Arriving to Post

Finally the day arrived for us to depart for Kingston! We were up pretty late doing last minute clean up of the apartment, so it was a bit of a rough early morning start! We were staying at the Oakwood in Crystal City, which is attached to the Marriott. The staff at the Marriott said it was fine for us to take their airport shuttle to DCA, so we caught the 5am shuttle in order to catch our flight to Miami. Yay for not having to deal with the hassle of arranging a van, etc. for pick up.

We had 6 checked bags (2 large duffles, 3 large suitcases, and Olivia's Pack n Play which we just checked as is and they didn't charge us for it), plus we had two carry on bags and her stroller/carseat. It wasn't too much of a pain to get the bags checked, luckily.

I was a bit nervous traveling with Olivia on the airplane, but she did great! She was either fast asleep or breastfeeding on take off and landing, and she only cried a little bit on the flights when she woke up and started to get hungry. 

Olivia with her passport and ticket in hand, ready to go!

Snug as a bug in her carseat- we had to wait a very long time for them to de-ice the plane but she waited patiently. We were the very first row in economy class, which was great because we didn't disturb anybody in front of us (since her carseat would have prevented a seat in front from being able to lean back).

She's ready!! 

Flying over Cuba

Flying over Jamaica

When we landed in Kingston, there was an Embassy driver there to pick us up, and he expedited us through customs and immigration (though by the time I changed Olivia's diaper, there was absolutely no line at immigration or customs). We didn't have money to tip the baggage handlers, which was an oversight on our part. Next time... 

The drive to our new place took a very long time- I would guess almost an hour due to the traffic since we were arriving right as school was letting out.

When we arrived, I had no idea what part of Kingston we were in, or even what our address was. It was a bit disorienting. The driver dropped us and our bags off and gave us our housekey. When we entered the house, my first thought was how huge it was. It's a 3 bedroom, 3.5 bathroom house with a nice little yard, a large living room, dining area, large kitchen, and a sitting area upstairs. We definitely have plenty of space- we just need to make sure we don't fill it, otherwise moving and packing will be painful! 

The house is fully furnished, so it's nice not to have to worry about that- though the furniture isn't quite in our taste, and there are soooo many pieces (so many end tables and dressers and armoires in this house). 

When someone new goes to their post, they are assigned a social sponsor. Our social sponsors, Gary and Laize, have been totally great. They prepped our house (put the dishes in the dishwasher, made the beds and put up the shower curtains, went grocery shopping and stocked our fridge/pantry with some things to get us started, and even got flowers and a little gift for Olivia!). They've also been showing us around Kingston, taking us to different places since we are without a car until our car clears customs. On our first night, they stopped by to make sure we were ok. Adam and I weren't quite sure what to do with ourselves and Adam was a bit nervous about his first day of work, since he didn't know his schedule or what to expect. Now he's in his routine and getting to know people, so he is a lot more comfortable. 

Our living room- there is a large space behind this area as well that we aren't sure what to use it for- Olivia's play area?

Our 8-person dining table- we can add a leaf to seat 10 if we wanted

Our kitchen (don't mind the mess on the table!)

The other side of our kitchen (to the right is the laundry area)

Flowers and local fruit from our social sponsors (including papaya, coconut, bananas, and Jamaican apples)

Our little laundry area where I have been doing a lot of laundry (cloth diapers = daily laundry!)

On our second floor at the top of the stairs is a little sitting area (aka Olivia's middle of the night diaper and feeding area)

Guestroom/Olivia's Room (with walk in closet area and bathroom). Olivia currently sleeps with us in our room, but as she gets older, she'll probably move into this room with her crib, so I'll probably turn it into a nursery of sorts.

Guestroom 2 (aka Betty's room in the near future, also with closet and bathroom)

Our bedroom

Master bath has a shower and this giant tub- it's the only tub in the house and while neat, I'm thinking it's not really conducive for baby tub time (thinking about when she is closer to 2 years old)

Our arrival to post was almost three weeks ago- it's been hard to say how we are liking Kingston since we don't have easy ways of getting around and exploring. Adam did rent out an Embassy motorpool car two weekends in a row so that we could do some grocery shopping and errand running. We have gone on a few adventures (I'll post about those in a future post), but pretty much during the week Adam is at work and Olivia & I hang out at home where I don't get a whole lot done- I've been working on these blog posts for days and days!

