New Yongin!

My Man has been watching the weather forecast like a hawk and the first promising day we all loaded into the car to check out a potential flying spot.  It was a ways away, but as we left the city behind, we all took a collective sigh of pleasure.  As we drove, Funny Guy happily chirped, "I'm so excited to see our new Yongin!"  Really, we were just heading to a little hill on a farm near Fredericksburg, Virginia, but it was beautiful and the day was perfect. 

As soon as we parked, the kids launched from the car and scattered to explore.  Funny Guy was intent on finding and catching bugs (he'd had to let a spider go the day before because we hadn't been able to find any food to feed it), Darling Daughter and Young Man wanted to explore.  My Man went off to talk with the other pilots and check out the launch.  I just leaned back and tried to soak up as much sunshine as possible, enjoying every minute of that warm, sunshiny day and delicious fresh air. 

We enjoyed a picnic lunch and the boys and I went on a nice hike through the forest and down to a little creek.  Young Man dared to cross the creek on a high fallen log, and while he was crossing he found an owl pellet! 

He and Funny Guy were so excited.  And can I say that I was so proud to have raised a son who would notice and recognize an owl pellet?! :-)  Funny Guy wanted to reconstruct the skeleton, but sadly it didn't make it home intact.

Turns out hang gliding and not paragliding is the norm here (My Man was the only paraglider among lots of hang gliders), but since as he was carrying his glider back up the hill after each flight, passing the hang-glider pilots with their massive, awkward wings, he was glad he'd switched to paragliding.  He got several flights in before we headed back home. 

The traffic on the way home was incredible, reminding us of trips back to Seoul after days at Yongin before we got our 9-passenger van and got to use the bus lane.  But it was worth it.  And the sunset we got to watch as we crawled along was breath-taking.

Mr. Diplomat

Time flies when you're studying to become a diplomat, and before he knew it My Man was standing to take his oath to become a U.S. Diplomat. 

Actually, it was the second time My Man was sworn in (there is an informal swearing in on the first day), but this time it was a formal ceremony to mark the end of orientation.  The ceremony was at Main State (downtown DC) rather than at FSI where he normally studies.  Deputy Secretary Burns (the #2 guy at State) was the main speaker and the one to administer the oath.  He told some great stories about his early days in the department.

The oath for U.S. diplomats is the same as the one that U.S. Congress members take and is very similar to the oath My Man took as a U.S. Army officer:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

The ceremony was actually a little bittersweet.  The 175th A-100 class will now disperse.  Some are heading off to ConGen (to learn how to be consular officers for their first tour), some are heading off to language training, and some are heading off to their first posts in just a few weeks! 

Afterward, they all had a big celebration to mark the end and the beginning.  My Man felt like we really won the lottery with his first post to Chiang Mai, so he picked up the tab for the first few hours of the party.  (See?  He's already mastered the art of diplomacy.)

So now it's official!  I am married to a very good looking U.S. diplomat.  And he starts Thai classes on Monday.  Wish him luck!

Chocolate Wall

Flag Day stole the show this Valentine's Day, but My Man planned a delicious surprise for me the next day: a chocolate tour of Dupont Circle (a DC neighborhood).  Seriously, what could be better?  We started at a nice little bakery where we had hot chocolate and croissants.  Then we walked from place to place sampling all sorts of delicious chocolates, from ice cream to donuts to truffles to chocolate bars to cupcakes to European drinking chocolate to. . . you get the idea. 

Our guide said his goal was to make us "hit the chocolate wall," the point where you cannot even fathom eating another bite of chocolate anything. . . . I don't think that point exists for me.  I enjoyed every single bite. Thank you Love.  It was a wonderful Valentine's Day.  (I got him Superman cufflinks with a matching tie clip because really, he is awesome, and he needed some accessories to go with his Superman tie!)

Pack Your Bags!

Seriously, you're going to want to come visit.  But before I reveal the big news, here's how the day went.

The kids and I joined My Man at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) just after lunch, where he gave us a tour of his classroom and the place.  We were way too early (wanted to get good seats!) so we had a while to wait and for anticipation to build.  We all placed bets about where we were heading:

My Man thought Tijuana or Santo Domingo.
I thought Guatemala City or Ankara.
Young Man thought Santo Domingo or Vientiane.
Darling Daughter thought Tijuana or Tegucigalpa.
Funny Guy was still convinced we'd be going to Russia (Vladivostok), even though we kept telling him it wasn't likely anymore.

And the winner was . . . no one!  We were all wrong!  Actually Young Man was the closest, at least he got the right region, but more on that in a minute. 

The flag ceremony was crazy.  So many people, so many nerves.  Everyone cheering at every announcement.  At the beginning, they announced that there were no "Lows" in the group.  That meant that nobody was being sent to anywhere they had listed as "Low."  That doesn't always happen, so that was a relief, but still, they only let you place 25 percent as Low, so it wasn't a guarantee that we'd love our posting.

They announced countries and people completely randomly, not alphabetically as I'd expected.  The kids were playing bingo (everyone had country bingo sheets and there were prizes for bingo winners) and I was trying to help them with that while at the same time marking off all the posts on my list so I had an idea of what was left for us.  It was a lot to track!  More than half the spots were gone by the time our flag came up on the huge projection on the back wall, with my anxiety and suspense growing each time the post called was not ours.  Gone were our Ankara, Turkey, spots.  Gone were Santo Domingo and Tijuana and Phom Penh and Seoul.  Vladivostok went to someone else.  Many of the Mexico and China spots were gone.  And then came the flag for Thailand and they announced, "Chiang Mai, Thailand . . ." and My Man's name!!!! 

