Home Leave in the US

In August, we said goodbye to our friends in Vietnam and headed home for a five month stint in the US. We are dividing the time between a couple months of training in Washington, DC and a few months of home leave in San Diego and Maui. In January, we will pack up our things and fly to Zimbabwe. We’re currently about halfway through our time in the US and enjoying ourselves tremendously.

But before I get too far into various updates about what we’ve been up to, we’ve got some very big news to share. Next month, Nikki and I will welcome into the world a baby girl. Nikki is 8 months along and handling pregnancy like a champ. And that’s no small feat, given the difficulties of transferring between five different doctors, moving halfway around the world, and enduring the general high-pace tempo of our chosen lifestyle. Somehow, due to Nikki’s uncanny organizational skills, we are feeling moderately on top of things and ready to get on with the helicopter parenting (kidding…sort of).

So besides stockpiling baby wipes and cloth diapers, what have we been up to? Well, a couple months back in DC afforded us the opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with the nation’s capital and visit all of our favorite restaurants. In between trips to Spike’s Good Stuff Eatery and A&J’s noodles in Annandale, we saw a few concerts (Ben Harper, Madonna), checked out our favorite museums, and went canoeing on the Potomac. I ran a couple of races, including a triathlon at National Harbor and a fun mud run in Maryland (made possible by training with my buddy Virgile!). We made our way to the Chesapeake eastern shore for our wedding anniversary, where we enjoyed some of the tastiest crab cakes ever and relaxed on the Atlantic shore (we also stayed in a cute, but probably haunted bed and breakfast). And of course, we studied at the Foreign Service Institute where Nikki learned how to do Public Diplomacy and I studied current and historical events in Sub-Saharan Africa. We had a great time (even with the daily classes) and enjoyed catching up with our friends working and studying in the area.

We packed up enough sunblock, paper towels, beer, and other essentials to last us two years in Africa, and shipped it off to Harare along with coats, sweaters, and pants that we haven’t seen since we moved to Vietnam 2 years ago. We piled the rest of our meager possessions and our bulldog Hina into the car, and I took off for San Diego. Nikki wasn’t about to miss out on the epicurean opportunities a cross-country drive offers, so she met me in Albuquerque where we feasted on enchiladas with green chilies, blue corn pancakes, and sopapillas. We snacked our way through Arizona and California before arriving on my parents’ doorstep in San Diego.

Our days in San Diego are filled with a mix of baby classes, great meals, doctor appointments, and relaxation. A typical morning might include a walk to the coffee shop with Hina (decaf for Nikki!), followed by brunch at Snooze or Hash House A Go Go (delicious!), an OB appointment, and an afternoon at the beach where Nikki reads and I surf. It’s wonderful to have time to hang out with my family, and we’re enjoying Sunday family dinners, beer-making with my brother, and of course my sister’s wedding October 6! (congrats to Mike and Darcy!!). Of course, we are also hitting the major San Diego tourist activities, like a duck tour of the bay, the Miramar airshow, or just chillin out in Ocean Beach, Little Italy, Old Town, and other fun parts of the city. And then there are the more off the beaten path attractions of a zombie 5k and hip cooking classes… We’re soaking it all up as much as possible, as we’re expecting life to get very busy in about a month!