Preparing to depart for our first Foreign Service post

If adjusting to life with a baby wasn't enough, we were also preparing for the move to Kingston. Probably the biggest thing was the paperwork to get our new family member permission to go! A lot of this is boring details for my own memorykeeping and future reference for our next move in a few years, so feel free to skip this!

Getting a Newborn onto Travel Orders
In order for Olivia to get on Adam's travel orders to Kingston, we needed to have her passport/visa and she needed to be medically cleared. Since our departure was set for Jan. 29, it gave us just over a month and you can't even get the forms for medical clearance filled any earlier than 4 weeks. Good thing she wasn't born later- we would've been leaving in February!

Here is the timeline in brief for getting Olivia onto the travel orders-
12/20- Olivia is born!
1/3- Submitted passport applications (both for regular and diplomatic), but not processed since her birth certificate wasn't ready
1/8- Birth record in the system for VA
1/11- Drove to Richmond, VA to pick up copies of Olivia's birth certificate
1/13- Adam dropped off a copy of her birth certificate and requested same day printing of her passport. Adam then dropped off our passports to get the Jamaican visa.
1/17- Olivia had her 4 week appointment to get paperwork filled out for Medical Clearance (4 weeks is the earliest you can get the form filled out by the pediatrician)
1/24- Olivia got medical clearance at the end of the workday on Friday so Adam had to wait till Monday to talk to HR
1/27- Adam spent all morning trying to get in touch with someone about getting her added to the orders, which finally happened in the afternoon. Adam checks out of FSI!
1/28- We get our seats on the airplane for Kingston...just in time! ;) And luckily once we were at the airport, the American Airlines staff put us together because originally we were seated apart.

Here's a little more detail... in order to get a passport, we needed to get a birth certificate, and it takes 10 business days to get into the system in VA (with the holidays, that meant Jan. 8 for us). The Vital Records Office wouldn't confirm whether she was in the system, but luckily, the staff in the records office at the Virginia Hospital Center were wiling to look that up. Expedited mail takes up to another week and is way more expensive, so we ended up driving to Richmond that Saturday to pick up copies.

We tried to expedite the process by submitting the passport application ahead of time without the birth certificate. We tried going to the passport desk in the State Department but they only take checks (!!) when we tried to pay for her regular passport. We ended up going to the passport office around the corner, which worked out better because they print the passports right there. Once her birth certificate was in, Adam had to make a few trips to the passport office in DC and talk with a manager to get the passports printed up on the same day.

Overall, Adam had to be very proactive in order to make things happen a little faster, which meant lots of phone calls and finding out the status of things. In the end, it worked out but it made Adam super antsy.

Packing, Round 2

As I mentioned in a previous post, we are permitted a certain amount of shipped items to our post- HHE (household effects) and UAB (unaccompanied air baggage). We already shipped some things from Boulder to DC that we haven't seen in months that is already on its way to Kingston.

We were permitted another HHE and UAB (unaccompanied air baggage) shipment from DC to Kingston. So of course, despite getting rid of a lot of things prior to going to DC, living in a furnished apartment, and having moved from one apartment in DC to another, we still had a ton of stuff! Adam spent HOURS scanning and shredding our files.

Not only that, but we also spent a LOT of time deciding what kind of luggage to purchase (our last day in DC was spent running around returning the bags we decided against). I should've taken a photo of all the different bags Adam had bought to try out! In the end, we had our two large Delsey suitcases, two large duffels that I think Adam bought at Target or Marshalls, an old secondhand suitcase, and two small carry-on Samsonite suitcases. Ugh, I hate luggage!

For our HHE from DC, we shipped off Olivia's crib, mattress, Olivia's clothes that were 3 months and above,  our recliner, some kitchen supplies that we deemed not super urgent (sadly I think my cookie sheets and cupcake tins were in that batch), and books.

For our UAB, we had up to 600 lbs of stuff that we could ship. We only shipped 400 lbs (I know, how in the world did we have 400 lbs of stuff?!?!? Granted, it includes all the packaging material as well). Our UAB includes our pots/pans, KitchenAid, blender, rice cooker, my scrapbooks, Olivia's baby swing (I can't wait for that to arrive!), and our spices. It takes about three weeks to arrive so I hope it comes in the next week or so!

The things that we brought on the airplane with us- clothes & shoes, diapers, wipes, Olivia's pack n play, stroller/carseat/carseat base, Olivia's playmat, and miscellaneous things that we thought we might need in our first few days (1 knife, cutting board, nicer sheets/towels).

