Wow, so much for staying on top of the blogging thing! My plan was to blog a little bit each day, so as not to lose any experiences or memories. Unfortunately, real life kicks in, circumstances overtake us, and the next time you look up it’s been a full month since the last blog post. Yikes.

So much has happened in the last month that I have no chance of covering everything (plus, it’s getting late and I don’t have much time tonight to write), I’ll just hit a few highlights.

Olive and I are developing a love-hate relationship. Mostly love, but I’d be lying if I said she didn’t completely frustrate me at least once per day. She’s taken to refusing to poop or pee when we take her outside, and then moments later she leaves us a stinky love nugget or a pool of pee. Is she just testing us? Probably. Is she winning the battle of wills? Yep. She’s darn cute though.

Last week I was pulled over by the national police (Guardia Civil) for driving with my headset in (I was on a conference call). The entire thing was a bit comedic (in retrospect, not at the time) because they drove in front of me to pull me over. When I wasn’t picking up the hint the policeman in the passenger seat hung out the window and kept motioning for me to pull over. I pulled my dumb-foreigner-who-doesn’t-speak-Spanish routine (which is 100% authentic, by the way) and managed to get a ticket. 100 euro fine on the spot. Double if you pay later. Since it was so darned expensive I think I’ll frame it.

After nearly a month of back-and-forth, Jess and I wired the tuition deposit for the kids to attend the American School of Madrid (Americano Colegio de Madrid). We think it’s a much better school and our kids should fit it in more. About this time last year we tried to enroll the kids there, but it is not considered a valid school option by my company so we chose the kids’ current school (International College of Spain). We’re still trying to figure out how we’re going to pay for it but I’m happy with the choice. The biggest downside (besides the tuition) is that the school is on the opposite side of Madrid from where we live. We will look into what it would take to move but, after having done that in Beijing, we already know what a nightmare it is. Either we move closer to school or we don’t. Either way it’ll be fine.

We’ve got a big Easter week holiday planned for the week after next. It should be awesome! We’re going with three other families. More details later.

Take care.