Hmmm, where do I start? It hasn’t been an easy week for us in spite of how it looks externally. We’re staying in a beautiful hotel, kid free, but WOW our stress levels are high. There’s still so many details that are unknown — like how much money we will actually have coming in each month, figuring out why the health insurance approval stalled out, which is holding up Josh’s Emirates ID, which is keeping us from moving into a place, and hey wait, is someone working on getting the money sent to us to pay for our rent when all of that finally does come through?
My job is going great and it’s been a seamless transition back to school, but on Josh’s side he keeps hitting one hurdle after another. All administrative, all stressful. He’s trying to focus on learning and doing his job, but ending up having to babysit (and pester) the people who should be doing their job of getting him set up within the company. Someone warned us that the bureaucracy didn’t end when we left the military and we’re unfortunately finding that to be true. Thankfully there are a few bright stars that have been lifesavers, but all in all, we’re worn down.
There have been specific stresses that have popped up this week, but I’m being vague intentionally. Let me just say, when your husband starts threatening, “if Toby replies with anything other than ‘OK, I’ll take care of that,’ — I’m out!” we have reached nervous breakdown territory. I’m no longer fearing that I will have to pack my suitcase and start sourcing plane tickets back to the US, but it was a tense 12 hours.
In this case, God provided a solution and we didn’t have to rely on Toby to take care of it. Thank God! Maybe when it’s not so raw I’ll feel free to spill details, but it’s still too fresh to relive it in words (unless you want to message me to get the inside story).
Moving on to people who are having a great week — the kids. They are living it up in DC with the grandparents. 
A White House tour
Watching the Marine parade at 8th and I
hiking all over DC to see the sights — Natural History museum, National Archives, the Capitol, and more.
and there’s always time to play cards!
I guess they are collecting all the Americana gear and are ready for their National Day parade when they get back to school!
That about covers it. Oh wait, we did find a place to live and the landlord is holding it for us until we can sign a lease. Of course that enthusiasm was dampened when I thought we might have to leave, but I’m 99% sure that crisis has passed so here it is: 
3 bedroom, good location, close enough to school to walk . . . it will feel more secure when we actually have the money to pay the lease. Inshallah, inshallah.