Yesterday I hosted a lunch for Seth’s coworkers. He wanted an opportunity to thank them for making this post a great one! He has really enjoyed working here and has had great co workers, both local employees and his fellow officers.

So, we picked the last possible day to have people and somehow we pulled it off. In some ways I felt like a crazy lady hosting a crowd just before packout and in other ways it felt like a really good way to finish out before we pack up.

For all you foodies, here is the menu…

Grilled Meat Platter- pork tenderloin, sausages, skirt steak

Grilled Vegetables

Fruit Salad

Tomato and Fresh Mozzarella Pasta Salad…this is one of Ina’s (we are on a first name basis now) but it isn’t online so I will get it for you!

Bread basket

For Dessert we served Brownies and  Triple Berry Crisp– this one I found on Gina’s Skinny Taste and it was delicious!  Served with whipped cream

All of the food turned out and everyone enjoyed a midday break from the office!   Thanks to the Consular staff in Bern for being such a great team!

Well, my lips have been relatively sealed.

To recap for those who have not had to keep up with the house hunting drama, here ya go….

We met our Realtor in early January while we were in the US, primarily just to meet her in person and to get some preliminary ideas of where we would be looking for a new home.  We thought we had a price range in mind but over the following weeks we ran the numbers over and over and decided we just did not want to be maxing out our budget. We have worked so hard to save for a home and it felt silly to save but then put it all into the house and then feel like we were scraping by each month. We wanted to be in an area with great schools, family friendly neighborhood, etc but everything was at least $100k more than we could spend.  So we actually offered on a house in an area with so-so schools and ended up withdrawing our offer. There were complications with the seller, i.e his house was on the market for months and he couldn’t decide if he really wanted to sell it.  So we moved on. Only the market has not been so slow this year and there are been so few nice homes within our price range! We initially thought we would be buying closer to March or April but with the market being so painfully slow and with so few homes that were even a reasonable possibility our agent really encouraged us to go ahead and make a move sooner rather than later. We had hoped initially for Seth or myself to be able to get back, tour houses and then offer but with the market so limited houses are being snapped up within a couple of days making it impossible to make the trip before making a decision. So we worked backwards knowing we could get out at inspection.

A couple of weeks ago as we scoured the list again a foreclosure caught Seth’s eye. It was one I had put on the “discard list” in the system. His thought was that it was in a wonderful area with wonderful schools but needs a lot of work. We could get it for less because it was a foreclosure and used some of our savings to make it our own. The metro is expanding out our way so we also knew that the house was much more likely to appreciate.

So we offered quite confidently because the banks agent had been quite open about what the bank was looking for. BUT, although they had been slow on offers, an hour before ours another offer came in. And within the next 12 hours 2 more came in. So the next day we learned we were competing with 3 other offers. The bank sent out an addendum asking for our “Highest and Best” offer. It was all a bit tricky because we were in the mountains with intermittent internet. We put in our highest and best and got word the next day that they had chosen our offer to negotiate with. We were pretty stunned. When we learned there were 4 offers we were sure we had little chance.  So then we began with their counter, our counter back, followed by another 3 days of waiting for their answer. On Wednesday we were starting to wonder if we should go back to their counter. Our realtor pursued up-ing our price but then decided to wait. On Wednesday night of last week our realtor called at midnight to tell us they had accepted our counter.

So, on Monday Seth flew back to the US for inspection and will be there for a couple of days meeting with various people to get estimates on work being done, setting up lawn care until we arrive in July, going to Jackson’s new school to get the big kindergarten packet, etc. The inspection was yesterday morning. There were no major red flags so we don’t have any major concerns. The house needs lots and lots of work but we are hoping to spruce it up and make it home.  There is some quirkiness that we are trying to work out like…say our queen bed barely fitting in the make shift master bedroom…but my husband assures me that it will all work out. If my side of the bed is pressed against a wall with no exit except for to climb over him does that mean I am exempt from night time response duty?! Yep, I think so. Push that bed against the wall. I will take sweet sleep over a bedside table any day. No really, the space will be a complication but we are working with a contractor to figure out how the heck we can miraculously push out some walls.  Because I am all about keeping it real here I will be honest and say that this process has been less than fun. For those of you that know me well our lifestyle of moving so much takes it’s toll on me. I have been dreaming of a home of our own for a long time. This house is a huge blessing and I feel very fortunate to have found it but at this point I haven’t felt a ton of warm fuzzies. Dealing with the stress of arranging for other people to look at homes for us and relying on a zillion other opinions to make what feels like a very personal decision has been humbling at best.  So I see so much potential in this house but there is nothing that makes my heart giddy at this point….most likely more due to the fact that I have never even stepped foot in it. I look forward to being in it and making it our own.  (Many people have mentioned their concern about us not having space for our furniture from this ginormous house, no worries. You should all know me well enough to know I have already made a plan for arranging and selling it. No good and useful furniture will go to waste in this move rest assured

