People often ask what exactly Seth does. Nope he isn’t a CIA agent. He is currently the chief of the American Citizens Services Unit of the Embassy. He issues passports to babies born abroad, takes care of details related to death of Americans in Switzerland, meets with disgruntled Americans, takes care of issues related to American’s in prison in Switzerland, preschool talks on diplomacy and things like that. In addition to Americans in Switzerland he takes care of Americans in Iran. Previously he was issuing non-immigrant and immigrant visas.  Basically, he is doing lots of different things and working hard…so your tax dollars are not being wasted!

The Embassy is about 15 minutes from our home which has been a super duper perk of living in Bern.  Seth is able to hop on a tram that takes him about a block from the Embassy. You can’t ask for much more than that in terms of ease.  Here are a few pictures I took back in the summer when I was going to post some pictures of the Embassy…then life happened and here we are in a new year. oops.

Last week Seth went to school with Jackson and was the parent of the morning, sharing about his occupation.  Jackson was proud as a peacock as you can imagine. He sat in the front of the room with Seth and acted as the host for the presentation. I just can’t imagine where he gets some of these personality traits?! At Jackson’s preschool he showed them passports and special lights to detect fraud. The kids enjoyed getting to try them out. Seth said throughout the presentation Jackson added in his 2 cents, often completely irrelevant but at least he had a captive audience. Following Seth’s presentation Jackson and his class made passports with their teacher as their craft.

Not sure the kids were impressed with the suit and tie but you do what you gotta do to represent the good old United States of America abroad. Up next in July is a position in the newly named Foreign Assistance Office in DC.

Good Morning!

Well, night before last was a better night…Owen was only up at 3:45 and 5:30. And then slept until 6:15. Baby steps. We celebrated by me hopping out of bed and making banana nut pancakes for the crew…not a Monday normal around here.  Last night if I am remembering right he only started getting up at 5 AM so it was an even better night. Tonight should be golden! Pretty sure this jetlag bout could be enough to stop this FS life with a screeching halt. Now I know why husbands go to Baghdad unaccompanied around their 3rd or 4th tour-so the wife and kids can stay put for a bit and avoid dramatic time zone changes!  Buckle up Seth, we might be sending you to the green zone.

We had a very low key weekend. Seth survived the commissary run and we even unpacked and organized all of the groceries when he arrived back. He shopped for 3 hour and 3 carts. He got everything on the list with a few brand downgrades Way to save, babe. It normally takes me a couple of hours the next day to put everything away but we pushed through, did it Sat evening and it was such a relief.

A friend bought me the book “Beyond Chocolate”. I heard about it when we arrived and have meant to read it since but I was too distracted by Swiss culture to remember to track it down So I am hoping to get into it this week and gain some insight for our last months here. Thanks, Daniela.

And this is the boys favorite read of the week… “The Amazing Adventures of Bumblebee Boy!”  by David Soman and Jacky Davis. If you have never read it and you have kids you have to get it. And when you read it you now can sum up what our days look like around here. I am living in a Bumblebee boy house…and when we read the book the character Sam is named Jack because it only seems appropriate.

We are drinking lots of hot chocolate and hoping for some snow around here. We had some beautiful heavy snowflakes on Friday afternoon but they turned into rain within the hour. I had hopes of a cozy snow day. Now I am not asking for a big enough snow to be pretty for a day and turn into a month of sludge….I want a pretty snow that comes on a Friday afternoon and things clearing by Sunday evening 😉

House hunting is fun and not so fun. The market is picking up. Houses on our list are starting to go under contract within days of going on the market. Hmmmm. This could get interesting. I think I am looking forward more to the paint chip picking. Although knowing me I could make that stressful too. But in the end at least my stress might result in pretty color?! right?!

My 30th birthday is creeeeping up and it is making me a wee bit sentimental. Honestly, I think we have been through some big things that I wouldn’t have expected until later in life so lots of days I feel older than I am. I could probably afford to use a few years of my 30’s for pure fun. More on turning 30 coming soon.

Last Sunday we got out of the house in the morning for some time in the snow! Our friends invited us to join them in Gurnigel with their 2 boys that are close to our boys ages. We had so much fun. I had received some very sad news that morning from a friend back home so in all honesty I wanted to curl up at home and cry but I was so thankful to get out and be refreshed. I ended up being the camera girl instead of sledding because I just wasn’t up for it. But it was super fun to watch everyone else and to yell “SETHHHHHHH” when he nearly tossed Owen off with every bump or curve. I won’t include those pictures. Yikes.  Are you as shocked as I am that God gave me 2 boys and a not so relaxed temperment?!  Yea, me too!

and as Seth and the boys slugged along on our old school sleds our German friends raced along on this speedy thing…it seems even their sleds are faster!

weary sledders after many daredevil stunts!

