Government Travel Card

Although "everyone" is supposed to have one, I somehow survived my time in the Army without a travel card.  In fact, Josh did too - until now.  We finally agreed to get one because he's supposed to use that (as opposed to a personal credit card) when he's conducting his regional travel.  I'm guessing it's all in an aim to prevent people from going into debt while conducting lots of international travel.  But the real reason we got it was to solve a rather simple problem made infinitely more complex by the Army (but... that's probably not very specific).

Because we are not flying out of a local airport when we start our PCS (we're heading east to visit people), the transportation office here cannot - I repeat cannot - just issue us tickets.  We must instead purchase the tickets up front and wait to be reimbursed on the back side.  We "could" do this with our personal credit card.  But with fully-refundable one-way tickets to Dhaka, that will likely get pricey.   So then we hear about this great travel card PCS program whereby they open a PCS "window" and you can rack up expenses on your GTC without having to pay them back until after the government pays you for your moving expenses.  Sounds like a great plan, right?  But, you have to get the card limit raised.  And, oh by the way, you also have to somehow convince them to open your PCS window before you leave POM even though you're not PCSing for another 45 days.  <sigh>  So Josh went to talk to them, and sure enough, even though there's this great PCS program, we were told that they would not approve any card limit increase (so we can't even afford to put one ticket on the card, much less 4) and really, the card office here exists just so that they can open accounts for people - not actually do anything.  I'm not kidding.  That's what they said.  Okay, so I changed the wording a bit.  But only a little.

Anyone who knew me when I was in the Army will tell you that I'm a bit of a stickler about making people do their jobs.  I mean, I have to do mine, why don't they have to do theirs??  I'm also a bit of a pain about making systems work the way they're supposed to.  It's the logistician in me.  If there's a system, and it's broken, someone needs to fix it.  We don't all need to reorganize our lives and put our personal financial well-being in jeopardy just because someone else is too lazy to do some paperwork (that they're getting paid to do I might add).  So while I'm gearing up for battle, Josh is totally willing to just let it go and charge this on our personal card.  Could we do that?  Sure.  Does it go against everything I believe in?  Absolutely.

 So I guess we'll see what happens.

Rabies

K appeared to have a reaction to the rabies vaccine about a day afterward.  She had splotchy hives on her face.  After several phone calls to track down someone at the clinic, I found out that another young child (also under the age of 2) had the exact same reaction a couple days before K to the same lot of rabies vaccine.  Coincidence?  Maybe...

So now we'll need to be a bit more careful with our shots as she could be sensitive to that one.  Good thing she only needs 2 more rabies shots :)

And on a completely unrelated note, I stopped by REI this morning and think I have found the travel purse I'm going to try out for the next year.  It's made by a company called pacsafe and they specialize in "security" bags.  There's wire mesh built into the fabric of the purse to prevent someone from slashing the purse and stealing the contents.  There are other safety features too, but they've got a video to watch on their website if you're really interested.  The downside of this is that the reviews I've seen indicate that the purse doesn't wear terribly well and some of the wire can start poking out after 8 months of use or so.  For the average traveler, this might not be a problem, but for someone who plans to use this regularly, .... well, I don't know.  Maybe I just save this for when I "really" need it.  It has room to securely store 6 passports and sippy cups, and as a mom, I can't ask for more :)

The Preparation continues

Josh is back at work as of this morning and will likely be actively engaged for the next few months as we continue preparations for the move.  I think he set up our appointments with transportation this morning - one each for consumables, unaccompanied baggaged (UAB), household goods (HHG), and storage.  We're hoping to split them up a bit so we have time (and space) to separate out the important things that need to go into each shipment.  Not sure if Transpo is going to give us the go-ahead for that or not.



B and K on the fire truck

We went in this morning and got our first round of shots which conveniently means that I'll be getting my last shot on my birthday.  Super...  But the kids were okay with the shots.  K didn't even cry for the first one.  Can't get much better than that.  Somehow I managed to forget just how much Typhoid hurts.  You'd think by the third time you do something, you'd develop some sort of memory.  Then again, maybe it's just better to forget that kind of thing.

While he was on leave last week, Josh was able to come with us on a mom's outing to the Monterey Fire Station where the kids had lots of fun climbing all over the engines and learning about all the special tools on board.  Even he had to admit that the kids were fairly well behaved - for about the first half hour.  Then they (and by they, I specifically mean the boy) hit overload and got a bit ridiculous.  But overall, it was a good outing with great friends.  Sadly, two of the ladies will be leaving soon to start their overseas adventures - and then... it will be our turn.

