Updates, updates

Well, my goodness!

We are back in the USA. Stores open 24 hours (or at least past 7 pm), the ability to find what you want when you want it, life that just makes a little more sense to me. Ahhhhhh! It's been amazing.

We came back at a really busy time of the year and while we haven't spent as much time as we'd like with all the friends and family we wanted to, we've at least gotten to see almost everyone for a second or two. I missed my life here - as if it wasn't glaringly obvious from multiple blog entries or all the whining I've done about missing the US.

We were planning to spend a couple weeks in NC, then head to Oklahoma, then onto our next base in Illinois. Well, several weeks later, we are still in NC. One of the first calls I made when we got settled in was to my old eye doctor to make an appointment to renew my contact prescription. My eyesight is horrible, which was confirmed by my optometrist. Can you believe they still had my records from 4 and a half years ago? Me either! But they did. So that delayed us a bit between getting the appointment and then ordering the correct contacts and making sure they would be okay. But, all is well and I can now be glasses-less if I so choose. It made me laugh that it freaked the kids out. The divine Ms. S, was particularly insistent that I put the glasses back on or hand them over to her as a plaything. That was a loud and quasi amusing couple of hours. I have some strong willed kids. ;)

Next, my grandmother's 90th birthday was on the 15th so we decided to stay for that. Our immediate family celebrated with weekend before since my brother, his wife, and their daughter (that little cutie pie) live about an hour away now. But my mom had already arranged to have a small celebration at the assisted living residence where my grandmother is staying on her actual birthday. On the way there, S throws up in R's truck. Fun on so many levels. So, we headed back to my dad's to clean up S and the truck. Following the vomiting was the inevitable diarrhea, which lasted and lasted. We had planned to leave for Oklahoma on Friday, and when we woke up that morning, S had a fever after being sick all week. R, who is not the worrier of the family, says, "I think we should take her to the doctor." Agreed, because at this point she'd maybe had the equivalent of a sandwich or two since Monday and we were worried about her getting dehydrated since she wasn't drinking as much as usual. There was supposed to be a winter storm moving through starting on Friday, which had initially added to our plans to head out of NC on Friday. But goodness - her little butt was so irritated that we really didn't want to make her sit for hours and hours in a truck. I also had my final eye appointment that morning, and by the time I got back to Dad's around 10:00 am, the winter weather had already begun. The problem (imho) is that it started as sleet. I've lived in NC long enough to know this spells trouble - sleet, covered by snow, often followed by more sleet. No fun.

When we took S to her 1 pm appointment, the roads were already bad. By the time we got back - which wasn't until around 3:30 pm or so, it was so bad that we weren't going anywhere on Friday. And, by the way, the doctor said she had a stomach flu. It was almost like being back at the extended care clinic in Germany. Well, DUH!

On Saturday, T starts the whole vomiting/diarrhea process, but his was less severe than S's. Still - same rules apply - no fun trying to travel with a munchkin who's going to need to find a potty every half hour or so. So maybe we'll leave on Sunday. T had gotten up around 3 am Sunday morning, so he and I were napping around 9 am or so when R took S to Walmart to get a couple things for T. On the way back, the front axle of the truck broke. Like, broke in two. And I may not know much about cars, trucks, or all things mechanical, but there is no way that was good news. So, not leaving on Sunday. Plus,our planned highway route was now closed in a couple places because of the weather. It's bad when they close a highway, right?!?!

So, Dad is confident that he can get the truck fixed enough for us to be able to drive it. He comes to get R to get the truck pretty early on Monday, R drives the truck home - drives great! And we decide to leave first thing on Tuesday. Mom, who hasn't seen the kids since Thursday, offers to keep the kids so we can get some last minute things done (like Christmas shopping for the kids, since we were thinking when we left Germany that we'd be at our new base by now and it would make more sense to buy their stuff there). On our way to Mom's the truck dies a slow, grindingly loud, horrible, painful death. So, for the second time in two days we have it towed.

About two hundred phone calls and some internet research later, the truck is headed to a Dodge dealership where we are hoping that at least part of the repairs will be covered by the warranty because at first glance the entire drive train has to be replaced. So, it doesn't look like we are going to be leaving on Tuesday, either. We are supposed to hear first thing this morning about how long it will take and how expensive it will be. With any luck, we'll get the truck back in time to get R to our new base in time for his deadline, which is 30 December. If not, I guess he'll fly on up there and the kids and I will follow when we get the truck back. If we get the truck back. I'll be honest, I have doubts about driving it to Illinois with two kids by myself, but then again, doesn't a little adventure always translate into interesting memories?

Even if I didn't believe in God, fate or karma, this week would have challenged that. How lucky are we that the kids ended up with a relatively mild stomach virus versus the flu, the truck decided to break down in a city where we have friends and family? Granted, it's been a frustrating last few days, but we are all safe, happy, relatively healthy, and with people we love. Even with all the drama, it doesn't get much better than that, does it?