Updates

Hi everyone!! We have some great updates from the last week (actually the last couple of days...).

First, I am now employed!! I turned in all of my stuff last week to the agency that manages the WIC Overseas job. I went to the WIC office last Wednesday (Christmas Eve) and visited with Carrie the current WIC liaison for the base. We chatted for about 45 minutes and she showed me around the office. She told me the things that I would be doing and gave me a run down of how things work. She has been great answering all of my questions through email and over the phone. I emailed my stuff to the Regional Manager in England on Wednesday afternoon and got a reply that evening (our time, England is 2 hours behind us). She said in her email that she wanted to talk to me early this week. I emailed her on Monday morning and told her when I was available and she called me that day at 1:00. We talked for about a half hour and at the end of the conversation, she told me that she was very interested in me but needed to forward everything to the program manager in San Antonio. She told me that she would be in touch in the next couple of days. She actually called me last night (Tuesday) and offered me the job. I of course accepted. It is part time (which is what I wanted) and I will be working Tuesday-Thursday from 7:30-4:00. So...4 day weekends every week!! There are no benefits or paid vacations/holidays because it is a part time position, but that is all fine and dandy for me. If I want vacation, I just over book my appointments for the week before I leave and then I am good to go. The pay is A LOT better than I was expecting. I won't actually start work until March 16th, but that will give us plenty of time to get things in our house I order and find daycare. We have started looking into daycare and it sounds like the best and only option for us will be to hire a nanny. I have a couple of contacts through people we know on base and will start that process in the next couple of weeks. I am very excited and I think this, although VERY different from what I am used to in my career, will be a nice change and will enhance my resume for further places we get stationed.

Nick got email notification last week (he was off, so didn't actually get it until this week) that part of our household shipment is here. So...the motorcycle will be here on Friday. There are a few boxes in the motorcycle crate, so I will have a couple of things to unpack, but at least our stuff is starting to arrive!! We hope to hear that the rest of our stuff is ready for drop off next week and then we can put our house together. We also looked on the track your vehicle website and it said that our van is ready for pick-up. This was a HUGE surprise!! We weren't expecting it until at least January 14th, because that is the day they said it would be here and even then we expected it to be late. It sort-of stinks because it won't be ready for pick-up for at least a couple of weeks because of paperwork, but it is a good feeling to know that it is here. It will be so much easier to get off base with our van here.

We have started the process of looking into trips. The base has a lot to offer. There are a few organizations on base that arrange day trips, weekend trips, etc. and they are fairly inexpensive. We were originally told that we would be able to travel on our government passports, but that is not the case. But, we can get our tourist passports from the base here and the process is just the same as if we would do it in the states.