One of the fun/exhausting things about being overseas is celebrating almost every holiday multiple times. Jackson had a birthday party in Houston with family and month ago and then today we celebrated with friends here in Bogota. We decided to have everyone meet at the park to minimize the craziness. The kids loved it.  It was a fun opportunity to thank people for their support while Jackson was having his medical adventure. When we got up this morning the clouds were daunting but we braved it. The rain held off until an hour and a half into the party, about the time that we were pooped and ready to go home!  It is a huge park so we didn’t think 40 people would overwhelm it. The “administration” however came over to question Seth. When they came over we had about 10 of us. He asked what we were doing. Seth harmlessly replied that we were “just friends spending time together”. He asked how many more of us were coming. Seth couldn’t really answer that one. He asked how long we would be there…”ummm, till noon maybe”. He then said that in the future we needed to register our parties. Oops.

Here are a few pictures.

#16 Pretoria. 

Ready for #17?

The country’s borders touch two oceans.  Its head of state is king or queen.  It borders only one country.  This city is the largest city in the country.  About 49% of the population was born outside the country.  The CN Tower stood as the tallest free-standing land structure in the world for over 30 years.  Greektown boasts one of the highest concentrations of restaurants for kilometer in the world.

For those of you that are going crazy with us keeping you hanging all day, we were waiting to know that Ryan and Stephanie in DC had internet and Seth wanted to be here! Anyhow, here ya go….

If you came to visit us in this country we would serve you rachlette and fondue. The air is very clean and lots of people speak English. You might want to bring ski gear and some mittens. You would also be in a great position to hop over to a few other countries. The city has a clock tower that was built between 1191 and 1256. The other claim to fame for this city is its bear pit that has had around since the 16^th century. How’s that for international Baylor pride?!

So now that I am almost 1 year old my mommy and daddy decided it might be special for me to get to post more and to help make big announcements. First, I want to say congrats to my cousins Lizzy and Ruthie. They survived their first big move to Washington, DC. They are still unpacking lots of boxes and exploring their new house! I can’t wait to be on leave in DC so I can play with them more. I am so excited they will be close!

So, on with the news from Bogota. Way back when I was in my mommy’s tummy, mommy and daddy were going through quite a commotion of moving to DC and then figuring out where we would go next. I could tell it was hard for them to know exactly what place would be best for me. They got a list early in my daddy’s training and found out pretty quickly where we would be going at a flag ceremony. I remember the flag ceremony because my mommy was really nervous and lots of people were cheering. Anyhow, since we are now veterans in the process they call “bidding”, the timeline is much longer. The day after we got back from Houston last week mommy and daddy starting talking fast again about all sorts of new countries and cities that we might be moving to. Then I heard that word “bid”. Yep. that’s right, the bid list came out! Mommy and daddy have been busily researching and narrowing the list of 561 possible new homes for us. I don’t really understand it all, because I am quite young but my understanding is that mommy and daddy have narrowed it down to 40 positions based on timing, desire of the post, health care, daddy’s job and lots more. See it sounds so simple because some places seem like fun vacation spots, but since we have to actually live there we need to think longer and harder to make sure it is okay for me to grow up there! I have heard mommy say that we need a post that would let us have our own “yard”-I think that is code for outdoor play cage. I must be acting pretty active if that is something to consider with bidding.

(Daddy also asked me to apologize. He mentioned that he might have told Mia and Grandan an “untruth” (whatever that is) about the bid list coming out. He wanted everyone to be surprised at the same time and he didn’t want to give anything away.)

Unlike last time when we found out within 2 weeks, this time we will not actually turn in our bid list until the beginning of August and will find out 3-4 weeks after that. Another group of “higher equity” bidders is bidding now on our list, so some of our posts might be bumped off the list. In the end we will turn in 20 final options ranked in priority but not high, medium and low.

We thought it might be fun to do a “where in the world” series to keep you all on your toes. Every evening, starting with tonight, we will post info about the city and country. You can guess. There are some pretty wonderful places!!!! We know you will all want to visit. Mommy says that we will need to have an auction for months to visit. So, even if you are a little annoyed that mommy and daddy aren’t letting me reveal the whole list all at once, join in the fun and guess!

People that guess get higher priority in the visit auction!!!   People that are obsessive guessers might decrease their priority level!