Next we are off to!

Summer 2017

Handshake

I know so many people around the world were excited and nervous at whatever time corresponded to midnight in D.C. on Monday, which was when handshakes went out.  I forgot that it was an important handshake day for us too.

Congrats, Terry!  Next summer when we go home for R&R, he'll actually return to post on a PCS out of his teleworking position and into the IPO slot in Astana.  I am sure that sentence just made some travel tech's head explode.

Answering some questions

In the wake of my announcement, there's been a decent volume of questions and it seemed useful to answer them here. So here goes, in no particular order:

• The job bringing us to Astana is mine. I'm the ELO/JO/FAST (over the last howevermany years we've been called Junior Officers, Entry Level Officers, and now First And Second Tour officers) so Terry gets to "follow" me. There are positions appropriate for him that would start next summer, so we're in good shape as far as bidding goes (I think/hope). Yes it does mean he gets to be primary on the parenting front. It will be good for him and them (I think/hope).
• We're not sure yet when we'll leave but it won't be before the end of August. And I will definitely be gone before Thanksgiving. I am excited to get in line with my CDO to ask this most pressing question.
• I'll be a Pol/Econ officer. This is exciting as I'm Consular coned so this may be the one and only time I'll get a chance to try out something else. 
• There was a comment about me being relieved that it wasn't Tashkent. My friend, I believe you are thinking of Ashgabat. Tashkent is awesome, and spent a lot of time rivaling Astana as our #1 pick. 
• Thank you to everyone for your good wishes. I have no idea how big our apartment will be, but it will be open to visitors. And yes, anyone within a few timezones may get hit up for a visit, or a "Who wants to meet up somewhere in western Europe, or wherever I can get to in a nonstop flight?"

A little more detail

So yes, we're going to Kazakhstan. Astana, to be exact, as there is also a post in Almaty. Yes, we're happy about this. My head is still swimming and I stayed up way too late last night looking at post information. We'll be here through the summer - I need more Russian language training before we go as I didn't test high enough (I knew that was going to happen, my abilities are nowhere near where they had been after a year back in the USA). Other than that, I am eager to be paneled so I can reach out to post with my thousand questions. That poor CLO has no idea what's coming :-)

Flag Day

... is tomorrow. Bet you thought I was going to tell you where I'm going. Ha! Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow, you're only a day away ....

Drinking from a fire hose

My first week of A-100 has drawn to a close. We have heard the expression "it's like drinking from a fire hose" a million times or so, describing all we cover in these weeks. It's pretty accurate. The training isn't intellectually arduous, but it is like an endurance test. Spending 12 hours outside of the house every day is exhausting in any situation. When I get home I save my precious few hours each night before the kids' bedtime for family time. By the time the kids are settled and I have done my homework (yes, A-100 is now loaded with homework!) and a few chores to pull my weight around the house it is already past my bedtime, given the 5-something wakeup each morning. There is no downtime. I have spent this week being a hot mess, promising all my new colleagues that as recently as last week I was smart and organized.

First, a shout out to my amazing husband, who has uncomplainingly picked up my slack this week and will for the foreseeable future - although the not complaining part may change. I can only imagine what my nerves, attitude and ability to properly participate in training would have been like if he weren't doing so much.

Second, now that we're a week into it, I want to publicly state how much I appreciate our babysitter. I had asked her to do light housework during the hour she's here before the kids awake and coming home to a clean kitchen every evening is a real morale booster. She looks around and figures out what needs doing - she's prepped veggies for snack; cleaned the bathroom; folded laundry. The kids adore her, even a friend who met her at school dropoff had a positive reaction. Trusting the people who have the care of your babies makes the difference between being able to concentrate on your work and being an even hotter mess. I am so thankful this is working out so well.

We got the bid list this week. There are no DC positions. This is all I can say. So we are working through the options, putting places comparatively high where we said we'd never want to live and moving otherwise more desirable places farther down, as we delve into the whole package of what our life there would be like. Flag day promises to be emotional.

White nights, vodka and Kirov ballet!

Yippee, we're heading to St. Petersburg, Russia some time in early 2009. Of our family of 4 (two adults, one baby, and one furry) one of us can tolerate heat - me. So everyone is ecstatic about the news.

Now we just need to learn Russian :-(