So its been awhile....

March 26th. That was the last time I posted anything. That was only 8 months ago and only like 3 people even know this site exists so far. However, because one day I will print this into a book for us to have, I figure I should do a short update on the last 8 months.

Since I last posted....
- PM and I have gotten married, not once, but twice. We made it legal in April so we could get all the paperwork started with the State Dept so I can go to China as an EFM (Eligible Family Member) and not an MOH (Member of Household). This was crucial as it means I have health insurance, plane tickets, and the government will ship my stuff too. At our first wedding we didn't have any family present, so to appease them all, we had wedding round two (the white dress one) in October.

- I was offered a job with Arlington County directing one of their summer camps and I spent all summer hanging out with some crazy kids in south Arlington.

- PM studied his little butt off for his Mandarin test. All that studying paid off as two days before the BIG wedding, he not only passed his tested, but did so well, he receives a special language bonus.

- We have said "see ya later" to countless Foreign Service friends who are now all over the world. The good news is if we ever find ourselves in Caracas, Cairo, Sao Paolo, Mumbai, or Abuja, we have friends!

- I learned that the foot and ankle pain I had been having for over a year was due to a fracture. I got the lovely fortune of spending the entire summer wearing a lovely walking cast.

- We received our housing assignment. If you remember, my last post was about the housing options and I mentioned the place with a pillow and blanket menu. That is where we will be living! All of our friends going to Guangzhou had received their housing assignments. Everyone but us. We figured they had forgotten about us, but knew they wouldn't put us out on the streets, so we didn't make a fuss about not knowing four months in advance. The waiting and patience paid off as we received what we have been told is the nicest housing in Guangzhou and some of the top housing in all of the Foreign Service world (minus Ambassador's residences). We would have been happy as long as we had an actual bed rather than a Macedonian couch bed, but no complaining here!

- We received our fancy-smancy Diplomatic passports (yeah, we are pretty excited to show those things off) and I used that to model an American Girl doll sized Diplomatic passport with Brazilian visa, Brazilian money, and boarding passes for the daughter of some FSO friends.

- Both PM and I have taken the Basic Consular Course at FSI (ConGen). It was a required class for PM, I just had the luck of getting a spot in an earlier class so I could take it too. Taking ConGen was one of the first steps in our plan to see if Slim should become a consular officer herself one day.

And that is the last eight months. I mean, there may have been a few happy hours, trips to the midwest, and weekends spent exploring the D.C. area thrown in there, but you get the gist of it.