It is official!

A letter to Grandma, is that official enough for you?  We finally have our passports, visas, reservations, everything but our bags packed.  We are moving the contents of the house first.  Our family will stay in our home for a few days after our things are shipped out.  A few of the contents will be left behind to be stored.  The kids have a break from school for five days so we will go visit family and have Thanksgiving with our dog.  We will return to our house and finish one more week of school, stay in a local hotel and fly out on Saturday, December 4.  It is official, we are moving to Delhi, India!

Honoring our Veterans

We are trying to make the waiting part of the adventure right now.  In doing this we are constantly trying to point out the positives to each experience we are able to do here that we would have missed had we left in October or by now.  (It's actually a very healthy approach to life even if one is not moving out of the country.)  We had another chance to do all the Halloween events here.  We had the chance to celebrate great Grandma's ninetieth birthday.  We were here for the NHS induction ceremony.  We had the chance to participate in the school's Veteran's Day flag service.  With a clip, we share the wonderful music from some talented orchestra students led by their fantastic teacher.  Enjoy! And thank you Veterans!

I want to jump...

Recently, I had been corresponding with kid 3's teacher regarding school so when I got the message from my husband I just had to share.  At the end of my reply I asked if she has the opportunity, please whisper into my son's ear that the passports have arrived.  I was told his reply was "I want to jump up and down, but that would just be weird."  That is how we all felt when we finally received the passports, all five.  Now for the visa process, which we are told can be very long...
The popular question, "So when do you leave?" still does not have an answer, thank you for asking.

Arrrgh!

“Arrrgh!” Could be my cry if I were dressed like a pirate this Halloween night.  I didn’t dress like a pirate and yet I need to scream ARRRGH!  October is gone.  We aren't going in October, pushed to November.  November starts tomorrow, yet remember the passports we applied for back on October 8^th?  That is okay if you have forgotten, so has the process.  We are lost in yet another shuffle.  Our passports which are expedited (ask other family members what happens when you just go through the regular passport process, right D?) still have not arrived so we have not even applied for our visas.  Now we're thinking November is going to become December and my excitement is lacking the luster it once had.  Let’s go back to the beginning and pray for health, strength and patience.  While we're at it we can also go back to our original enthusiasm while we hurry up and WAIT!

No Pain, No Gain

We all knew the shots were coming but we had no idea how many shots we would need to travel to India.  The kids asked each parent "how many?" enough times to cause me to answer things like, "Maybe so many that you will get some in your arms AND your legs."  We started getting shots through our doctor back in July when we had physical exams.  Ones that our primary care doctor knew we would need and had available to give to us there in her office.  We each received about two or three plus the flu shot just last week at the doctor's office prior to ever making our fieldtrip outing to the Travel Clinic.  I had made an appointment over a month prior for all five of us to visit the clinic at the same time.  The buildup was much like the anticipation for the passport photos and passport applications. 

 Kid three and kid middle each bought a Worry Monster to squeeze during the shots and any other scary times that might arise and were sure to bring their new pals along for the appointment.  I had to pull the kids from school in the afternoon.  The clinic was a thirty minute drive from the house.  At the appointment they were to review our records, have a family consultation and recommend shots to be given then, if we choose to have the shots, have them done right then and there.  The saying, "Turnabout is fair play" applies here.  Because the kids attend public school they all were pretty much up to date.  It was the two adults who needed some catching up.  Kid three received one shot, kid middle and kid one received two shots each and both parents received three shots each.  The kids each felt some soreness for no more than about 24 hours.  They seemed to do well with their flu shot the week earlier as well.  Mister did well too, little to no soreness for either the flu shot or the travel clinic.

  Whiner Mom didn't do so well.  Flu shot was sore for a bit and the three shots from the travel clinic really hurt after 24 hours.  I bruised and still have a lump. I even became nauseous when one of the kids accidentally bumped me directly on the lump/sore spot two days after the shots.  "That is what you get", or so say the kids.

The Show Must Go On

Places everyone, places.  clap clap   In this whole hurry up and wait game we are playing with our move out of the country we are most mentally balanced if we continue with life as usual for most things.  Things such as going to school, participating in events for scouts, church, clubs as though we are here for the duration need to happen, mostly because we still don't know when we are going.  Within all of that we need to put on smile and continue to "show". 
It is easy enough to do when there are fun things like homecoming week.  Our oldest child had homecoming at the high school recently and fully participated in homecoming events, games, parade and dance.  She is very proud to be part of the junior class of 2012, the winners of the school spirit stick this fine homecoming week.  It is times like this that we need to say "Thank You" to all of our friends from this area who support our move and help us continue to put on our show until we leave them.  You all are great friends and we thank you for the support.

Passport Party

Have photo; will travel!  We have been anxiously awaiting the opportunity to get this show on the road.  We were sad to be told our departure date has been pushed back one month.  In an effort to lighten the mood we made a fieldtrip to get our passport photos taken.  The plan was to go after school, seems reasonable.  Kid one knew what and where we would go for all of this, mostly because she clarified before going to school that morning.  Photo day is a big deal to a 16 year old girl after all.  At dinner this particular evening kid middle shared with us her disappointment that the photo experience was not at all what she thought it would be.  She pictured us going to "some place fancy" for the photos.  Kid three thought we would need to go to the airport in order to obtain the proper photo to travel.  Much to their disappointment we went to our local Walgreens where they just "pulled down a white screen and took our picture in the middle of the store," as describe by middle.  Now we can try to build the excitment for the next big event, the passport party we anticipate having when the passports arrive for travel.