We will be doing tons of improvements on the house so you can look forward to lots of “before and after” pictures. We are hoping to have most of the bigger stuff done before we move in. We will have a few weeks to work on it before our things arrive from Bern so we are going to try to take advantage of that wait time. We want to do lots ourselves but we are willing to have help on things we don’t have experience with!!  Obviously we know nothing is for sure until the keys are in our hands. But at this point things are progressing and we are waiting for the April 6th closing. Stay tuned!

Oh yea, and it is in Herndon, Virginia so we will be close to lots of friends and family. And a Chickfila. And a Wegman’s with childcare. I will be joining Community Bible Study and MOPs with Owen. And Jackson will be embarking on his kindergarten adventure (I am so not ready for this one!!!!)  And Seth will be starting a new job with Foreign Aide Department that he is really excited about. These things make me feel excited and anticipate this new chapter in the Kolb family adventures!

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.

As we walked up the hill to catch our tram into downtown he sang loudly as he marched onward. I was conscious that Jackson’s exuberance was screeching into the silence and peace of our new neighborhood. We had only been in Switzerland a couple of weeks and I was already keenly aware of how quiet the people were here, including the small children. As we walked I asked Jackson what song he was singing; his reply was “what song, mom?” It seems he goes through life with a soundtrack playing. It brings so much joy to our family, and I have to admit, at times it sends me running for Tylenol with a pounding headache many a day around 4 pm.

My goal from the beginning of each move has been to learn to appreciate our new home while still maintaining some of who we are and where we are from. I remember clearly in those first months how my blood pressure would rise each time we left the house knowing that Jackson would push the social norms and likely offend someone. I would prep him before getting on each tram or train and pray that he would get lost in people watching and not be quite so noisy. But then one day it hit me, I was stressing in an effort to fit in, and the result was stifling to my son’s personality.  I wanted him to respect the social climate but what I was doing was allowing my insecurity to pressure me into thinking that he had to be seen and not heard. But the truth is that being sensitive didn’t mean being silent.

So for the last ten months we have worked and worked to teach our little ones “tram rules” and “noise laws.” If it is late afternoon and we are playing outside for goodness sake I allow him to use his outside voice. With the occasional, “Let’s make sure the whole neighborhood can’t hear us.” But if we are taking an early morning walk, especially on Sundays, we try to explain the need for our neighbors to have some quiet rest. This is no task for the weak-willed. We still have days when my blood pressure boils and it is nothing short of a miracle that we don’t get asked to step off the tram. But mostly the boys feel the “climate change” as we enter the tram and know to knock it down a few notches.  They can point out the window and talk to us but their voices can’t be so loud that everyone can hear.

When it comes to teaching cultural sensitivity I often feel as if I am working for something unattainable. But as motherhood would have it, I was completely surprised and encouraged last week.  We got on the tram on Friday evening after a casual dinner out with the boys. They were WILD, as in Owen screaming to see the fish tank, eating not a bite and Jackson wishing oh so hard that I would suddenly think it was okay to get up and down from his chair to walk around the food court while we ate. With dinner done we hopped on our tram and the boys settled in. They sat quietly next to us and looked out the window. Two rows in front of us a toddler popped her head up above her seat and shot Jackson a vibrant, mischievous look. She proceeded to get into a standing position, shrieking and growling to get the boys to laugh and enter in. While Jackson smiled and laughed a bit he stayed in his seat and did not get up like he would have in the past. Looking around you could see people becoming visibly uncomfortable with noise level and interaction. The excitement in this little girl got so rowdy that the lady sitting in the row between us turned to look at us to see what on earth we were doing to cause such commotion. Jackson and I just smiled politely at her. When the little girl and her mom reached their stop she continued with the show and began loudly yelling “goodbye” to the boys in Swiss German.  Our boys paused and then looked to us to see if it was okay to holler goodbye. We encouraged them to say goodbye and they both with all friendliness and nearing outside voice levels said goodbye to the girl.

Sure there are days when excitement cannot be contained and the volume knob is not reachable. And on those days I remind myself that these boys are not by nature quiet. SO we roll with it. But there are also days where I see new maturity that allows the rambunctious to sit and take in the world we currently live in, which happens to be a quiet, reserved place.