Well it’s been about a week since I’ve blogged last but, as you can probably guess, I’m back in the USA! I received word last Monday night that my travel was approved and the next morning we said see ya later to Tanzania. Our first stop was Amsterdam, where we had about a five hour layover. I’m not even sure whether to call that long or short anymore. I feel like I can never complain again after the horrific layover I had in Dubai last August. The next flight was another nine hour one to Dulles. We spent a couple of days in Virginia, looking for a townhome (which we found!) and checking in on base. On Friday we flew down to Texas, where we’ll be spending the next six weeks. Here’s a little more from our week…

When we arrived in Virginia it was about 14°F. Eva freaked out the moment we stepped out of the airport. Having been born in Hawaii and spending most of her life in East Africa, she had never experienced freezing temperatures before. “Cold… Cold… Why?” she kept saying. When I took her to stand in and check out the snow so that I could snap a few pictures she seemed really confused as to why the snow was so cold. She is so used to being in hot sand that it was a big shock to her. She warmed up to it after a few minutes, though…

We survived the first part of our journey, but it wasn’t over yet. We spent our first full day in Virginia driving around looking at apartments and townhomes. When we finally got home we were so exhausted that we both fell asleep around six and woke up at 2am. Jet lag has been very difficult for both of us. A few hours later we made the hour drive to Baltimore to catch our plane down to Texas. Eva was happy to be greeted by her Papo and warm weather.

Pregnancy Update: As I write this I’m already coming up on 29 weeks, but oh well. I think I deserve some sort of pregnancy gold medal for surviving the last week. Traveling through three continents with  my bump, a toddler, and all the clothes we will be wearing for the next three months was hard. People used to give me props for sitting through law school pregnant, but let me tell you… being a toddler mom is much more difficult. Flying with one was stressful and exhausting, but I’m glad we finally made it. I only got one run in this week (the day before I left), but I plan on heading to the gym today and trying to score a one-month membership because I’m DYING over here. I need to get back in the gym ASAP. Other than that, not much new on the pregnancy front. Damian is still moving around like crazy. I’m starting to get that rib pain I had with Eva, and I’m thinking it’s from all the time I spent sitting down/hunched over in the plane and whatnot. I hope it goes away soon. I know Damian is sitting a lot lower than Eva so I hoped I’d get out of at least a bit of it this time around.