Flag Day and Swearing In

Darrin in good spirits at the start of flag day.

My life goes by in the blink of an eye.  Does that happen to you too?  Jeesh.  Now then.  On December 9th we attended a very special event called Flag Day at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI).  Lulu and I met Darrin there since he had a tour of the CIA that morning (but since the CIA doesn't exist I'm not sure what he was really doing.  He did bring home some presents from the gift shop though.)  Flag Day is the ceremony where the new hires get to find out where their first post will be.  In November, Darrin received the bid list of open posts and submitted his preferences to his career adviser.  There were 52 open posts and he had to rank each of them as high, medium, or low.  He ranked all the posts in Latin America as high and medium and all the posts in Asia and Africa as low.  I was a bit of a wreck up to the day of the ceremony.  I was waking up almost every night thinking about Ciudad Juarez.  That was a very real possibility for us.  I was sort of sure that we were going there.  I mean I was waking up thinking about what I would do if we got posted there.  I had an apartment in Albuquerque in my plans.  Darrin was one of the last names called.  I had the list printed out with me and kept checking off the posts as they were called.  Juarez was still on the list when they called him but phew we got Sao Paulo, Brazil instead.  HOLY COW!  We are going to Brazil.  Sao Paulo is the biggest city in the southern hemisphere. It is 21 million people!  Talk about culture shock!  We are super excited and feel like we got one of the best posts available.  Woot!

Just received the Brazil flag.

Our friends with their China flag.  They are going to Shanghai.  Shin is Malaysian and won't need language training.  Lucky!

Our Family.  Lulu held that flag tight for the rest of the day.

Another friend going to China.  Ariel's family is going to Beijing. 

Lulu is ready for Brazil.  She thought we were leaving right away.

The next week, on December 16, Darrin had his swearing in ceremony which means he is officially a foreign service officer.  This ceremony was at Main State which is State Department headquarters in D.C. - where Ms. Clinton herself has a very fancy office - I actually got to see it.  It was all very official and nowhere near as fun as Flag Day where everyone was whooping it up.  Darrin's parents came for the swearing in and thank god they did because Grammie is a god-send for Lulu and knows just how to keep her occupied...with candy.  We took the metro in and a taxi back and I impressed everyone with my taxi hailing skills, just like in Laverne and Shirley.  

Even double fisting the licorice, Lulu wants no part of the swearing in ceremony.

164th A-100 Class.  52 members taking their oath to office.  

Do I see a future diplomat?

From ABQ to D.C./Va. in thirteen parts. This being the final post.

11. We went to see Santa! (aka. We spent a day with some other families from Darrin's class).  We drove over to Reston to see Santa come in on a pontoon boat.  Lulu was excited about Santa and even sat next to him.  O.k. she clung to me the whole time, but she didn't scream so I count that as a success!  There was a little corral with animals and Lulu love love loved the baby bunnies.  After the Santa event we went to one of Darrin's colleagues house and ate chili and watched the all the kids play.  It was really a nice beautiful day.  Everyone was very friendly and excited to be part of this new adventure.  That evening we went and got some little trees at Michael's and came back and decorated for Christmas.  

 12. We moved. Again.  Remember before I said we were on a waiting list for a two bedroom apartment.  Well we got it.  Yay! (mostly). So we got all our Christmas stuff up over the weekend and on Monday I got a call from Darrin at work asking me if I'd forgotten something. No, I hadn't.  Well he had gotten a call from some lady in the leasing  department saying that she'd called and talked to me two weeks ago and scheduled our move for the weekend (the weekend where we'd just put up all our Christmas junk).  You would think that I would remember that phone call!  Yeah, I never talked to that lady which makes me wonder who exactly did she talk to??  So we started packing up all our stuff on Monday and hauling it over from 1st floor building D to 3rd floor building B.  We moved one load on Monday night and then on Tuesday I moved two loads on my own.  Then Tuesday night we moved a bunch more.  Of course it rained the whole time and over the weekend when we could have moved it was sunny and warm.  We got most of it done but as I write this it is Wednesday and I have about two more carloads to move but it's pouring down rain all day again today and I am just going to go ahead and wait for Darrin to come home to do it together.  I am just glad to be in the two bedroom.  It has a lot more room - more than just a bedroom.  It has an extra walk in closet, full bathroom, and extra kitchen and living room space.  Now I just have to transition Lulu into her own room again and a real bed.
13. Looking forward.  This Friday (two days from today) is Flag Day.  We will be finding out where Darrin's first post will be.  It will be a big festive day and I am really looking forward to it.  Of course, I am a bit nervous to that we will not get a post that we want, but that's life and we'll make do.  It's only for two years.  After that, next Friday, Darrin will have his swearing-in ceremony and then he will be done with his initial training.  His parents are coming and staying until Lulu's second birthday which we are really looking forward to as they are are first visitors and it's just such a special time of year especially with Darrin's job and all.  


That's it, nothing more...phew...I will really be trying to update this blog thing more often.  Talk about information OVERLOAD.  

From ABQ to D.C./Va. in thirteen parts. This being the first post of three.

Oh wow how things have progressed.  I have had no time to sit down and try to record what's happened in our lives since October.  It has been fast and furious that's for sure.  I'm gonna break it down here in a series of steps and add some pictures that I've taken if they pertain.
1. We put our house on the market and it SOLD to the very first person who looked at it.  How great is that?!  Made us feel pretty good about ourselves as home owners.  We lost a little because of the market but whatevs.  It was worth it to have the peace of mind and not have to worry about it anymore.

Unassisted Baggage - 590lbs o' fun.

2. We packed up all our schiznit in to two separate loads.  One was unassisted baggage (UAB) - this up to but not over 600lbs of living stuff we'd need in our new apartment which is furnished.  We packed up 590lbs.  The second load was everything else in our house (household effects) which is currently being stored somewhere north of D.C. and which is not easily accessible (basically we can't get to it until we're ready to leave for our first post). It was a little difficult to decide what we would need and what we wouldn't.  We definitely could have used some more kitchen items, hangers for clothes, and we could have done without our own towels and maybe our bikes b/c Falls Church is not uber bike friendly and it's cold and rainy here. But other than that we did pretty good on packing. I guess packing is the wrong way to put it since we really didn't 'pack' anything. What a relief it was to have someone else do that for us!  

When someone else packs your stuff it ends up in nice pretty boxes.

3. I resigned from my job.  Sob...it was really hard to say goodbye to all my colleagues!  I was also truly loving my part-time job sharing first grade classroom this year.  
4. I said goodbye to my friends and to Albuquerque.  Sob...I made some really GREAT friends in Albuquerque.  I'm also going to miss the climate there.  I am not used to all the clouds and rain we've been getting here in Falls Church.
5. We said good-bye to Lulu's babysitter, Frances.  If I'd known how great having Lulu in daycare part-time was going to be for her I would have done it a year ago.  What a blessing Frances was to our family!  She truly made a difference in Lulu's little life in just 3 months (and ours too).

Lulu helping out at garage sale.
 "What you're selling this?"

6. We had a garage sale and sold a ton o stuff on craig's list.  Including my car which we sold on the day before we moved.  Crazy how things work out!