Saturday afternoon, we’d finished puttering around the house, and didn’t really want to waste a beautiful afternoon indoors. It was also late enough that we knew the kids wouldn’t last long, and we didn’t want to commit to a long expensive excursion if a breakdown were eminent. With small children, it’s easy to get caught up in MUST! BRING! EVERYTHING! because you never know what your kids are going to...
Friends of ours invited us to join them on a trip to the Negev to see Israeli’s national flower, the anemone bloom. The flowers bloom only for a few short weeks after the rainy season, before disappearing until the next year. After over a month cooped up in Jerusalem, we were happy to get out of the city (and so were the kids). We took the long road to get...
One of the best kids’ activities in Jerusalem is the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, and I was tired of my coworkers’ surprise when I told them, “No, we haven’t been to the zoo yet.” So on Sunday morning, we got up, picked up the house, packed a lunch, and dragged the kids to Jerusalem’s zoo. It was lovely. The work week in Jerusalem for everyone but Consulate folks is Sunday – Thursday,...
We finally had a spare moment to be tourists in Jerusalem, and we took advantage of the free afternoon by visiting the Mahane Yehuda market in downtown Jerusalem. We spent the afternoon shepherding our kids (the only kids at the market who weren’t in strollers) between vendors and trying to keep other shoppers from tripping over them. I’d been trying to figure out where Jerusalemites do their grocery shopping—certainly...
GSO and Facilities actually solve problems. Seriously. I wish I’d been able to get landlords to respond as quickly in Freetown as GSO seems to be able to here. And Motorpool! Always on time! OK, mostly on time. Great great great customer service. It may be helped by the fact that my husband keeps offering them beer when they come to fix things. If anyone from GSO or FAC is...
Plane trips were awesome. Jasmine is slowly inheriting my love of books and reading. Also, a huge shout out to the amazing recommendation we got from some FS friends to buy her Sammy’s Next Move, by Helen Muffini. She loved it, and was able to draw all sorts of great parallels between Sammy the Snail’s moves and her own. Jasmine got to enjoy her two favorite things in the world in the...
I am an avid scrapbooker. I began when my first daughter was born, and realized how ephemeral our wealth of digital photos really was. Since then, we’ve had hard drive failures, toddlers spilling coffee on laptops, and a number of international moves. These days, I think of the scrapbooks as a physical backup of the memories we’ve worked so hard to photograph. One of the biggest challenges, though, of documenting memories on...
How do I know I’m getting old? All of my friends’ halloween parties started at 6 last night. And we didn’t go to any. My husband picked me up from FSI with the kids already in costume, but fast asleep. We went grocery shopping, and then came up and rushed to get the house picked up for trick-or-treaters. Our building has a sign-up for families with toddlers, so nobody has...
I have gotten four emails/ FB messages about life in Crystal City in the couple of weeks. And three the month before that. It might be because I’m such an evangelist for the neighborhood (it’s seriously underrated), but it might just be because there isn’t a ton of information out there about living in Crystal City as a Foreign Service family. Everyone who’s anyone either stays in Falls Church (folks...
Family = <3. My brother and his family drove down to DC this weekend so that we could visit museums together with the kids. When we arrived at the Air & Space Museum, we were surprised and pleased to discover that there were a ton of special activities going on to celebrate women in flight, and to encourage girls and young women to pursue careers in aviation. Awesome. Here...
I am an expat, logistician, traveler, writer, paper crafter, lover of books and coffee, and occasionally doting mother. I am occasionally foul-mouthed, not nearly as diplomatic as my professional would imply, and fiercely feminist.
Disclaimers:
The opinions expressed here on SVO are my own and do not reflect the opinions of the Department of State or the USG.
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