Tuesday, May 19, 2009

He Said: Long Overdue

Well, this post is much overdue, but these past couple weeks have been quite crazy. As many of you have read, Steph arrived in DC a little more than a week ago. I was so happy to have her finally arrive here for good. More than 2 months had passed since we said goodbye and I headed out here for training. It is so nice having her around now to be able to share this experience with me. I know she worked extremely hard on getting our things ready for our packout from Minnesota. A nice little break is well deserved for her. It's definitely strange to think that it may be 8 months until we see our "stuff" again... I guess this is the life we've signed up for... a small price to pay for all we gain in my opinion.

I'm having a little trouble trying to figure out where to start for my post tonight. Since I last posted, a lot has happened, but I'm not totally sure what of it is blog worthy. The biggest thing that has happened in the past couple weeks was Steph's arrival in DC. Hopefully we'll be able to share some more fun adventures stateside while she is here before we head to Venezuela. I know that once we are abroad, we will have many adventures to share with you all through the blog, but I feel as though we're in this crazy little gray area where we have to decide carefully what to post and what is really not that interesting... what a challenge!

2 weeks ago, I celebrated my 27th birthday, without Steph and without my family. It was strange to not really have anyone THAT close to me to celebrate with. I actually have never really experienced that in my life. I did end up having a pretty good day. I went to class/work, had dinner with some classmates, and then went out for drinks with some of the guys from my A-100 class. In the middle of the evening, one of my friends asked me if I had a good birthday. My answer was this, "In the past I've had working birthdays, and they've never really been that bad. When I look back on today and realize that right now my job is to learn a language, I have nothing to complain about." That simple reflection really sums it up for me right now. I try to remember everyday how lucky I am to have this opportunity, and I'm even luckier to be able to share it with Steph.

Other than Steph's arrival and my birthday, not that much has happened. The summer softball season in DC and I am coaching/organizing one of the two teams from our A-100 class. I'm looking forward to enjoying another summer of softball in the District...one of my favorite past times. Spanish has been going well. I definitely feel as though I've progressed during my 4 weeks. I have my first mini-assessment next week to determine my progress. I've been taking every opportunity to speak as much as I can in class, and Steph and I spoke only in Spanish for a half hour last night. The Department tells us that we should see a significant difference by week 10. I'd be lying if I didn't say that I really wish week 10 came sooner. I know that learning is a process, but I'm really just ready to begin using my newfound language skills.

I hope that this post finds you all well. Please keep the notes and calls coming our way. We surely do appreciate all of your love, support, and friendship.

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