Since arriving in Jamaica, I think we would have packed some things a bit differently. We found out that we can order things from Amazon and Walmart.com and other places pretty easily (I ordered diaper wipes and it arrived within 5 days from Amazon), so I wouldn't have packed the wipes and laundry detergent- instead I would've just ordered them before we arrived at post. We probably also would have mailed some things off in packages ahead of time to ourselves so we didn't have so many bags to lug about. Instead, I would've brought baking and cooking supplies with me on the plane. Oh well, it'll all come soon!

Photos of our last few days

Last dinner with Nathan at Carlyle! It was delicious (YUM on mashed cauliflower and a tasty jambalaya).

Olivia sleeping right through the movers packing our stuff- we thought they would only send 2 people to pack up our small apartment, but there were 4 movers bustling about. 

Our very last night- we were able to go out to dinner with Ethan, Jason, Stacia and Grigs (and yay! They took most of our leftover food so I didn't have to feel bad about throwing things away) and then we did the last final packup while watching Dexter (and Olivia played on her playmat). 

Olivia's First Month

I am going to have to break up the next few posts since there are so many changes and os much to share!!

First, we'll start with Olivia's first month. Here are her stats from her one month visit to the doctor (including some photos of the visit) before I jump into a review of her very busy first month!

Height-21.5" (64 percentile)
Weight- 9 lbs 7 oz (64 percentile) which was up from 8 lbs 1 oz at her 2 week checkup!
Head Circumference- 37.8 cm (74 percentile)
Milestones- she learned to breastfeed effectively after starting out with a tongue tie, she cries nice and loud when she is hungry, she can turn her head from side to side during tummy time (with some effort)

In her first weeks, she got to take a few short excursions, including trips to the supermarket, Target, the Library of Congress, and a few restaurants. We were fortunate for a few warmer days in DC, and for the cooler days, we stuck with short outings around the underground mall that was attached to our apartment in Crystal City.

Our first set of visitors came when she was 4 days old. Mom, dad, and Betty were lucky to come during her first few weeks, because she hardly cried at all and mostly slept and looked cute! They stayed from December 24th-January 1st, so they were able to celebrate Christmas and New Years with us. Mostly we ate, cooked, looked at Olivia, and they cheered me on as I battled with the difficulties of the first few weeks of breastfeeding (hands down those were the hardest weeks and the hardest thing I've ever done!).

Yes, those are cankles

Our family photo on Christmas day

My two loves fast asleep in the wee hours of the night- amazing how much Olivia's face has slimmed down since this photo!

Never too early for storytime

One of her early outings to the outdoor space near our apartment

Exploring our nation's capitol

Facetiming with Carlos

Olivia with Auntie Betty, Gong Gong and Popo

After they left, Adam, Olivia and I had a few days alone as our small little family. We went in for her two week check up, where it was a relief to learn that she was gaining weight (with all the challenges of breastfeeding, I wasn't sure if she was even getting anything to eat!). We also got her passport photo taken at the State Department and ran around trying to get her passport application submitted. 

Two weeks old- hard to believe with all that hair!

Daddy keeping his little baby girl warm

Her passport photo- this will stay with her until she's 5! 

After that, Auntie Susan arrived from Jan. 7-12th to help out and to meet her new niece. Susan gave little Olivia lots of love and attention, and provided some great advice as a first-time mama! We also celebrated my birthday with sushi, ice cream, cupcakes, and also making pizza! Fun times!

Bathtime!! Olivia's still not sure if she likes it or not

Getting Starbucks with Olivia

One night our power went out so we called up Nathan and hung out at his place where it was nice and warm! :)

Auntie Susan loves Olivia

Adam filling out the application so we could pick up copies of her birth certificate that we needed to officially finish up the passport printing process

Nathan showing us the mad skills he learned while working at Nicoletti's

 After that, Lexi and John came all the way out from Colorado to visit us. Their visit was filled with good food, good company, and watching a LOT of Dexter on Netflix (thanks Betty, haha). During their visit, Olivia went in for her 4 week check up.

Lexi had the magic touch of calming Olivia and getting her to fall asleep! 

Great way to spend time with friends- relaxing and watching Dexter 

And in case this wasn't enough photos of Olivia, here are a few other favorites from her first month:

Hanging with Stacia

Hollering "I'm hungry mama!"

Diaper change