It’s time to unfreeze time. We’ve been on vacation, the days have been ticking by, and suddenly, Josh starts his new job tomorrow. We’ve eaten a year’s worth of bacon and berries, consumed the best Mexican food we can find, and indulged in 1 pump salted caramel cold brew coffees every other day.
And now summer is coming to an end. The kids have one more week in CA and less than 2 weeks from now Josh and I will be in back in Abu Dhabi, starting over from square 2. Since the kids are already enrolled in school and the animals are in-country, it’s not quite back to square one. And we have a church home and I still have my job . . . maybe we’ll call it square 3? But there’s new, unexpected work ahead of us, like figuring out which health insurance plan we need to purchase and setting up retirement account options and other new-to-us adult things that are part of getting a regular job. Choices?! What are those and what do we do with them? We’re not used to having options.
Today was our farewell to Calvin for another year and the first of many “see you next summer!” goodbyes.
I didn’t get to see this kid nearly enough, but it was enough because he’s busy doing great things. He’s caring for and leading kids from 4th grade up through High School, one week at a time. Sharing, guiding, teaching, and modeling a Christ-centered life is all I could hope for for him. I’d give up all my time to see him succeed in this way, but I’m hoping that someday soon he’ll be able to take a break and recharge with our family.
I’ve started packing and finding room in our luggage for the things we are taking back to AD. It’s not much because we don’t have a house to stock, but Camille inherited a fab stash of hand me down clothes and I bought 5 or 6 birthday gifts to keep in reserve for the inevitable flood of 3rd grade birthday parties that she will be invited to as soon as school starts. That takes up 1 suitcase. Add in a year’s supply of Good Day Chocolates, extra school uniform tops and bottoms, my stock of Motrin liquid-gels, Dr. Bronner’s toothpaste, and other items off of my running list titled Items to buy in America (like Costco saran wrap!) and I might have to offload some almost outgrown clothes to the nearest Goodwill to have enough room.
You can laugh, but this saran wrap is life changing. My first box was given to me by a neighbor in Oman almost 7 years ago and I will never use another brand as long as Kirkland keeps making this. It eliminates all of the wrestling, uneven tearing, and aggravation because of the ingenious built in slide-cutter. I don’t even use plastic wrap that often, but when I need it, it works perfectly and that’s enough for it to win a spot in the limited luggage space lottery.
This last week in CA I get to enjoy spending time with two of my sisters as our kids play together from the time they wake up until the time they fall asleep #cousinlove and soak up as much of America as I can (which really means sit in the sunshine and knit while sipping Starbucks, amen).
Happy first day of work Josh! I can’t wait to hear about your Texas adventures. I knew from the moment we met that you had grand plans, but I never thought they’d bring us here. It’s crazy to think that we’ve made it through the all the unknown and tomorrow it starts to become known.
The best part of our beach vacation was being right on the sand. A few steps from our cottage door brought waves lapping at our toes. And the heat wave the week before made the water enjoyable all day and into the evening. (Yes, it was even warm enough for me.)
Riding waves on day one and sticking close to shore.
By day 2 and beyond Camille was confident enough to hang with her brothers and cousins. We had a few gray days, but it was still warm all week.
Wake up, eat, go to the beach, body surf, boogie board, dig in the sand, eat, and bed. Repeat.
riding tandem — one catches a wave and the other jumps on as they head toward shore
buried up to his neck
So I write to distract myself from my thoughts. I’m not anxious, just uncomfortable — a bit unsettled in my own skin. Of course I could take it now, but there’s only 20 minutes until we land and I don’t really need it (and thus, the circle continues). I do roll my eyes at myself. Especially since “taking it” means I bite one of my 1/2 mg tablets into thirds or halves, depending on how they break apart under my front teeth. Ooh, I should get a few more of those before I go back. I think I got 10 a year ago and still have 7, but … if I can barely get Zoloft in UAE, I’m probably not going to be able to get clonazapam.
Last week we were at an Air B&B in San Clemente, but yesterday we moved over to the beach cottages on base. It was a Herculean effort to reserve them: only by phone, and 12 weeks from the date we want to check in, but after a week of daily calling right at 7pm we managed to grab 2 cottages for the week. It was like trying to buy concert tickets, call, call, call starting at 6:55 — get the answering machine, try again and then hope we were one of the first on hold once the phones opened. Thankfully both Josh and I had phones with international minutes and we would both dial until one of us got through.
Met favorite footballer in the San Jose airport when the LA Galaxy team happened to be flying out at the same time as us (Zlatan Ibrahimović).
Celebrated Camille’s 8th birthday with a candy coated cake (and dark chocolate ganache filling . . . I still dream of that cake).
Made many visits to Trader Joe’s. It’s as if they knew we were coming.
Shared sleepovers and adventures with the cousins.
Set out on foot to eat all of our local favorites: Mexican, bacon, and coffee (though not all at the same time).
Celebrated the 4th of July with this hopping sprite who cheered for each explosion of light and declared that the show was put on “just for me!”