Long Overdue

So… given our 4+ month hiatus, I figured it was time to return you to our not-so regularly scheduled programing.  A big mea culpa goes out to all of you who follow the blog.  A lot has happened since our last blog post, so I thought I’d fill all of you in.

I’ve been on the road a lot, spending time in London, Laredo, Jakarta, Riyadh, and Jerusalem since the last blog post.  I enjoy traveling around the world but miss Karen and the kids when I’m gone.  The kids love it when I go places because I always bring back a surprise for them.  For Todd, it’s typically some kind of native musical instrument.  For Katelynn, a doll or some other plaything.  Karen is usually the hardest to shop for, but she usually fairs well when I bring home presents (as she found out at Christmas).

A marimba from Indonesia for Todd

A wayang puppet doll from Indonesia for Katelynn

Todd enjoyed his birthday this year at The Woodlands Children's Museum.  I was pretty excited because for the first time in a long time, we were able to do Todd's birthday party on a different Saturday than the Army/Navy game.  There was lots of screaming, shouting, and yelling at the Children's Museum, which typically means the kids had fun.  They got to make "Oobleck" from the Dr. Seuss book and do a few other science experiments.  A few Advils later, I was recovered as well!

Given the chaos of 12 kids running around at the birthday party - plus the other parties at the museum, it's a miracle I got this picture!

Christmas came and went fast.  There’s so much to do with the holidays and never enough time to just sit down and enjoy the time with family.  Karen and I started something new this year with the kids… instead of getting them “stuff” for Christmas, we’ve started getting them “memories.”  This year, at Todd’s request, the kids got their passports for Christmas.  What 7-year old asks for a passport for Christmas?  Given my job, having a passport is a necessity anyway, so we trucked everyone down to the local courthouse and applied.  Under the tree, the last present to be opened was a gift from Mommy and Daddy to the kids – a 5-day cruise from Galveston to Mexico.  The kids were ecstatic!  Karen was pretty pleased with her Christmas present too… something I brought back from a recent trip to Paris.

Karen's Christmas Present - Direct from Paris!!!

One of our family Christmas photos... we're ALL growing up too fast!

After spending a few weeks in Laredo, I returned home just in time for us to leave for our cruise.  The kids had an absolute blast!  Katelynn was amazed with her cruise boat and Todd was fascinated with Mexico.  Carnival has a kids program on the cruise with fun activities for the kids so Karen and I had a chance to spend some time together.  Our stops included Progreso and Cozumel.  We took a cruise-sponsored shore excursion in Progreso to see Chichen-Itza.  Todd's favorite part was seeing 7 iguanas.  In Cozumel, we just bummed around the island, having lunch at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville.  What was cool about that place was you could swim in the Caribbean Sea while you waited for the food to come.  Of course, pulling back in to Houston under a Winter Storm Warning was definitely not the best way to end the trip!

The kiddos at Chichen-Itza

My only request was for us to take a formal family picture... we clean up pretty well!

Spring Break brought a week together in Navarre Beach.  It was great to be back in Florida, even if the weather wasn't the greatest.  It was sunny most of the days, but somewhat chilly... definitely not beach weather.  But that didn't stop the kids from going in the Gulf of Mexico (and me standing on the side telling them they were crazy)!  We started teaching Katelynn how to swim - it's a shame I wasn't around last summer... she was fearless then.  Now she holds on to me for dear life and doesn't want to let go!  But we all worked on our tans, caught up on some sleep, and had tons of fun!  Here are a few pictures of just how beautiful the beach was:

And finally, we've started the bidding process.  All I can say is I completely understand why everyone in the Foreign Service (and particularly my career specialty) hates bidding.  We've received our list, researched all the possibilities, and submitted our bids.  We didn’t hear anything this first round… or second… or third… so it back to more waiting.  Hopefully, we'll get lucky, but we're trying to get our minds wrapped around all of the worst-case scenarios.  We'll have the answer for where we're going in the next few weeks... or months.  It's a long process, but we'll keep you up-to-date.

Well... that's all for now.  Drop us a line in the comments section below and let us know (1) you actually bother to read this and (2) how you're doing... we'd love to hear from you!