Chaos Ensues

 

Our HHE shipment arrived. We were so excited. I had a feeling things would go down like this but in reality, things were so much more difficult than I would've dreamed. It was a pretty horrible week but I'm seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. It always comes. The piano is what we were most nervous about when unpacking all our things. Our movers were very thorough, very careful, very communicative and even kind. I love meeting people here. There were 2/3 Omanis and 5 Pakistanis. 

They unpacked all my kitchen boxes and would've put them in the shelves. I made the rookie mistake of not packing up the welcome kit from the Embassy so not only did everything on the counter need homes, everything in the cupboards needed to be packed up, Dishes in the refrigerator, trash cans, towels and rags and so much that we've been thankful for was suddenly a HUGE burden and no room to work or feed my family. The kids were so excited about seeing their things again but the entire house looked like this.

I did have a good chuckle when I saw this. I knew we would probably fail to escape Virginia without a cicada stowaway.  The photo on the right was not, humorous. I asked the Bulgarian men who packed the piano if they were going to pack the keyboard separately because that's what had happened for our Houston-Reston move, they said no but...language barriers. Thankfully, we were able to pull our heads and powers of observation together and fix it so that it's usable. We're still waiting on the tuner/expert to look and tell us if there's anything that needs to be repaired. 

At the same time I found out my parents were very sick with COVID bumping this week up to the worst weeks of my life list. Thankfully they were able to get the help they needed from some kind and concerned family members who understood and they are hopefully on the mend. There were other events of a more personal nature and my parents have a very long road to recovery. I don't want to live that week again. 

Some of the expected excitement from this week was preparing to start school. So many emails, So many last minute to-do's. Everyone has been on pins and needles wondering if school would be in person. We were really excited that COVID here has taken a plunge in the last few weeks and we're praying for a more normal school year. Orientation helped a lot to give the kids a solid idea of what to expect and take some of the nerves away. I feel incredibly grateful that everything has worked out after that rough week.