"I think this one's good, Dad."

On Saturday, we headed up to Watsonville to Gizdich Farms to do some apple picking.  One of my favorite childhood memories (right up there with strawberry picking and going to the pumpkin patch) was going to the apple orchard each fall.  We'd drive what seemed like forever (which probably just meant it was over an hour) to get to the orchard, and then pick (and eat) to our heart's content.  Then we'd come home and make more applesauce than we knew what to do with and store it in the freezer in the hopes it would last until next year's great adventure.  While we don't have the luxury of making applesauce to last the next year, I did make an apple cake for breakfast on Sunday morning that the kids seemed to enjoy.  B asked me to take the onions out of his - he thought the baked pieces of apple were onions.  Little did he know that was the best part!

I spent that evening updating my Master Matrix.  Yes, with capital M's.  If it's not on the matrix, it's not happening between now and the move.  It somehow makes me feel more in control to have a spreadsheet that lists each and every item I plan to pack, and the purchase status of said items, as well as a future location for every piece of furniture we own.  Do I fully expect that things won't go according to plan?  Yes.  But it won't be for lack of trying. 

And on the note of hoping for the best, but planning for the worst, Josh took photos of all of the kids' larger birthmarks/moles after bathtime.  Do I really, really, really hope we never need to have those?  Yes. 

The Happiest Place on Earth

We took a trip earlier this week to spend a day at Disneyland in celebration of the fact that Josh finished his language training.  We originally bought 3-day passes almost a year ago and went down for 2 days prior to last Christmas.  The weather was not cooperating (to say the least) and we got rained on non-stop.  So we decided to cut our losses and leave early in the hopes of coming back later.  I'm happy to report that our trip was absolutely wonderful.  It's about a 6 1/2 hour drive from our house, so we arrived just in time for dinner on Monday night.  Then, we had a quick dip in the pool and headed to bed.

B getting ready to drive

We were at the gates at 9:00 and started off with B's picks - the Buzz Lightyear ride and Autopia.  We also hit up the Finding Nemo submarine ride, Dumbo (several times), Teacups (also several times), the Casey Jr. train ride, the carousel, the Winnie the Pooh ride, Disney Jr. Live, the Monsters Inc ride, all the kids rides in California Adventure...  It was a long day.  We did not break for naps, and the kids didn't go to bed until almost 9:00 pm.  We caught just a bit of a parade before jumping on the Small World boat ride - all in all, a really great day.  Lots of sunshine and warm weather (which we've been missing in Monterey).  And it truly was a pretty happy day.  The day after?  Well, the kids were tired, didn't want to be stuck in the car driving home, and made sure to let us know that we had messed with their schedule. 

Teacups

More teacups

Casey Jr - somehow they "miscounted" and there was no room for me on the ride.  Really.  How complex is that job??

Cheese!

K meeting Mickey - B wanted no part in this.

The end

Planning, planning, and more planning

We spent the better part of our evening tonight backwards planning from our expected arrival date in Dhaka back to now to figure out our leave dates, our transporation dates, and our everything else dates.  It was honestly a bit exhausting.  I'm not going to lie.  And we were left with a ridiculously long list of questions.  Like - Can we split the pickup of our consumables shipment from the rest of our pickups so we actually have somewhere to separate our HHG from UAB?  (household goods and unnaccompanied baggage for the uninitiated)  Or - When can we request our visas so that they don't expire while we're on leave before we even get to Bangladesh but we still actually have them in hand before we leave?

And since it's the weekend and I can't actually ask anyone these questions, what will I do instead?  That's right.  Go shopping.  I'm sure there's something else I can spend money on this weekend.  I've already been to Costco this weekend, but there's always Kohls and Safeway.  No shortage of things to buy.  Food for a year, anybody??  Add to that extra uniforms for Josh, new tires for his car, new brakes for mine (and the Disney trip we'd love to take while we're on leave) and I think I just want to put the credit card on auto-pay for the next few months.  Oh yeah - and let's just throw Christmas in there.  I almost forgot about that one.  Maybe Santa will buy me groceries for a year.  I promise I've been really good...

