Still on Home Leave

We've gone to Disney World and Universal's Islands of Adventure
We've seen family and friends
Said family and friends have met Coen, and some even met Simon
We've learned of a fun new game (Dominion) and taught it to family
We've eaten more great food (and we started to eat more meals in my brother-in-laws house):
Famous Daves (MN BBQ is not as good as TX BBQ)
[More] Jimmy John's
Papa Murphy's
Probably others that I can't think of right now
We went to the lake to spend a night at John's parent's house to pick up the kids
We've watched movies in my brother-in-law's home theater
We fish-sat
We puppy-sat (for about a day)
We've done dishes (BTW washing dishes by hands has proven to be very cathartic during Home Leave)
I've washed laundry (and not folded or put away, per tradition)

Once we're done with home leave I'll post more about it and how I feel about it, currently though, the outlook isn't great.

I was going to post pictures, but I can't seem to get the computer to read the card. :/ Hopefully John can get it to work.

My First Home Leave

So far we've...

Eaten at:

Celebration
Campuzano
Jimmy John's
Krispy Kreme (twice)
Mama's Daughter's Diner
Breadwinner's
Hard Eight
Quick Thai Bistro
Papa Murphy's a.k.a Cafe Moore's
Cafe Dunham's

and some insignificant places.

We've seen lots of friends, a few family members, and missed out on some sick family members. We've driven almost 2,000 in our brand new Mazda CX-9.

It's been fun, and it's been exhausting. Being stuck in a small room with all three kids is a challenge. We've said good bye to the littles, and prepared for my and Malachi's first trip to Disney and we take off early tomorrow for that.

I don't know how people keep up with blogs during home leave! It seems like an impossibility at this point.

Chaos

The BRU over at Jill's blog this week is about chaos. Check it out on Friday. My entry is a photo essay. I think you'll understand. 

What did they pack up?!

Crib parts and other random junk

My child's bedroom on a nutshell...or multiple boxes

They took the sheets with everything else!

Suitcase stuff in my closet

They hadn't finished here before their lunch break. 

kitchen is "organized"

Tonight John and I went through every inch of our kitchen and made three lists: UAB (air/fast-ish), suitcases, and get rid of. Anything that didn't make it on those lists is going HHE (ship/slow).

It's nice to have that done, to know what is going where. And that's the only room in the house that's completely organized. But upon thinking about our house, we've realized that we really don't have that much stuff. It feels like we do, because we have a full house. Most of the furniture is from the Embassy, though. We got rid of a ton of stuff at the garage sale, and still have more to get rid of.

We probably won't get close to our weight limit on this end.

But the shopping...

We're going to do a ton of shopping in the States. We might close up the gap in D.C. We also plan on shipping some stuff to ourselves in Manila.

I'm still a bit sad about leaving, but I'm getting really excited about the time we're going to spend in the States. And I'm excited to go to Manila. I really am.

We don't have sponsors assigned yet, that I know of, or a housing assignment but once we hear about those, I'll be even more excited.

I had a job interview tonight for a position in the Consular Section and I'm pretty excited about it. I'd be doing fingerprinting, which sounds like the exact amount of mental stress that I want the next two years: none.

I feel like I did really well, and I look forward to hearing back from them.

Our last CR vacation

The topic for the BRU  this week is vacations.

In February we went to Tamarindo for our third and last time. We dubbed it our favorite place in Costa Rica, and chose it as a good place to meet John's parents who flew into the Liberia airport.

It was fun, but a bit bittersweet knowing that it was our last trip there. We didn't get awesome photos from that trip unfortunately, but I'll share a few.

Simon climbed into Coen's bed

Yes they are...and they're amazing

A cold beer on a hot day

A cold lemonade on a hot day

Simon being awesome

Coen copying Simon

Insurance Fun

One thing I love about the Foreign Service...Insurance.

Now, if you're Jen you'll completely disagree. But I've had nothing but good experiences from the Foreign Service Benefit Plan.

I love the system of paying upfront and then sending in receipts to get reimbursed. I love not having medical bills to worry about. I wish I could do this in the States as well, but health care in the States is so expensive, I don't think it would work.

Health care costs in Costa Rica:

Pediatric Visit: $80
Physical Therapy Appointment (for baby): $34
Complete blood count (nurse friends help me here: Why is it called complete and then they need to order other things? It doesn't seem so complete to me.) and extra labs for pediatric neurologist: $87
Prenatal Exam: $70
Prenatal Ultrasound $50

Being able to call the Dr's on their cell phones at any time: free (and priceless)

I have to say, I really am going to miss the private health care system in Costa Rica.

Yard Sale and other random stuff

Off and on since I quit my job (I ended working on the 29th. It was a great day to have as the last day of work.), I've been organizing our place for the yard sale that's coming up. I gave away all of the maternity clothes already, and to the same person a bag full of baby stuff. But then there's the rest of the baby stuff, the clothes that I've grown out of/shrunk out of, the lotions that haven't been and never will be used, the bracelets and necklaces I've had since I was 15 and need to get rid of, and so...so much more. And this is just in the attic, my closet, bedroom, and bathroom. 

Every time I walk into Malachi's room and look at the toy closet and the toys all over the floor I walk right back out. That room scares me. 

On the school front: school this semester is hard! I'm enjoying the English class, but it's really challenging me. I am learning quite a bit from it and am happy to be doing so. 

Coen is waving, it's really cute. This morning, as soon as I walked in the door, he started waving at me. I love it. 

Malachi's been doing Tae Kwon Do in school, he loves it. If you see him this summer, be sure to ask to see some moves.

Simon is talking up a storm! Prepare yourselves family...

We leave Costa Rica in less than seven weeks. This is both good and bad. I'm excited for our journey in Manila, but I love my life here so much that I don't want to go. I'm so glad I feel this way, rather than the opposite. I fear the days when I hate where I live. 

I think I'll go check out the kitchen and see if there's anything to sell there.