Charlie has landed in Oxford

Brother Charlie wrapped up baseball work in Belgium this past weekend, and has just arrived in Oxford today to hang with us a few weeks, before he heads back to the US in mid-November. It's great he has a transitionary period (speaking English again!) before getting back home. And we're glad he has time to chill with us here and check out more of England. He was here for only about 2 days last summer, so there is lots more he can see and explore now. We know he is bummed to leave his great friends and wonderful Belgian way of life. . . but we're excited to have him here!

Next up, trip back to the Midwest for Brian and Kelly to join in Sonja and Sanjay's Indian Wedding Extravaganza in Chicago!

We've already voted for the President of the USA!

I do have to say it's pretty cool that we've already gotten to vote! As we are US citizen's living abroad, along with the military personnel, we vote via Absentee ballots. We had to figure out how the process would go, but it wasn't too bad reading up on what we had to do via a few different internet sites. We discovered that we had to vote in the state where we last resided - so that is Oregon. We contacted the Lane County elections office, had to fill in a form that stated our last known address in Eugene, and our new address overseas. We had to sign it, and mail it back to them. Then, they mail us updated voter registration cards (which still lists our old address, which I think is a bit strange, since someone else now lives there) but anyhow. Then, our ballots followed in the post. Obviously we vote by mail in this process, but after living in Oregon, we were used to voting by mail anyway. Oregon was the first state to pass an initiative to have vote-by-mail only. There are no voting polls in Oregon. You have to mail or drop off your ballot to the local county election office. I have to say - it was great. You could take your time and read through all the information before you made your decision. I think Oregonians are very well educated on the people and positions when they cast their votes.

Anyhow, so we vote via the Lane County elections process - but now that we are overseas and don't live in Oregon anymore, we can only vote for Federal elections. We can only vote for US President/VP, Oregon State Senator and Oregon US House of Representatives. So races such as Oregon Secretary of State or city mayor, we can't vote for any of those people or positions.

It has been very fun and interesting to watch the US political race from abroad. The Brits and Europeans are so interested in US politics and surprisingly are following it all pretty closely. Early November sure will be good fun!