Silly Dogs

One of the joys of owning animals is when they things they do make you laugh.

Lately, MeiLi gets stuck in the bathtub. It's a shallow tub and both dogs used to jump in and out at will. But last week I heard whining coming from the bathroom and there was MeiLi, in the tub, little dog prints around the edge where she'd tried to get out but hadn't been able to. Since then she's been stuck a half dozen more times and I've had to help her out. I don't know if this happens when I'm not home and she just sucks it up and jumps out or what. I might be enabling her by helping her out when I'm home.

Funnier than this, however, is when the dogs put themselves to bed. During the week I go to bed pretty early and they either get in their kennel or on the bed (if Scott is not here) and we go to sleep. On the weekend I stay up considerably later, but the dogs expect their schedule. I go in and find MeiLi already in her kennel, settled down for the night. There is rarely any fuss about getting in bed, but it makes me laugh when they just do it themselves.

Even as I write this...

Stuck in the tub....again...

Breaking News

On the "where are we going next" front, we have news. Well, a little news. So Wuhan, China is not our destination for sure. I found out last week officially that my assignment was broken. I had heard of this happening to other people before and in the back of my mind I felt like until we arrived I wouldn't feel like it was for sure. Clearly I was spot on with that one.

So after I found out the assignment was broken, as I mentioned before, I didn't have a lot of information about what comes next. I talked to my Career Development Officer and she said that they could offer me a full list of all the positions available in the world (yeah, the WORLD. This is the kind of awesomeness I get to choose from) but after looking at my preferences from the last time I bid she guessed I would end up bidding on all China posts high. I told her she was right and could save us both the time; her searching to see what was available and me feeling like I needed to look into all the places on the list.

So here was my list: Hong Kong, Beijing, or Guangzhou. Not a bad option among them. We get to go to China and we get to go in 2014. We talked debated and submitted our preferences for which one we would prefer over the others. This coming week we should find out where we are headed.

While this may not seem like a big deal ("you're still headed to China, how different are the cities?"), its a pretty big adjustment when thinking about our future. Wuhan was more "rural"than these three cities. While it still has a population larger than most major American cities, it is very non-Western. So non-Western that we would have been able to bring a shipment of consumables (any non-perishable foods and other items that we wanted to bring with us). Now we won't get that. Honestly, we were really excited about living in one of the most non-Western options when it comes to the locations of the U.S. consulates in China. Now we will be living in a place where there is a fair chance people speak English, or in the case of Hong Kong, everyone does. Either way, we are thrilled to be going back to China, but now we have to readjust our thinking on what life will be like there.

But hopefully, come Tuesday, we can start looking planning on life in a new locale!

Love

Sometimes I am absolutely overwhelmed by the love I feel for my husband. Like how am I even capable of feeling that kind of love for someone is beyond me. And then to imagine that God loves us even more than that? It's unfathomable.

Silliness of the day

6 1/2 years later, we are finally using the last of the leftover napkins from our wedding. This is what happens when your in-law's family owns a print shop.

The very last Wedding napkin...I can't bring myself to just clean up a mess with it....

In other news, work in DC has been amazing. I've been able to work on interesting projects and meet fascinating people. I can't go into all of it, but eventually I'll get into some of it.

I don't think I ever mentioned where I was headed after my DC tour was over. I bid again last October and was assigned to Wuhan, China. I was supposed to be headed there in summer 2014. If the past tense of this paragraph hasn't tipped you off then let me make it clear: I am no longer going to Wuhan. I found out accidentally on Monday and officially today. No word yet on what the future holds for us, but it's not Wuhan, China.