I hate to end on such a cynical note, so here's some good news.  When we got home from the store this morning, I saw a bright, shiny screw sticking out of my front tire (and HOW is this good news??).  First, believe it or not, I gave thanks that I found the screw today instead of on Monday when we're halfway to Anaheim and stuck on the side of the road with a flat tire in 100 degree weather.  Then, I called up Goodyear and took the car in to have the screw removed.  During my 45 minute wait (that somehow extended to just shy of 2 hours), I got to sit and read Game of Thrones totally uninterrupted - unless you count the really annoying customer who somehow felt like he needed to make comments to the entire room even though no one was listening to him.  And at the end of my wait, I found out that not only did I have one screw in my front tire, I had 2.  Yes, 2.  BUT - and here's the kicker - neither one of them actually punctured my tire.  This never happens to me.  So, I got free reading time away from the kids, and in the end, didn't have to pay a penny to have my tires back to normal.  Can't beat dumb luck...

Graduation and other big things

Well, not really other "big" things.  Little things - more on that later.  Josh graduated this morning!  His ceremony was at 9:30, so the kids and I were in a bit of a rush to get ready.  We normally don't do things before 10:00 because it takes them a while to ... I don't really know what.  All they really need to do is eat breakfast and get dressed.  But somehow it takes a long time.  So to have Josh at his ceremony 15 minutes early and have everyone in nice clothes was a stretch.  Luckily, we all made it.  B was only loud once (he didn't want to stand during the National Anthem, and I was pretty insistent that he WOULD stand).  K is feeling much better since she started her antibiotics yesterday (ear infection) and was pretty complacent as well.  They were both excited to see Daddy walk across the stage, and - I have to admit - it was nice to be in a military setting for a short time this morning.  Sadly, no pictures to share as I had my hands full with the kids (literally), but I promise he graduated.

But now for the fun news.  I took the kids to Michaels yesterday and we picked out materials to make bag tags for our suitcases.  B and K both agreed that blue and green were good colors, and K picked up a packet of pony beads to decorate hers with.  If the kids were older, I might actually try to teach them how to do this, but as it is, this will be a fun quick project for me.  I had been looking in to buying fluorescent (or some other distinctive color) tags for our bags so they'd be easy to recognize, but those ran anywhere from $8-25 a piece.  With the amount of luggage I anticipate toting around the world, I figured this would be much more cost effective.  And each of the kids can feel like they contributed.  I haven't made these in probably about 20 years though (credit to my cousin Marissa who taught me one summer), so I was a bit rusty.  My pace is picking up...  Just need to add my keychains on to these and they'll be suitcase ready.  And, by the way, if you're local, I had to buy 100 yd spools of this stuff, so I'll have a bit left over.  Let me know if you'd like to borrow some :)

Things to fill up the weekend

First doughnut

I have been working my way through the Curious George collection with B for his bedtime stories, and on Friday we happened to read the introduction to the alphabet.  I've seen the TV episode based on a portion of this story, but I can't really remember reading this one (although I'm sure I did...).  Anyway, George takes a note to the bakery to pick up one dozen doughnuts.  He crosses out the word one and writes ten instead.  First off, who trusts an animal to pick up doughnuts?  Second, does the man with the yellow hat actually have a tab at the bakery, or are we to also believe that said monkey has a credit card?  These thoughts run through my head as I read children's stories.  I feel a bit like the guy in Despicable Me talking about how horrible the bedtime story is.  Although, of course, Curious George is pretty classic, so I try to limit my negative commentary.  I say all of this to justify our decision Saturday morning to purchase one (not ten) dozen doughnuts.  I'm pretty sure K has actually never eaten doughtnuts before.  She quickly learned just how good they are - "Yummy do" was how she asked for the leftovers on Sunday morning.

We headed out to Costco after doughtnuts to start "the shopping".  Because of the location we are going to, we are authorized to ship 1250 lbs of consumable items - paper products, food, toiletries, etc.  You have two options (well, probably more, but two main ones).  You can either purchase all of the items on your own and store them at your residence, or you can go to the commissary and order items by the case to be stored there until your shippers arrive.  I tend to feel that the commissary is overpriced, and I truly hate (with a passion) the 5% surcharge they add to my bill and then act like they're doing me a favor because everything is "tax-free".  Maybe they didn't notice yet, but neither TX nor CA charge sales tax on food items.  So...  this makes me lean toward option number 1 even though it will require a large amount of space.  As it happens, we have some extra space in the house and I have started with the bare necessities of shopping - vitamins, toilet paper, paper towels, and shampoo.  We have visitors coming in November, so I'm going to try to limit my shopping to items I actually have coupons for and save my big shopping until after we can totally take over the guest room. 

