So, bidding.

Picking your next home is fun in theory, but there’s always a but. You get the list, and there are so many amazing possibilities, but…

• You are only allowed to go to Russian speaking posts.
• You have to go somewhere with special needs schools.
• You need a country with a bilateral work agreement for your spouse.
• Your kid says he’ll emancipate himself from you if you don’t go to a country where he can play hockey.

Those are just example buts. We all have them. Sometimes they’re mandated by the State Department, and other times they’re personal preferences. Either way, they impact how we bid.

Here are our specific buts:

• We have to go to a post that’s either English or French speaking.
• I have to serve a consular tour.
• Abbey has to be able to come.
• There has to be adequate medical care for Andy’s follow-up treatment.

Even after all those buts we have some really amazing options. Seriously amazing. I have to bid on 30 total jobs, and I could come up with an entire list of 30 that would make you all insansly jealous.

But…

We have another but to consider:

• We want Andy to be a Foreign Service Officer too.

This whole tandem couple thing really throws a wrench in my bidding plans. Here’s what happens. This summer I bid and get my onward assignment. Then, next spring, Andy will join the Foreign Service. We will hope with all our hopes that another job at the Embassy I’ve been assigned appears on his bid list. If it does, we hope will all our hopes that he and not someone else in his A-100 class gets assigned to it. Obviously there are lots of points at which this plan could go south.

What if no jobs at the Embassy I’ve been assigned are on his list? What if there is a job at the same place I’ll be going, but another person gets it? Well, then Andy ships off somewhere else in the world and Flynn doesn’t get to live with both his parents for two years. That sucks.

So a huge factor in my bidding right now is maximizing the possibility that both my post will show up on Andy’s bid list (this means huge embassies) and that he will get it (this means places where other people aren’t dying to go).

As much as we would love to head off to Sydney or Dublin next, they are small and highly sought after posts, so they aren’t great options for us this time around. Sorry family and friends. Where will you be visiting instead? Stay tuned. We should know in about a month.