Spouse Day at FSI

So today a lot of the sessions at A-100 were relevant to spouses too, so we were invited.  It was kind of fun to go and see what all the excitement is about.  There were sessions on dealing with crises, healthcare options overseas, the family liason office, etc. but the very best one was the last session on building resilience.  Personally, this is something I really need to work on to survive and love our new lifestyle in the Foreign Service so it was a great class to attend.  The best part was this TED talk by Shawn Achor.  Watch it!  You'll be glad you did.

Disclaimer: The movie does have one slightly inappropriate reference about half-way through, so if you're watching with kids, that's just a heads-up. :-)

Bid List Surprise

When we met with our CDO (Career Development Officer, the one mainly responsible for deciding our fate for our first post) last week, she asked if we had any other considerations for her.  My Man leaned back in his chair and declared, "Well, I'm just holding out for that Russian post that's going to pop up at the last minute."  In fact, throughout this whole excruciating exciting process, he's been saying stuff like, "You know, it probably doesn't matter.  I just have a feeling that there's going to be a Russian spot that opens up." 

Well today was the deadline for turning in our bid list, marked high, medium, and low.  Last night My Man came home grinning.  Guess what got added to the bid list at the last minute?  Let me give you a hint.  It's the opposite of tropical, and it's in a part of the world that rhymes with "Iberia."  (OK, it's not actually in Siberia, but it's on the edge and wimpy Americans like to claim it anyway to get bonus sympathy points when they have to live there.)  It's one of those posts where they have to bribe people to go because it's so far from ANYTHING and chances are you've never heard of it. I mean, it's the only place in the world where Siberian tigers still live, if that tells you something.

That said, I am from Gold Beach.  It's not like I need a lot of big-city excitement to be happy.  In fact, the more we researched this little outpost of diplomacy, the more intrigued I became.  It really is a beautiful little city.  And it hits most of our quality of life priorities: good air quality, good outdoor recreational opportunities, survivable climate (kind of) . . . The only thing it's really lacking is affordable airfare to other places and great schools (there are options, but we'd have to do some serious research into this if we go).

But we didn't give it too much thought (if obsessing about it until past midnight counts as not "too much" thought).  Afterall, the posting is available NOW and we still didn't have My Man's Russian test results back.  He didn't feel like he did very well on the test and if he didn't ace it, we wouldn't be ready in time to be considered for this post.  So we sent off our bid list, and didn't think too much more about it.

Then this morning, My Man got his test results back.  He aced his test (Way to go Honey!!!). . . . This could be our home as early as March!  Yikes.  I better start brushing up my Russian skills, just in case.

(Disclaimer: None of these pictures are mine.  I shamelessly stole borrowed them from Google images.  If we end up going here, maybe I can update with pictures of my own . . . )

Oakwood Apartments

Since I should be organizing taxes instead of indulging my whims to blog, I'll make this short.  I've been asked lots of questions about what life at Oakwood is like.  Was it worth it to stay here?  Did we finally get a three-bedroom apartment?  Are the pictures on the walls as hideous as reputed? 

Oakwood living room/dining room/kitchen

So here's the deal.  Staying at Oakwood is awesome.  Really.  Sure, we don't have a house, don't really have our own yard, and the art on the walls leaves much to be desired, but it's completely worth it.  When we moved in, we were able to dump our suitcases in the living room, run to the convenience store about 50 feet away, and buy all the essentials for dinner and breakfast to tide us over until our real shopping trip the next day.  Fifteen minutes later, I was in the kitchen cooking pasta and brownies (paleo friends, don't judge . . . first nights in new places after flying across the country do not have any food rules or standards in this house!).  By bedtime a couple hours later, we were mostly unpacked and settled in.  Sure the kitchen accessories are dull and somewhat lacking, and all the bedding and towels are a sterile white, but talk about easy!


