Home Again

So, all of that worrying and griping about the apartment being temporary and cold?  Actually, its really a very nice apartment.  Its a shame for y'all that I'm not posting any photos today, because as I sit at the table with my computer, I am looking out a plate glass door and into the private courtyard which is just lovely.  Its bright and green and fills the room with light.  Of course, the walls are unadorned and the furniture is all a yellowish tan.  But the folks at the embassy have provided us essentially the same furniture we had in Caracas, so it is familiarly bland - and that is absolutely fine.

The house woke up between 4 and 6:00 this morning.  Dave was able to give us a quick tour of the complex before heading to work, when we made a big breakfast and began a day and everyone facing jet lag in their own crazy way.  Annika was loopey, amusing, and entirely out of control.  Sophia was tearful and sad.  Lilly was very controlled, very happy and very quick to become extremely frustrated.  I felt exhausted.  My mind was awake but my body was so sleepy that all I really wanted to do was curl up in a chair and read.  Thankfully, I found a bag of coffee and a stovetop espresso pot in my luggage.  Curling up in a chair and reading with a latte brought me to the zombie status - still fairly alert, with a body still dead but somehow able to keep moving.  I drink coffee rarely enough that it feels like I have brand new batteries every time.  This morning, they were pretty slow batteries.

We all laid down for naps after lunch, and I woke up fully refreshed and feeling like a normal person again.  We will see how the others fair.

Enough about sleeping patterns and individual head space.  The real story is the long journey from St. Louis to Jakarta alone with 3 children.  I've got to say - my kids are amazing.  They traveled like pros, even though none of them has any memory of life in Asia or of long flights.  They watched movies and read through most of the over 15 hour flight to Hong Kong.  They grew frustrated when they tried to sleep, but they were alert when we landed and were helpful carrying our bags to baggage claim.

My amazing friend Kristen met us at baggage claim and scooted all of us and our luggage through customs to the hotel, where we checked into two rooms.  Lilly and I fell straight to sleep in one room, and Kristen babysat Sophia and Annika until around midnight in the other.  She is an amazing friend, and we are all so lucky that she was there.  Because of our early bedtime, Lilly and I opened up the breakfast buffet and slowly feasted there, eventually with Sophia, for about 3 hours.  It was a lovely way to begin a long day.  We spent the rest of our down time watching airplanes land from our room and playing in the warm hotel pool.

At about 1:30 we left the hotel and went to check in for our flight.  We had two carts full of luggage, everyone carried a backpack, and we still had Kristen to help us through the line and in through security.

So here is where the adventure began.

As I approached the check-in desk, about 2.5 hours before my plane was schedule to depart, I realized something awful.  The day before, at baggage claim, we had picked up all 8 of our checked bags.  But we had not picked up our 3 car seats, also checked.  Checking in for the next flight would be impossible without all of our luggage.  But worse - how would we find the car seats?

This began a rather hilarious chase of Kristen racing to the baggage office while I verified our seats at the desk.  Kristen racing back from the baggage office hallway, upon realization that she could not claim my bags without my passport or baggage receipts.  All 5 of us and all of the piles of our luggage racing through a maze of curiously tight hallways to find United's impressively hidden baggage office.  The baggage man conveying his deep annoyance with my having left my luggage behind, and choosing not to move very quickly.  Poor Kristen realizing that if she did not leave us within a few minutes, she would miss her next flight.  Poor Kristen promising to stay with us, go ahead and miss her flight, and deal with the consequences once we were under control.  My convincing Kristen that we were absolutely under control and she should race off to catch her flight - which she did.  The luggage man carrying our boosters back to us from behind customs.  And friends, this is where my kids really proved their strength.

Lilly pushed one cart overfull of luggage.  I pushed another.  Sophia pushed a stroller with bags hanging off of the back and Annika seated comfortably in the front.  And we ran from one end of the 1st floor to the other end of the 3rd floor of the Hong Kong Airport.