We spent Sunday morning letting the kids roam wild at Garland Ranch Regional Park.  This is really a local favorite of mine as it's relatively close (only about 20 minutes away), but it's in Carmel Valley, so it's a completely different weather pattern (SUN).  We normally pack K up in the ergo and walk at our pace, but we decided today that it was the kids' turn to choose our path and set the pace.  Some people chose to walk, while others focused on digging and rock-piling.  But in the end, a good time was had by all.  This is probably K's favorite place to walk because it's one of the only parks in the area where dogs don't have to be on leashes, so EVERYONE has a dog out there and she can stop and say hi to each and every one.  Both kids got a bath when they got home, then had some "Yummy Sa" (otherwise known as pizza), and had some much needed quiet time. 

Happy weekend, everyone!

Shots

Well, the title pretty much says it all.  The kids and I need to schedule appointments to go in and get our typhoid, rabies, and Japanese encephalitis shots.  I got our prescriptions a while back (before we went home in July), but scheduling these things requires a bit of advanced planning.  Typhoid is easy - one shot.  Rabies however is a 3 shot series on 0, 7, 21, or 28, and Japanese encephalitis is a 2 shot series on 0 and 28.  So whenever we start our shots, I have to make sure we'll be here for the other ones or we have to start over.  Now that Josh is done with class (he graduates next week), we'll have a bit more flexibility in getting things done during the week.  While he still plans to spend most days at the library studying, he's obviously not tied to that, and can leave to help out if I've got appointments during the day.  Every now and then it's nice to have an extra set of hands to help out (just not, apparently, at the grocery store).

Labor Day?

For pretty much my entire life, I've been really confused by Labor Day.  We all stay home and celebrate those who work by (yes, that's right) not working.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm all about paid holidays, but this one, I just don't get. 

So we celebrated today by... going to the grocery store.  I had to try to find a place where people would actually be working so I could thank them.  Okay, I'm lying.  Really, I just needed groceries.  And on that note (ugh), please remind me - however tempting it may seem at the time - not to ever bring both my husband and my kids with me to shop for groceries.  It's not that having an extra pair of hands wouldn't be helpful in theory.  It's that the reality of life is that he's just not "into" my routine.  So if the kids scream, they scream.  I don't change what I'm doing.  No one at the grocery store cares that my kids are loud.  Which is exactly why I go mid-morning on a weekday.  Everyone else there also has kids (or had kids at some point in time and therefore find my screaming children to be oddly charming).  When the hubby is along though, if the children scream or are uncomfortable in some way, he feels like some action needs to be taken.  So K is happily riding in the car on the front of the shopping cart - and then she stands up.  Josh tells her to sit down (we're good so far), but then when she sits down and starts crying, he PICKS HER UP.  Well, folks, that was the beginning of the end.  Anyone with kids knows once you pick a kid up, they've won the battle you don't even really know you're fighting.  So for the rest of the trip, K alternated between walking next to the cart, dragging her blanket (very convenient for everyone else in the store - and, oh by the way, wasn't doing a good job of keeping her hands to herself) and screaming because Josh wasn't letting her walk.  What a merry way to spend the morning.

Unsurprisingly, we spent the rest of the day at home.  Celebrating, by not working.

Happy Labor Day!

Reality Intrudes

One of the papers I picked up at the FAOOC earlier this week was a list of resources - official and unofficial websites to put you in touch with the embassy and expat community worldwide.  Some of them were more helpful than others. One in particular - www.talesmag.com - was awesome (well, kind of).  It was definitely a good news/bad news thing.  Good news was there were several post reports for Dhaka from within the past year.  Bad news...  Well, pretty much everything in the reports was bad news.  It's not that we hadn't heard most of it before, but to see the same hard facts from different people over and over again was a bit depressing. 

In our favor, everyone seems to agree that families with young children enjoy Dhaka more than any other group (families with older children, families with no children, and singles).  I'm willing to take a wild stab in the dark here.  One of the biggest reported "downsides" of Dhaka is that there's really nothing to do there.  No malls, no movie theaters, not a lot of restaurants.  And let's face it, parents of small children really have pretty low expectations.  You're stuck in the house so much of the time anyway, that it's not really a huge lifestyle change to spend lots of time at home.  I'm going to choose to see this in a positive light (because that's always a choice - right?) and go with it.

Of the people who completed post reports, no one said they would consider returning to the post voluntarily for another tour, and they tended to agree that the best part about working there was that it was very close (by plane) to nice destinations in Asia.  Really?  You can't even think of anything good about actually BEING in the country?  The high point is leaving?  <sigh>  Make that double <sigh>.