kids' room

And easy doesn't stop there.  There are shuttles to the metro stop, shuttles to FSI, shuttles to shopping (on Saturday afternoons), a shuttle that will take you anywhere within 5 miles every weeknight (6 to 10pm), a gym (replete with sauna and locker room), a business center with free computer use and printing, a latte/hot chocolate machine in the lobby, rooms to reserve for group get-togethers, kids activities most days of the week, a free Sunday brunch, and more, not to mention plenty of ready-made friends for your kids and a bus-stop for each of the Falls Church public schools (which seem to be fantastic).  There's also a pool (currently closed for winter), two tennis courts, and basketball hoops.  Oakwood Falls Church is also within easy walking distance of the Eden Center (home to the best, and reputedly most authentic, Vietnamese cuisine in the area), BJ's (similar to Costco), and even a Barnes & Noble and Ross Dress for Less.  Oh, and did I mention the weekly maid service?  And about the wall art--we were lucky enough to get different pictures on each wall--a friend of ours has three of the same picture throughout their apartment!  Still, Oakwood could definitely do better and purchase their art here in future!

Ry is stoked to have the studio room to himself.  Kind of.  We agreed it will
also be the game/play room.  The bed folds up to make a large open room.

So, while the apartment complex doesn't have the charm of many of the colonial neighborhoods around here, we are very happy with our choice to stay here, especially since we don't know how long we'll be here.  And now that we've moved into a three-bedroom apartment, we have plenty of room for visitors if you want to come see the many sights here in our country's capital!

The Bid List . . .

"Where are you heading next?" is probably the question I hear most often these days.  The answer?  Only God knows!  We did, however, finally get our bid list (the list of almost a hundred places where the State Department could send us next).  Here's what one of My Man's colleagues said about it:

The list is confidential, so I can't write the exact places on the list, but a simple thought experiment will give you an idea. Imagine a list of all the countries in the world.  Now cross off every country that you have ever dreamed of visiting, especially for a honeymoon or dream vacation. Next cross off the countries that you think are interesting because of significant historical events or have been on the news because of significant political or economic events happened there recently. Now cross off the countries that you think would be nice places to live. Now circle the names of countries that you have not heard of or that you aren't quite sure where they are . . . . The countries that you circled in your imagination are probably on the bid list.  (http://blog.denniehoopingarner.com)

It's not really that bad, but I have to admit it was a bit of a shock when we saw the list.  Not a single Russian speaking post!  And the list is arranged by city name, not country, so at first glance I only recognized a small handful of the names.  As My Man marked each spot on our giant world map, he made comments like, "Wow, wouldn't it be awesome to go there?!" or "How incredible would that be?!" and my stomach got tighter and tighter and I felt like I might faint or throw up.  I admit I may have had a major minor breakdown at some point in the days following.  But thanks to some really awesome Foreign Service spouses with fantastic attitudes and advice, and some pretty intensive research into every single entry on the list, and a husband who is really truly excited about this whole process (and amazingly patient with me), I recovered and actually started to get pretty excited myself.  So now we are gearing ourselves up for learning a new language, maybe Spanish or Thai or Chinese.  Or maybe we'll go to one of the handful of English-speaking posts available.  Maybe we'll go to an exotic jungle city or maybe a Caribbean island.  We could go someplace exotic or we could go to a Mexican border town.  We really have no idea.  But every single place on the list has some really cool things about it and would be a great place to live.

Although the State Department gets to make the final choice about where to send us during our first two posts, we do get to provide some input.  We can classify the posts into High, Medium, or Low priorities (meaning, we'd be excited to go to a High post, but reluctant to go to a Low post).  The only catch is that you can only put 25 percent of the posts as low and all of your Highs are equally ranked (even though there might be some that would be way more exciting than others). :-)  So the past several days have been spent busily researching everything from climate to schools to safety and more about each post, and last night we finally felt good about all our choices.  Hopefully now I can start sleeping again.

Only three more weeks until Flag Day, when we'll receive our first country assignment.  Stay tuned. . .

Martin Luther King Day

Monday was a beautiful winter day and we had the pleasure of spending it in Washington, D.C., at the national mall.  First we walked down toward the Washington Monument (which is unfortunately closed for renovations).

The WWII monument was next and the kids loved reading the quotes etched into the walls.  It's a beautiful monument.

The monument everyone wanted to see most, however, was the Lincoln Memorial.

It was the perfect place to be on such an important holiday, and as we stood where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech and considered the incredible impact of one courageous leader, I was moved.

