Happy birthday, John!
We celebrated John’s birthday last night gaming with a small group of friends at our apartment – we had a lot of fun and John had a great time! We started in the late afternoon, and ate our way through bedtime – good times!
John and I were both tickled pink to accept handshakes on our new jobs in DC this week! John will be working in the office of policy, planning, and coordination for Western Hemisphere as a performance officer, monitoring and reporting on the outcomes of U.S. aid to Western Hemisphere countries. It will give him a chance to get out of the management role for a while and gain policy experience, so he is very excited. I’ll be a regional consular officer tending to several posts that are small and usually have an inexperienced consular officer there, visiting them and staying in touch to answer questions and offer guidance and mentoring. It was my top choice and I am super-happy that I was able to get the job. The travel will be tough – I’ll be on the road about half of my time, but it’s really good work and good experience.
We’re not exactly sure when we’ll be in DC, but likely late summer of 2017. Next up: figure out where we’ll live!
Last Sunday I went to a special Day of the Dead market – it was so fun to see all of the sugar and chocolate calaveras (skulls), plus all of the other things you need for an altar.
Little katrinas
Pan de Muerto (bread)
Earrings
Dolls
Little coffins
Sugar calaveras
We were off work Wednesday for the Day of the Dead, so John and I went to Lake Chapala to see what they were doing to celebrate. We had lunch in Ajijic at our favorite Argentinian steakhouse, then walked around the town square there and in neighboring Chapala to see the altars. Most of the festivities didn’t start until later that evening, but it was fun to see the prep work.
With a katrina
Click to see all of my Day of the Dead photos.
We hosted book club on Thursday and had the usual suspects here, this time discussing “Tribe.”