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).
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| A marimba from Indonesia for Todd |
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| Karen's Christmas Present - Direct from Paris!!! |
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| 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!
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| The kiddos at Chichen-Itza |
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| 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!