Reading Lincoln's Gettysburg Address from the wall of his monument was equally moving.  Our kids were surprised by the emotion in my voice as I choked up, reading those powerful words.  I hope they felt something of the awe and respect that I feel for that great man and president.

We then walked through the Vietnam Memorial, where we learned that more than half of those MIA have now been identified, including the remains of the soldier who used to reside in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery.

We then walked to the edge of the White House property where the kids were excited to see the president's house for the first time.

By then, we were already running out of time, so we hurried over to the Natural History Smithsonian.  Wow.  I visited the Smithsonians many years ago, but I'd forgotten their scope.  We barely had time to scratch the surface of all that was there and can't wait to go back.

We enjoyed exploring the dinosaur exhibit, the Hope diamond, and the mummies.  Finally we had to drag the kids away, promising to return soon.  It wasn't nearly enough time, but we had tickets to the NBA Wizards vs 76ers game with My Man's A-100 class.  On the way, we passed several street musicians.  Our favorite was this jazz ensemble right outside the basketball game.

The game was fun (Wizards dominated and won), but my favorite part was when we asked Funny Guy if he was having fun.  He'd been dancing to the music and glued to the game so we thought he'd say YES!  Instead he said, "Not really--I liked the museums the most."  That's my boy!

All in all, it was a fantastic day--beautiful, interesting, and fun.  And maybe the best part?  Finding out that the next day instead of heading back to work and school, we got a snow day!

A Moving Life

Today, we're moving again.  We've been here in Falls Church, Virginia, exactly 13 days.  Just long enough to fight over rooms (the kids all wanted the walk-in closet as their "very own room"), put our giant world map up on the wall, figure out the strange moods of the dishwasher, and have four service calls (apparently our appliances were exhausted from all their work with the previous tenants and weren't excited about continuing on with us).

But today's move is only to the building next to ours, from our two-bedroom in building C to a three-bedroom apartment (yahoo!) in building B. It shouldn't be too bad as far as moves go since we still only have the stuff we brought with us in our suitcases, along with all the "essentials" we've accumulated from a few trips to BJ's (local Costco knock-off) and Target, although the 6 inches of snow that arrived yesterday will make it a little more tricky.

In our 13 days here, we've broken in our new shoes fairly painlessly.  We arrived on a Friday and enjoyed a homecooked meal in our new apartment that night (thanks to the small and ridiculously overpriced but convenient store on the apartment premises).

Sunday we went to church (twice, but that's another story) and met about a hundred other Foreign Service families in the area.

My Man started A-100 (the orientation class for new Foreign Service Officers) Monday, while I tackled the challenge of registering our three kids into three different schools and then stocking our pantry and fridge.

By Tuesday our kids were in school and by the time I picked them up at the bus stop that afternoon, they were already happily incorporated into the social bedlam of our transient community.  My Man and I had several Foreign Service events to attend and ended up having something pretty much every evening that week.  We almost bought a car, then decided to wait until we know where we're going next and what vehicle regulations we'll be facing.  So after a few days borrowing a car from a very generous friend, we got acquainted with the public transportation of Falls Church (very expensive taxis, free shuttles if you time it right, and the metro with a stop only a couple blocks away).

Wednesday, the kids had early dismissal from school and the weather was unseasonably warm, so we headed out to explore the nearest trail system and parks.  The kids were delighted by the squirrels, the trees, the wildness of it all.  Needless to say, it's been a great and relatively easy transition.

Yesterday was a snow day and so Young Man invited his new friends over to play games and eat pizza (yes, I'm not above bribing his friends into thinking ours is the cool house!).  It was so awesome to talk to these 11-year-old boys about their lives.  Between the four of them, they'd lived in more than 10 different countries and visited a bunch more.  I was impressed by all of them and couldn't ask for better friends for our son.  And the best part?  They welcomed him in from day one, including him in their group, making the transition easy because they've been there, that new kid coming in the middle of a year, and they know how it is, so they do their best to make it easier.

Sunset I enjoyed while walking home from the metro one evening.

So yes, our new life will be unsettled, it will be hard and uncomfortable, but I think the rewards will be one hundred percent worth it.  A moving life is just that, a moving life, a powerful life, one where you get to soak up new experiences, see new places, become new people.

Falls Church is simply beautiful.