The Cathay Pacific folks very kindly rushed us to the front of the line, helped me to rearrange my bags so that they met the weight standards.  And then charged me an additional $420 because although their policy allows travelers originating in the U.S. to check 2 pieces of luggage for free, our original ticket was on United which only allows travelers 1 piece each.  They needed to follow United's rule and charge me again.  I almost cried.

But I didn't cry, and they finished checking us in.  Then they said Your flight will begin boarding at 3:35.  That is in 20 minutes.  Your gate is the furthest gate from this spot.  If you take the train and immigration does not take too long, you will reach your gate in 20 minutes.  We will have them load your luggage immediately.

In other words - Move as fast as your 8 little legs will carry you, because you are in real danger of missing your flight.

We raced to security, where we waited patiently in line with all of the others.
We raced to immigration, where we waited patiently in line with all of the others.  But thank goodness, we were traveling on Diplomatic Passports and the diplomat line was 10 times shorter than any others.
We raced to the train, where we waited patiently to get on.  And again waited patiently to disembark.

It always feels rather comical to me, like a scene from a movie, whenever I have to stand still in the middle of a hurry.  It seems as if I ought to be running in place, or somehow pushing the train forward rather than twiddling my thumbs and listening to Muzak.

When we got off of the train, we really did run all the way to our gate.  We made a made quick stop in the family bathroom and were some of the last people to board our flight.  I ordered a glass of wine and relaxed, because all of the hard parts were really over.

Okay, actually disembarking from the plane was hard, too.  Because little Annika fell fast asleep but I needed to carry my two bags.  A sweet man from the row behind us offered to carry her, but accepted carrying my luggage instead.  With three very blurry-eyed girls, we loaded 8 pieces of luggage and 3 children's car seats onto two luggage carts, pushed them through customs and then raced into Daddy's waiting arms.

I know - this story was way too long for a good blog post.  But it makes me feel good to share it.  Because although we had an adventurous time, we had no major problems and my kids really stepped up to the responsibility of traveling without Daddy.  They were amazing.  And really, there are very few pieces of that story which would have been easier with another grown up on board.

My kids are amazing.  My apartment is comfortable.  My kitchen and my closets are full of my things (or will be when I close the computer and unpack).

I am at peace.

The Best Laid Plans

Packing for this summer was a doozey.  On the last week of school, I tried to plan out our next 12 weeks and pack accordingly.  I packed well for that last week of school, so that's something.  The rest of the summer I've spent searching through Ziplok bags and suitcases pushed under beds to find some random item that I didn't plan to need until the next stop.  That penultimate stop, the stop in which we will still live out of suitcases, is our temporary housing in Jakarta.  I believe I packed pretty well for those weeks, too.  Just enough of the appropriate clothes for just enough occasions.  Just enough of the toys and games that a girl can spend hours on.  The soft new sheets and the shiny new lunch boxes were mail ordered, so that even though I have spent the entire summer digging through 600 pounds of luggage for whatever small item I need right now, we will feel comfortable in our apartment for a few weeks.

But fabulous news - we just received word that our air shipment is in country, and will be delivered to us next week.  Hip hip hooray!  Most of our toys, all of our clothes, and the vast majority of our kitchen tools will arrive the day after I do.  So much for planning ahead!

I planned out the girls' school far in advance, as well.  My research on elementary schools in Jakarta began and ended with one question:  where do most of the embassy families send their children?  In a large community, I feel comfortable using the Ask the Audience lifeline as a key part of my school research.  Beyond that, their school will be a key part of their community, as will the embassy.  The more those communities overlap, the sooner they feel at home.

I learned that most of the embassy kids attend the same international school, and that the school has a stellar and prestigious reputation.  I also learned that admission is not guaranteed, and that I ought to plan ahead and apply as quickly as possible.  I am able to plan ahead.  I sent in my family applications in January, and then bit my nails for the next few months.

Both of our older girls were eventually admitted, and have now been confirmed spots at the same campus.  This was such a relief, and we patted ourselves on the back for a tour well planned.

Until we started hearing from other embassy families, who have begun pulling their kids out of this same school.  The school is embroiled in a very ugly sex abuse scandal, and is apparently seeing protestors outside its gates.

