Saturday, July 18, 2009

Hold on Tight!

I know we keep disappearing from our blog and it leaves people wondering, what's going on?? To get everyone up to speed, here is what Nils and I have been doing... I'm just trying to think where I need to start!

May 2009 - My sister Ellen comes to visit us in Romania! We take her on a trip to various parts of Italy and then she and I make a 3-day trip to Paris. Peter, Nils' brother joins us in Rome.

June 2009 - We show Ellen different parts of Romania including Constanta (on the Black Sea) and Sighisoara (in the Carpathian Mountains).

June 12, 2009 - I find out I'm pregnant. Nils knows about it first and is so convinced that I am pregnant regardless of how much I or my sister tell him he is wrong. He is the one who decides to buy a pregnancy test to verify his intuition and... he is right! We notify Peace Corps and are told that I am only able to continue as a volunteer until August or September.

June 18, 2009 - Nils and I go to Brasov for a youth leadership training retreat, the final activity for Nils' project.

June 20, 2009 - On the way home from Brasov, Nils receives the much anticipated e-mail from USAID announcing his invitation to start training as a Junior Officer. Training class begins July 20th.

July 3rd, 2009 - After saying our teary goodbyes and wishing all of our newly-made friends in Romania well, Nils and I head back to the United States via Amsterdam and Minneapolis, MN. While enjoying our 6-hour layover in Minneapolis, we decide to take the metro to the Mall of America. After over 24 hours of travel, we arrive in Logan, Utah around 11:30pm MST. A funny "aside"... while boarding the plane from Minneapolis to Salt Lake City, my alarm clock goes off. I had set it for 3:00am Romania time because we had to leave our hotel via taxi at 4:00am in order to make our 6:05am plane to Amsterdam. So by the time we were on the plane at Minneapolis, it had already been 24 hours according to my Romanian clock. Funny, huh! (Btw, my alarm still works even if I've turned off my phone. It was kinda embarrassing to have it go off while on the plane. Luckily, I still had time to turn it back on, cancel the alarm and turn it off again before they closed the doors and made the announcement to turn off all cellphones and pagers.)

July 3-9, 2009 - We visit with Nils' family and get our things ready to ship to Virginia.

July 9-14, 2009 - We drive to Ellsworth, Kansas to visit my family.

July 14 - 16, 2009 - We drive from Kansas to Vienna, VA (our new home) making a short stop at the Columbus, Ohio Temple. (The Logan Temple is closed for cleaning during our stay, and the DC Temple is closed until July 27th also for cleaning.)

And so here we are, back in the USA. I'll be posting more about Peace Corps and the things we accomplished during our 17 months. I'll also post about Nils' job and what it means for our future. By August 21st we should know our next destination. Yep, as a foreign service junior officer, Nils will be receiving an overseas assignment within the next month. We won't actually leave in August.... We're hoping we'll at least be here in the United States long enough for me to have the baby. Oh, and I'll also be sure to post about the baby too!