Been gone for a while.
At the end of July 2017, Mrs Casey, daughter Lexi ,then 4 going on 5 and myself finally left China after seven years abroad and settled back in Kerrville, Texas.
The main reason we decided to return was because daughter was approaching school age and despite being half Chinese she wasn't eligible for Chinese public school because she was a US citizen. But even if she was eligible, Mrs. Casey would've refused sending her to a Chinese school. We also determined that international schools were beyond our means, so I told my wife that we were going to return to the US and put Lexi in school in the US.
That was when my wife countered that schools in the US were more expensive than schools in China. I told her that that may be true about private schools, but public schools were not the case. I started to laugh when, cringing as she asked me how public school was going to cost, only to look up at me in surprise at me when I said to her, " that because US public schools are taxpayer supported, it was.......FREE." So therefore, starting September last year my daughter went to pre-K and this year is in Kindergarten.
For me I re-applied and was rehired by the VA hospital, so I back working for the US government.