I'll be honest.  This last bit of news is too heavy for me to digest.  We will move ahead with the blessings we have at this point - both of our girls secured places at a school and campus known for strong teachers and close community.  We will continue to pray for the best for each of them.  And we will be watching this entire scenario with much more scrutiny than I would prefer.

Accepting Responsibility

Its time I take responsibility for this year's Polar Vortex.

We enjoyed a perpetual spring in Venezuela until we left abruptly in October, when we were blessed with a beautiful Virginia fall.  I love fall, with its cozy drinks, sudden chills and feeling of new beginnings.  Once we learned that we would move to Indonesia this year, our family made a few more weather plans.

My girls made firm plans for heavy snow over the winter.  Mother Nature delivered in force!  So well did she follow through that our family became nervous.  We needed to drive away from Virginia on the last day of school - what if too many snow days pushed that last day back?  Lucky for us, Arlington received many big piles of snow but stayed firm on their last day of school.

Once the snow melted, we entered into a beautiful Virginia spring.  Seriously, guys - Virginia is beautiful.  We spent our weekends at softball games and soccer matches, and filled in the holes with bike rides and hikes.

 And we enjoyed our spring so much that we just made plans for it to stick around.  We drove to the Midwest in the middle of June, where normally we would spend the next 6 weeks as sweaty, sticky messes.  July in St. Louis offers plenty of sunshine and humidity, but we put in our request for a long spring.  So we have seen very little pooltime this summer, and have suffered through our ice-cream runs in chilly weather.

But it seems our luck has run out.  In this, our last week in the states, the temperatures are supposed to hit the upper 90s.  Its okay - one week of full-on Midwestern summer will do our bodies good.

The Target Pile-Up

I've reached the point in my summer where my hoarding begins.  Up until now, I was keeping a very organized shopping list.  A simple list on my phone of things I will want to bring along in my luggage.  I would cross things off as I realized they're unnecessary, or as I learned they're available in Indonesia.  I would add things as I thought of them.  It was all very organized, very civilized, and very normal.

So, this afternoon, with my shopping list in my phone and my 10% off coupon in my wallet, I headed off to Target.  And the trip began in a very civilized fashion.  I walked through the pharmacy aisles with my list, only picking up a few months worth of floss picks and a couple bottles of face cream.'

But toward the end of the list, I reached the vague subjects.  And that's when the crazy set in.

Snacks

Okay, so that's not a great line item on a well organized shopping list anyway.  On any given hungry afternoon, snacks could lead to some crazy choices.  But on the last Target run for the coming year, snacks made my head spin.  What will we want to eat when we've missed the food cart and we're hungry and everyone else is sleeping on the airplane?  What will help Annika go back to sleep when she wakes up hungry in the middle of the first night?  What will calm the kids when they're craving normalcy?  What will not smash or leak in my carry-on bag?  How many of these can I cram into my suitcases?

Movies

Yeah, that was another nonsense line item.  These broad categories really did me in.  How many movies will we want to watch in those first few weeks before we figure out how to get movies in Indonesia?  How much is a movie going to be worth to me in Indonesia?  Should I limit myself to the $5 movies, or will they be worth more than that to me within a few months?

Baking Items  They'll have flour in Indonesia, so that's a relief.  But how many chocolate chips should I reasonably bring along to our new house?  What about vanilla?  Does hand carrying half a suitcase of vanilla make me crazy?

School Supplies  By this point, I was way off the list.  I was just roaming down every aisle with a crazed look on my face, pulling my hair in wild directions and mumbling to myself.  I reached the big, bright, wildly discounted school supply section and stopped in my tracks.  I have no idea what I need in here.  The school hasn't given me a supply list - that means I don't need to bring anything... I hope.  So what school supplies will we want in our house for the next year?  Crayons and markers, that goes without saying.  What about pencils?  We always seem to have a million pencils floating around the house, so no to the pencils.  But they are always missing erasers, so I'd better buy a big pack of erasers.  And they're never sharpened, but the sharpeners never seem to work, or to be found, so I'd better grab a handful of sharpeners, too.  And come to think of it, I'm pretty sure those millions of pencils are all packed into our sea shipment.  So how many pencils will we need for the next 2 months?  Wait... I don't think I grabbed enough granola bars.

