Three languages, none of them pretty!

That's English, Spanish, and Portuguese.  Actually, all of them are pretty in and of themselves, but not so much when I speak any of them lately.  Of course the Portuguese is really rough since I've only been learning it for about a month, but the Spanish is starting to sound like Portuguese and the English...well, I just can't seem to speak a full sentence in English.  Portuspanglish, I guess.

It has indeed been a very long time since I posted.  Leaving Venezuela was difficult in many ways, not to mention I was pretty sick for the last month I was there, with a vicious cough/cold and baby #1's version of "morning" sickness (which kicked in every evening after about 7:00 p.m.).  It was nice to be home in Minnesota for Thanksgiving and all of December - great to spend time with family and friends, and nice to be able to nap often and give my body the attention it needed to help the little one get acclimated in there. 

I am happy to report that I have been feeling much, much better since the beginning of January, just in time to start Portuguese training.  P and I are both taking a Spanish to Portuguese conversion course; in fact, we are in the same class.  There are only five students in the class - the two of us, two consular officers, and a commercial officer.  Our classmates are great, and the instructor is fantastic.  We're actually a bit nervous about switching professors next week (they switch us once a month), but hopefully our new instructor will be just as good as the first one has been.  I am thrilled to finally be in language training for which someone is paying me!

We found a rental unit in Alexandria, VA, which turns out to be an extremely dog-friendly city.  There are actually a number of large dogs in our neighborhood, including a Great Dane, a Golden Retriever, and a Doberman.  Che and Chama fit in well.  There is a great dog park nearby and a vet we like just down the road (we've already been there four times and will be going back again tomorrow).  Che is finally feeling better and his hair has grown back after two years of dreadful skin allergies in the ever-summer of Caracas.  He looks so handsome!  Apparently while we were gone some new, steroid-free allergy meds became available, so when his allergies come back in the spring we should be able to get him better treatment without so many side effects.  It turns out that he came home with a tick-borne illness as well, but a good course of antibiotics has taken care of that.  Our new vet also thinks that we can start lowering his daily dosage of phenobarbital (for epilepsy) since he hasn't had a seizure in years, so we're very happy about that news.  Che just turned six, but it feels like he's a youngster again since he's off all the meds that had him so lethargic in Caracas.  We're ecstatic to have our energetic dog back, and Chama (who has been very healthy, thank goodness) loves having a more active wrestling partner.

I hope to post a little more often now that things in our lives have settled down a little bit and we have at least a semblance of a routine.  Check back in the coming weeks for more posts!