Home again

Finally back from our three weeks in the US! I have three plump suitcases sitting in the dining room, partially dug though with lots of goodies (mostly books). It was a nice visit but pretty quick even if it was three weeks, and it was pretty exhausting too. I've got the travel alone with two small kids down pat but I'm still reeling from the stress of it all. You get lots of help traveling with a baby in a stroller* but as soon as that baby hits two and can walk nobody helps you with anything. And age two is the worst for travel because of the escape factor. I think I grew eyes in the back of my head on this trip. But we made it okay both ways somehow.

While I was away we decided that we'll be going to China. Seb hasn't found another job here and he has a good job waiting for him there with the opportunity to learn a new language. Even if I'm skeptical about it all (because of Mexico and the ruptured contract) I have to admit it is exciting. Our biggest worry is Little S but I think he'll have to be changing schools, public to private, here anyway. At least we have a little fund money in the expat contract to find him a good school there and if it all goes badly then I'll consider homeschooling.

We are super busy finishing the house so we can rent it out by the end of Summer. It's starting to look really nice--yet another finished house we'll be leaving! I know how that feels so maybe I'll be a little more prepared this time for the emotional wave of handing over the keys to a home you've put all of your sweat and tears into. Like last time lots of people are asking us about renting our house on the cheap. We have offers to housesit for three years (free), one year offers, and people wanting to stuff families of five in the house (my neighbor whose boys are always catching things on fire and their house is wrecked--eek!). It's hard to say no because it's people we know who live in the village but our goal is to finish the house and rent it correctly through an agency for the market price. We can't risk everything on someone not paying the rent this time and we can't reduce the rent this time either. We want a big security deposit too because our renter in Th*n*n has really wrecked our wood floors in the three years he's been there. They'll have to be stripped when he leaves. You don't know this until you do this once because you go in very doe eyed. We've learned the hard way to cash the security deposit check right away.

I'm busy but I hope I'll be able to keep up the blogging. I took a three week break and it was nice not to think about the computer. Sometimes it's nice just to step away.


*now you can only bring one suitcase per person on most airlines so bringing a stroller counts as a piece of baggage--I had to leave the stroller with Seb at check in