Out of Vacation and Into Moving

This summer continues to be a time of transition.  During the last week of school, we packed up the house and sent our things on their way to Indonesia.  We picked up the girls on that last Friday,  crammed them into the car alongside everything we would need for the next three months, and headed west.

We stopped in West Virginia for a day of family relaxation before the whirlwind summer began.  There was rain hiking, skinny dipping in a quiet creek, authentic Venezuelan food and an indoor swimming pool before we set out west again.

We spent Movie Night in the car that weekend, planning to stop for pizza in Indiana and to watch a movie on an iPad crossing Illinois.  The movie did not download and we found zero pizza places in all of southern Indiana.  We crossed the Mississippi River after finally finding a small town pizzeria many miles off the highway, and watching old home movies on the computer.

From that point on, the summer has been non-stop.  My entire family gathered in St. Louis for a family photo session with a real photographer (the photos are stunning - worth every penny) and plenty of business and silliness.  Dave's entire family gathered in Chicago for loads of parties and plenty of late nights. 

After an exhausting two weeks of fabulous family time, we saw Dave off at the airport and a new stage of life began.  Dave is now in Jakarta, carving out his new normal.  The girls and I are back in St Louis for a few weeks of simple American summer.  They'll begin daycamps tomorrow and spend their afternoons reading and pool hopping.  The next two weeks promise to be just as relaxing as the past few weeks were exhausting - and its about time.

Dave's first few days in Jakarta, we benefited from jet lag and found plenty of times to talk to him.  Now that he is sleeping in regularly scheduled intervals and has begun work in earnest, we're having a harder time touching base with him.  FaceTime has proven invaluable, though.  Yesterday, he had lunch with our future neighbors and messaged us photos of the neighborhood, the house, the yard and the pool.  The girls were fascinated.

The photos provided some needed comfort to me.  Although this summer has been lovely, and although I am excited about Jakarta, the closer we get to the move date the more my apprehension builds.  I don't mind living out of a suitcase, but this was a difficult trip to pack for.  I keep finding myself needing something that I am quite sure I packed... but with no idea where I packed it.  And in my head, the end of these transitions was nearing.  Dave moved into temporary housing, but we hoped to be there only for a few weeks.  In that temporary mindset, I told myself and the girls that we would live in an hotel when we first arrive in Jakarta and have a few exciting weeks of vacation in our new city.  I was not fooling myself here - we will have 2 weeks between our arrival and the start of school, and we will live near the embassy but far from our home.  A perfect time to explore what will be a foreign neighborhood, and to have lunch with Daddy and get to know the embassy and their staff.

The plan sticks, but the hotel concept hasn't really played out.  Dave has begun to settle into our temporary digs, and has learned that we will likely stay there until the end of September.  The apartment is large, and I'm sure it will be very nice when someone moves in.  But with its gatherings of furniture and cold, blank white walls it looks very sterile, leaving Dave feeling lonely and my hotel conception stuck in the dust.  Lucky for me, I have another two and a half weeks to build a new conception of our next stage in life.  And Dave has that same amount of time to leave his things strewn about the apartment to give it a warm, lived in feel.

I mentioned before that he sent photo that provided comfort.  After a FaceTime tour of our apartment, I felt pretty nervous about this move.  But after the photo tour of our eventual neighborhood, I'm feeling much better.  It looks lovely!  A preschool with a strong reputation is right outside our complex, as well as a bright supermarket and a colorful flower stand.  The house looks comfortable and the neighborhood looks friendly, with swings and a basketball hoop clearly meant to be shared.

Sophia sat down with a workbook on moving this afternoon.  One page asked what worries you about your move?  She looked stuck for quite a while.  Here is what she came up with:

I'm sorta worried about going on the plane.  because if we landed on water, we'd have to leave our things on the plane and jump out.

I'm happy she is feeling good.  And her fear illustrates how meaningless my fear is as well.