Thoughts on Oakwood

For the uninitiated among you, Oakwood is the name of the apartments that State has teamed with to provide an easy alternative for members of the Foreign Service seeking temporary housing while in training in the D.C. area. Reimbursement is handled directly between DoS and Oakwood which means that we have one less thing to worry about during a period of extreme life-changing chaos. To sweeten the deal, the good folks here throw in all your utilities (power, water, phone, internet, and television), and they will even come to your apartment once a week to clean it. I can already hear you saying, "Where do I sign up?," right? It gets better. There is a shuttle service that will take you to and from work, the Metro, or the grocery store.

Ok, here's the rub. There are five of us in our family, and they only offer studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments. Hmmm...how does that work with a large family such as ours? I'll save you the trouble of doing the math: the solution for us was to occupy adjoining two-bedroom and studio apartments. This technically gives us a three-bedroom home, but it's so much more than that. The boys are sharing a room (as they have been for some time), the parents have a master suite (since we are the masters), and our daughter gets her own private royal suite complete with two televisions and her own kitchen (which is great if she decides to whip up a midnight snack while simultaneously watching reruns of Taxi and MTV Cribs).

We're actually very fortunate to have this available to us. I just think that it will take some time to accept the new reality of being a permanently transient family. Welcome to the Foreign Service.