
The Delfs Family - For storing a whole bunch of our stuff in their basement for months as we pretended for prospective condo buyers that even though we were a family of four with a 72 lb dog in a 2 bedroom condo that we had no clutter.
Grammy Jo and Pop Manella - For all of their back and forth to DC to help babysit, transporting stuff from their basement back to us before we left, and also fostering Tootsie for a few weeks while we were showing the condo.
Grammy and Pop Stelling - For all of their back and forth to DC to help babysit and for providing Tootsie with a temporary home until we can finally get her over here!
Sara and Brian - For hosting an incredible going away BBQ, although this party also resulted in one ridiculously hungover husband... Thankfully none of those late night photos have surfaced.
Carlos and Heather - For being our sounding board about everything related to foreign service life with kids.

Zack reading the safety instructions for the Vienna - Pristina leg.