Getting Settled

We have been in Guadalajara for about 10 days now and although there is so much to take in, I think we are adjusting well. It has been difficult not having a car and either walking or taking taxis anywhere we need to go. I can already see that this will be an easy city to live in. The people are friendly, the weather is the best in the World, and the danger threat that you hear about in Mexico seems to be mainly in other parts of the country.

The most challenging thing about being here is not speaking Spanish. Sure, I had 11 weeks of Spanish class and know a little more than a baby on his first day of life, but not too much more. R, on the other hand, is doing much better communicating as she had 6 months of class. Last night, I went to WalMart and ordered Dish Mexico TV for our house. This was a challenge with my "Que Hora Es?" Spanish. See this youtube video for a laugh or two. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WckCw_-7e3M

The plane, the plane, the plane

This weekend C. flew us down to Myrtle Beach for a combination business trip/family weekend. If you would have asked us two years ago if C. would be willing to give up the airplane we would have said "never in a million years." Of course that was pre-FS (before we were thinking about the Foreign Service). Now we are taking our last few trips before it gets sold.

You might notice that all the posts lately have been about our sacrifices to join the foreign service. We cannot stop thinking about it because C's parents and his brother and sister-in-law keep reminding us. They think we are totally out of our minds to even consider giving up what we have here to go to a place to-be-determined. The thing is, we are asking ourselves the same thing, but at the same time we are excited to be doing it. It is liberating. It is also scary. We are simplifying our lives but we are taking a big chance too.

We are rolling the dice and hoping for 7's: a good post, an easy adjustment for the children & C, lots of new friends, and interesting work.

She Said. First Sacrifice on the Altar of Foreign Service Career

We sold our big beautiful boat today at a loss. Just the first sacrifice on the altar of the foreign service career. My husband listed it on ebay, but then sold it to someone who saw it out in the forks of the road before the end of the auction. Better to have money in hand then wait until the end of the auction and sell for less.
We figured we better sell it now at the beginning of summer rather than hold on to it and try to sell it this winter when we will probably find out if we are going or not. Even though we don't know for sure that we are going, we are trying to economize and unload some of our possessions that may not make sense if we do go overseas. We'll probably get posted to the Bahamas now and wish we hadn't sold it. The only time we drove this boat in the ocean we went to Bimini on a Bahamas boating fling sponsored by the Bahamian government. It was so much fun. We tied up at the marina and slept on the boat. Every day we went out fishing and snorkeling. They had these neat places to snorkel-- a sunken ship, a sunken plane. We walked on the beach and ate fresh conch salad.
I had my physical today for my medical clearance. My doctor had never done one for the State department before and she was really interested to hear all about it. They forgot to order one of the blood tests, a 6BCG or something like that to do with blood glucose. My doctor said she had to look it up in her manual because she hadn't ordered one in forever, maybe never, or studied about it since medical school. My husband went to the main health campus to have his blood drawn and they said they had never done one of the 6BCG before and they are drawing gallons of blood every day for people all over Anderson. There were no problems with my physical and my cholesterol was down to 204 since my last doctor visit.
One of our neighbors is retired from the State Dept. He was in the civil service and worked in maintenance for the State Dept. He worked there many years in Washington, DC, so he has been telling me all about it. We know him and his wife pretty well because they invited us to join their square dance club about two years ago, and we've been square dancing ever since. He keeps telling me how hard it is to get in and how a lot of people get excluded at every stage of the process, but he thinks I will make it. I told him that when the security investigator comes to our neighborhood he better do his part.

He Said. She's Home!

Our children and I are all so glad to have wife/mama back home in Anderson. I know that we are wimps when it comes to holding the family together without her, but we are not a complete family when she is gone. She is exhausted after 12 hours on the train from Washington to Clemson. She came back with great news! She has passed the oral exam in the process of becoming a foreign service officer for the US State Department. This is quite an achievement since less than 5% of all that apply make it this far.
Next for us is passing the medical clearance (all five of us) and she will have to pass the top secret security clearance. She was told that this next step should take about 6 months and then we can be placed on the register. Once on the register, she is eligible to be invited to the A-100 class and hired by the State Department. If everything goes well, we hope to be going to our first post in about a year from now.