The look on his face was priceless.  The lurching excited feeling in my stomach was crazy.  It was a complete and absolute shock.  I was giddy and weak and happy and relieved and incredulous.  Wow.  We're going to be learning Thai.  We're going to be living in a jungle in paradise.  We are so excited.

Here were the kids' initial reactions:

We spent the next couple hours in a whirlwind of talking to people, consoling and congratulating and being congratulated!  I haven't had time to research much, but the basics are that we'll be here until December, learning Thai and taking other classes to get ready (if there's room in the language class, I'll get to have Thai lessons too!).  Then we'll be there for roughly two years.  It also means that we should find out our second post pretty soon because My Man still has to fulfill his Russian language commitment, so we might know as soon as May where that will be.  It really was the perfect Flag Day--there will never again be a time of such anticipation and so much unknown, and it was definitely a great surprise.  Here's a picture of the kids again, after we asked how they felt about pizza for dinner. :-)  See, we knew we'd win Darling Daughter over quickly.

So pack your bags, get ready for a beautiful vacation.  You'll definitely have a place to stay with us.

Snow Day

The snow did not disappoint and today we had a snow day!  It was super wet snow, perfect for snowman making! 

After the kids talked My Man into joining the fun, the scope of the project increased somewhat.

We still don't know if we'll have Flag Day tomorrow but we did just get word that school is canceled again tomorrow--the kids are ecstatic about their 5-day weekend. :-)

3-2-1 . . . Flag Day! (or Snow Day?)

So, hopefully, Flag Day is just three days away now (or two if you don't count today, or one if you don't count today or Flag Day, not that I'm counting).  But we are looking at winter storm advisories that are scaring us just a little.  For some strange reason a few inches of snow scares people here and everything shuts down.  According to some reports we could be getting 15 inches of snow tonight and tomorrow (I think it will more likely be around 5 inches).  The last time school and the government were shut down it was for 2 inches.  Friday's weather looks clear, but will they be able to clear the roads in time?

We hope so!

To throw another curve in the game, today My Man got an email welcoming him to the Foreign Service Language Institute.  Unless they just sign everyone up in case they need language training, it probably means we're going somewhere that My Man doesn't speak the language . . . no Russia then?  It's hard to know for sure but it's definitely ramping up the speculation.  That could mean anything from Spanish to Thai to Chinese!

Stay tuned . . . And pray for Flag Day not to be delayed!

And on another subject completely:  Do I work hard to get valentines ready only to have school canceled?  We have a cute idea this year, but it's going to take some work, and I've been under the weather.  I hate to go all out only to have it canceled. But I suppose it would be worse to do nothing and have business as usual!  I guess we'll make the call Thursday. :-)

Field Trip!

Friday was a "professional development" day, so the kids were out of school. Seriously, between snow days and holidays and professional development days, the kids haven't had many actual school days the past two weeks!  But they aren't complaining.  Friday was a beautiful sunshiny day perfect for a field trip, so I wasn't complaining either. 

We'd arranged to meet friends in at the American Indian Smithsonian.  We missed our first subway by about 10 seconds (little did we know that would be the theme for the day . . .) so we got to hang out with all the serious commuters heading into DC.

The train was totally packed and I had the only kids in sight.  We stood out from the commuters like the thing in the picture that doesn't belong. It was a pretty long ride standing, but despite quite a bit of sibling jostling and a few dirty looks from business suit clad, coffee drinking professionals, we made it through the morning rush hour crowd and to the museum, even a few minutes early.  (It was only about two blocks from the Federal Center orange metro stop; turn left after you come out to the street.)  Both friends who drove had trouble finding parking so I was glad we used the metro.

The American Indian Smithsonian a beautiful museum (architecturally) and filled with wonderful exhibits.  There is a great kids area on the third floor called "ImagiNation" with lots of hands-on exhibits, including basket weaving, kayaking, a skateboarding video game, an art center, and more.  It was geared toward kids a bit younger than Young Man, but Funny Guy and Darling Daughter absolutely loved it (probably best for kids ages 3-8).

After that we enjoyed wandering through more exhibits of beautiful artifacts, pottery, masks, etc.  On the fourth floor, there is a beautiful exhibit that is dark with stars all over the ceiling and several movies about Native American life.  It was great.

After that, we said goodbye to our friends and had a picnic lunch (we brought our own, but I've heard that the cafeteria there is really great) before heading over to the Air & Space Smithsonian.

There we were excited to touch an actual moon rock.  Some of our favorite displays included the Wright Brothers exhibit (where the original Wright Flyer 1 is on display), the Apollo exhibit, and the observatory where scientists showed the kids actual equipment they are using to study the sun.  It was especially interesting to see how different filters affected the sun's image.

We didn't have time Friday, but there are also IMAX shows, a planetarium, and flight simulators.  When we were finally done exploring all the exhibits, the kids headed to the gift shop where they had trouble deciding what to spend their money on.  Funny Guy found a Boxcar Children Mystery set in Washington, DC, which we read all the way home on the metro (and while we were waiting for the next subway after we got there in time to watch ours pull away).  Every mention of something we've seen here sends him into exultant enthusiastic exclamations:  "I'VE BEEN THERE!!!"  "WE JUST SAW THAT!!!!!!!" etc. It's great.

We got home just before My Man returned from his three-day offsite team building exercise in West Virginia.  It was fun to hear about all his adventures and to have him back.  He's halfway through orientation now and we're less than two weeks from Flag Day!  Amazingly the kids weren't too tired, so we went outside and played baseball, then hide-and-go seek in the dark until bedtime, taking full advantage of the unseasonably warm weather.

It's a good thing we did because it's already raining and sleeting again today. :-)