Saturday, November 14, 2015

November 2015

You'll note the boring title to this blog post, it was made that way because there are so many events and happenings that I haven't blogged about and there is nothing exciting about this particular day in November.

M is now 15 months old and N is 3 years old.  Both their birthday parties were a lot of fun.  For M we did a brunch with mini-pancakes, bacon, eggs, fruit, etc.  N got into his own planning, picking a monster theme and spaghetti with a toppings bar.  N and I spent many hours designing, creating and painting cardboard and paper monsters for the walls (many of which are still hanging on the walls).  We don't have any of our own pictures from either because we lost our camera in PA in May and I didn't get a new one until (unfortunately) after our trip to Roatan in early October (future post).
So happy after cake!

See the picture? N hung one of himself...I guess he was worried about being forgotten at her party. 


I'd like to say that August as a whole was uneventful, but work was very stressful as we 2 visa adjudicators transitioned part-time so we shared them with their new positions and it was the height of "bidding" season.  For those who aren't with State, bidding is what we call our process for finding our next jobs in the Foreign Service.  Basically it consists of hundreds of emails to people all over the globe.  You hope that they like you as much as you like them and then you wait, a lot of waiting.  Sometimes you'll get interviewed, but unfortunately many times you don't hear anything more than "thank you for your interest, we'll get back to you."  I went in to work on Saturdays or Sundays most weekends to keep myself afloat and to send bidding emails.  I even had a few interviews on Sunday evenings because it made the most sense for the time difference.  To top it all off, I contracted chikungunya too (July's post informed you that M caught it before me).  The older you are (I am a lot older than M), the worse the pain is and the longer it lasts, to this day nearly 4 months later I have near constant arthritic pain that comes and goes in intensity.

Moving on to happier times...September 19th, N's 3rd birthday party and our 6th anniversary.  Our anniversary was not celebrated, but N sure was!   These pictures were taken today, but I wanted to show everyone all the work N and crew did to prepare for his party.  He had a great time and was utterly exhausted by the time his guests started to leave.  Hopefully he'll be as excited by homemade party ideas in the future as well, I'm not eager to spend a bundle on a Paw Patrol or Spiderman themed party.






Fast forward to the end of October, I was surprised one Monday morning with an email offering me the Human Resources Officer position in:

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Home to the Serengeti
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It's own version of Roatan, Zanzibar
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My dad's favorite, Ngorongoro Crater!
  (Note: Images are not my own, they are google image search results.)  

TANZANIA!  Although only one person visited us in Honduras, we hope that that same person (my dad) and others make it to visit us on the other side of the world and equator!  Wish us luck over there!

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