On Sunday, we bought a hiking book and decided to try out one of the trails near Arlington. We hadn’t done any real hiking since we left Portland, but we dusted off our boots and headed for Scott’s Run Nature Preserve, about 25 minutes out of town. When we got out of our car and saw all the families with small children, I started to worry that this hike might be a little too easy for us. But using our guidebook, we were able to find a “narrow footpath” along the Scott’s Run stream bank. It did warn us that the path was “severly eroded in sections,” but we figured it couldn’t be that bad. That was, until we rounded a corner and realized that we were going to be scrambling over boulders back and forth across the water for a while. After about an hour of climbing and sliding over rocks, we finally made it to the waterfalls where Scott’s Run meets the Potamac River.

We were about a third of the way done with our planned hike at that point. It had taken us an hour and half (the whole hike was only supposed to take two hours). It was almost 90 degrees. We realized that the area we were standing in by the waterfall was covered with poison ivy and poison oak. We decided it was time to go home.

It took another hour or so to find our way back to the car. (Scott’s Run is great, but the trails are not well-marked.) We spotted several snakes and lizards along the way, to Shawn’s glee and my terror. Shawn even got a chance to see my rare “oh-my-god, there’s a snake next to my foot” dance. Complete with a little shriek. Very exciting.

It was a good adventure, but an exhausting one. Maybe next time we’ll just suck it up and deal with the tourists.

It’s been about a month since the big move from Providence, and I feel like it’s been one of the busiest months of my life. A big part of the Foreign Service is networking and socializing, so that’s a big part of Shawn’s initial training. Which means we have had “meet and greet’s” and happy hours at least 2 or 3 evenings a week all month. It’s been exhausting, but knowing that it’s a big part of our new lifestyle has kept me going.

One of the great things about the Foreign Service is that they like to keep spouses and other family members really involved. I guess they’ve figured out that expecting people to change their entire life and move overseas is a little much to ask without giving any kind of support. So I’ve taken a few classes at the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, which is the same place all of Shawn’s classes are. I’ve learned how to handle stress (I hope), introduce people to the Ambassador, and eat lobster in a formal setting. I kind of hope that last one doesn’t come up in real life. I don’t think it would be very pretty.

Other than those events, I’ve pretty much been learning how to be a non-working person. I thought that I’d really enjoy it, and I think I will eventually, but it’s been a little bit of a difficult transition. I’ve been keeping the apartment really clean and have instituted a “get out of the house one day a week” rule. So far I’ve spent a day in Georgetown and a day at the Union Station area. And the funniest housewife moment happened this week: One of the other non-working wives and I actually went to the grocery store together to get the ingredients to try new recipes for our husbands when they got home from work! Very Donna Reed.

The next few weeks will be full of more classes, at least one “spouse” event, and the most important event of all: Flag Day. That’s the day when we will find out where in the world (literally) we’ll be going for Shawn’s first assignment. It’s exciting and stressful at the same time. But I guess that’s been the case for much of life during the past two months.