Some of our stuff arrived!

For those of you that aren't in the Foreign Service, you will never know the joy of receiving shipments.  People say getting your household effects is like Christmas.  You forget some things you had, and it's like opening presents!  Well, if HHE is like Christmas, then receiving your UAB (un-accompanied air baggage) is like your birthday.  You get lots of stuff, but not as much as Christmas.

My lovely wife got her shoes, which is great considering it's dropped into the low 50s here and she was wearing sandals.  My daughter got dolls and her indoor swing, which will be a BIG help in getting her a bit more calm, as swinging is very helpful for children on the Austism Spectrum.  My son got his booster seat, so now he won't have to sit on his knees to join us at the table for dinner, and we can keep him in one place.  He also got a new Thomas DVD, clothes and his beanbag chair that looks like a car.  Both kids got the bouncy castle we bought before our aborted move to Bolivia.  (I was going to set the record for highest moon-bounce in the world!)  I got Trader Joe's Multi-grain baking mix from which I can make biscuits and pancakes, my drill and tools and some more clothes.  Needless to say it won't make the place feel just like home, but it'll make it somewhat more familiar for the kids.  And for the parents too, for that matter.

In other news, I just signed Cubby (my wife's nickname for my son) up for soccer lessons.  Saturdays we'll get him ready in his uniform, and I will too because a parent has to be there with him, and he will go out and be a part of the mass chaos that is under-4 soccer.  When my lovely Yorkshire lass asked him if he wanted to play soccer on Saturday, he answered: "Yes, and basketball."  Yorkshire lass commented he'd be better off in soccer due to being a shrimp.  Maybe, but people told Spudd Webb he couldn't play basketball and he won the slam dunk competition, right?  And at GW, Shante Rogers played point guard at the (supposed) height of 5 foot 4 inches.  (He couldn't have been much taller than 5 foot, though.)  So, we'll see if he's a Michael Owen, a Spudd Webb, or just Cubby.