(this photo taken by Tim Ziert)

how’s that for sledding view?! I am confident this may be the best we ever see while sledding!! Stunning!

(this photo taken by Tim Ziert)

We headed back and had apple strudel and ice cream for lunch!  It may become a Sunday regular! It’s days like this that I don’t mind our church having an evening service.

Happy Friday folks! Sorry for the here and there this week. Let’s just say that once we thought we were in the clear with jetlag we had some throw up action and we have a 2 year old that is persisting to get out of his bed. As in from 3Am on over and over and over again. In addition to the crazy sleep stuff we have had that bi-yearly surge in defiance and attitude from a certain oldest child and tantrums and teething from a certain 2 year old. It is a recipe for some insanity I tell you.  It is getting better SLOWLY but we are so very tired…thus, less posting about fun things!

But for some Friday fun I thought I would tell you about Canton!  For those of you that are not from Texas (I’m not technically, but I claim the state for my husband) you may have never heard of Canton.  Canton is a town in Texas that hosts First Mondays. It’s about 2 hours outside of Ft Worth where we were recently visiting my family. Here is the link  for First Monday Trade Days in Canton. I linked you to the Shopper’s page. I love how they give advice on how to dress in layers, etc. It is quite a mission to go to Canton but really worth it if you can get friends to go too!

It’s the most amazing flea market ever and it’s HUGE. There are organized pavilions of goodies plus lots of outdoor setups with lots of lots of junk treasures!!!You can find just about anything at Canton. Kitchen gadgets, house decor, clothes plants, pets, and on and on. And for the most part the food is all fair food like kettle corn, corn dogs (known as Corny dogs in Texas), turkey legs and funnel cakes.

I have been a couple of times and when I realized that the timing would line up to go over our Texas trip I was delighted! This time I went with my mom and my sister-in-law Tina and her mom, Lisa. We left groggy and excited at 6:30 in the morning. We picked up Lisa and headed to Starbucks…and then to Chickfila. Caffeine and nourishment. We were set.  We chatted away as we drove and arrived in time to be some of the first in the parking lot and in the shops. It was chilly when we started but warmed up quickly. We could not have asked for better weather. Did I mention that Seth graciously told me to go and had the kids for the day?!  It was SO nice to have a day away not worrying about feeding the kids, nap vs. no naps, yada, yada. And it is rare that my mom is off work and able to get away, so it was a huge treat that she came!

It was fun going to Canton this time around knowing we will have a home of our own soon to decorate. I came away with 3 botanical prints, a few vintage dishtowels, an old door (not a full size but a smaller one) that I hope to turn into a coffee table if Seth humors me, an old Dr. Pepper crate, an old wire lamp shade frame and some other little treasures.

Here are a few shots from the day. I didn’t even take my camera because I didn’t want it to weigh me down and hold me back from any spectacular deals….so Tina kindly snapped a few shots on her iphone. Next time I will force myself to take my camera because you just can’t imagine what all you see!

this is a baby goat someone had dressed up for a walk around canton. we thought for sure she was selling it. I’m telling you, you see the strangest things at Canton. You could spend a day just people watching! Of course it might have been more exciting to me in terms of people watching after living in straight-laced Switzerland.

redneck wine glasses

and here is the old door, can’t you all just see the potential?! Tina bought a full-sized door and drilled it into the wall as a headboard.

If you are ever in Texas swing by Canton.  In a couple of years I am going to try to talk my other SIL, Stephanie into flying to Texas with me for another Seckinger/Dyer ladies shopping day!

In other shopping news, I talked Seth into driving to Heidelberg tomorrow to do our 4 month monster shopping trip at the base. I cried the last time I finished the 3 overflowing carts so I thought he might be better to go this time…never mind the fact that a 5 item list at our grocery store can be a shopping challenge for him. I wrote the list yesterday and it is both sides of an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper.  I’m not sure if I feel worse for him or for me being home with the boot camp kids.

Hope you all have a great weekend whatever your plans might be! I am hoping for health, sleep and some snow!