Wednesday, December 25, 2013

And the winner is........

.......Washington D.C.! 

Yes, after 7 years of being away, we are moving back to D.C.  Congratulations go to my husband for getting the family practice residency he wanted at Fort Belvoir and for returning us back to the land of Carter Barron Shakespeare, Screen on the Green, the Smithsonian, great restaurants not to mention family and friends. We'll be leaving the west coast reluctantly having had a great year of visits from Rick's family members (some twice!), great skiing, food, wine and more. Would like to say a special thanks to my friend TC and her family David, Ben and Emma who rescued me/us a few times and hosted HJ and I both Thanksgivings at their fabulous Tahoe house, while Rick was deployed. I'm so glad I got to spend time with you guys! And how lucky we were to have some visits with friends Carter in LA and Elizabeth Higgins and her son who happened to be spring breaking in southern California from Oregon the same time we were (LEGOLAND was a little different than Florida in College, huh Liz?!?)  Northern California has been good to us...................

"NEXT!" 

(sadly, this is not our last stop on the military train so stay tuned for news for future moves to possibly more exotic European-type basis you may want to visit.........)
Thanks for tuning in..........hope to see you back east!

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

A Year in Review

Well this is embarrassing.....

It's been almost a year since I wrote anything, so I'll try to give the highlights of what we've been doing the last year before moving onto, well,  the next move.....

So one year later and we're comfortably settled back into American culture. I'm still making rice for Hannah Jane's school lunch (turns out 3 years of having rice with your lunch at school is a hard habit to break--still her favorite), but I'm able to send a plain ol' pb&j sometimes as well (though I admit at least half of it comes back still). Hannah Jane still asks if we can go back to Japan sometime, but this has changed somewhat significantly from "when are we going back?"  She doesn't really know  where to say home is because she now realizes Japan is not her "home", but also is aware that we will be leaving our current home shortly. Compounding this was being kicked out of our  house in June when the owners decided to sell it! She survived it pretty well though -- we landed in a bigger house, large enough to do gymnastics in, with a neighborhood park right across the street.


 And helping to ease the pain of having to move just a year after settling in was taking a big trip (planned months earlier) just days after changing houses.....Disney!

First, we headed for a 7 day Disney Eastern Caribbean Cruise before heading to the Magic Kingdom. Nothing makes having to leave behind a room you painted yourself (purple!) like a meeting your favorite Disney princesses and having dinner in your tiara and a different princess dress every night.



She had some practice though, when for her 6th birthday in March she had a dress-up tea party complete with princess party crowns and tea pot birthday cake!




In September, we took a trip to Yosemite.................




Then, in early October we said goodbye to Rick who deployed to Cyprus again, and where he is still. We've done OK though. Halloween was thoroughly enjoyable as we toured our new neighborhood on our broom and "glamorous witch" costume!

 

 

 



In October too, we started rehearsal for the Nutcracker Ballet -- we're a "Bon Bon"! No pictures yet in costume, but stay tuned, and I may manage to get some up before next Christmas.

For Thanksgiving, our friends the Callicotts invited us (rescued us!) to their fabulous Lake Tahoe house to spend the holiday. There we had a lovely day cooking casually (with wine and cheese of course) and hiking in the north Tahoe woods near their house. That Saturday we all took a trip on "The Polar Express" from Carson City  to ....the North Pole, of course! (until we pulled in and saw all the "elves" and Christmas tree,  I had no idea you could reach the North Pole from the state of Nevada).

And now we're back home, gearing up for Christmas and waiting for Rick to return from deployment. By the time he lands back in Sacramento on December 19th, he should have heard something on where we'll be heading in May. Will try to update here.....BEFORE May!

In the meantime, you can find us at 615 Danby Lane, Lincoln, CA 95648....you have 6 months to visit!  Thanks for tuning in, and Merry Christmas!