I Moved to Germany

Last summer, Kail, Piopio, and I moved to our fourth overseas post (technically Piopio’s second): Frankfurt, Germany.

2018 Intention Review: A Letter to Myself

new year’s resolutions, future letter to yourself, 2018 resolutions I recently shared my 2019 sort-of resolutions, and now I’m sharing the outcomes of my 2018 Future Letter to Myself — my sixth and final such letter. How much “came true”? I experienced the happiest and most transformational life event in 2018: the birth of my

Project Life: Jordan | Book Two

One other project I wanted to get underway before leaving for the States again was starting and updating my Project Life: Jordan | Book Two scrapbook. It took a back burner to, you know, setting up the nursery, starting Piopio’s baby book, completing book one of my Jordan scrapbooks, and updating my blog …… Not to

Home Leave | Virginia Beach

Post-5k race.After a few days apart in Michigan and California, Kail and I spent the last portion of our home leave visiting my sister and brother-in-law in Virginia Beach. Kail stayed for a week before heading back to Amman, but I was able to enjoy an extra two and a half weeks with my family.

Home Leave | California

Kail stayed behind in Michigan while I headed to the Berkeley area in Northern California to visit my friend Catherine, who had moved there from Washington earlier in the year. Catherine and I have been friends since college way back when — and a lot has change since. She now has two little ones, and

Home Leave | Michigan

From Fredericksburg, we headed to Michigan to spend a couple weeks with Kail’s family. At this point, we were two weeks into our home leave. On the agenda: a trip to Frankenmuth, Michigan State football, our niece’s and nephew’s soccer and football games, Jordanian cooking, and lots of relaxing and spending time with family.Perhaps most of

2017 Intention Review: A Letter to Myself

I recently shared my 2018 future letter to myself, and now I’m sharing the outcomes of my 2017 annual letter. How much “came true”?2017 was marked by the happiest and most important life change Kail or I have experienced to date: Learning that we would become parents. (This will, of course, be eclipsed by actually

Jordan House Tour | Nursery

My top priority in the three-ish months I was in Amman between home leave and returning to the U.S. on Medevac was getting the nursery set up for baby. We transformed what was our my home office into the perfect space for Piopio.

Future Letter to Myself: 2018

It’s the end of the year, which means it’s time for New Year’s Resolutions. As I have for the last few years, I’m writing a future letter to myself — a different take on resolutions and goals for 2018. What is a future letter to oneself? As I wrote in 2013: That’s the thing about New Year’s resolutions —

Home Leave | Washington & Fredericksburg

Kail and I went to the U.S. on home leave over the summer. Jordan is our first four-year assignment (technically two two-year assignments), and it was the first time we took home leave in the middle of a tour, as opposed to in between assignments.In some ways, middle-of-tour home leave is less relaxing, because Kail