I have spent the last day unpacking and catching up on everyone else’s blogs. I am finally sitting down to sum up our last week. You might want to just read it in installments because it might be overwhelming!

We left for Ft Worth on Friday the 3rd. The flights went quite well with Jackson. We gave in to the temptation to buy a mini dvd player to take along. It was a life saver. Jackson actually sat back for a few minutes and watched Elmo! We arrived in Ft Worth, got to have dinner with my parents and Graham and Tina, and got to congratulate Graham and Tina on their engagement.

We woke up early Sat morning to drive to the farm where I spent Sat with the ladies of the Kolb family having a girls reunion and Jackson and Seth spent the day at the farm. That evening we met up with some of Seth’s aunts and uncles and cousins and their children for dinner.

(jackson with his second cousins once removed or whatever you call your cousins kids)

We spent the weekend at the farm where Jackson could not get enough of the cows and horses. Ever since we left the farm Jackson has a continuous stream of “Old MacDonald and E-I-E-I-O” in his head.  He mixes the lyrics with his Elmo songs which makes it hard for us to sing along.

The highlight of the weekend for Seth was shooting a wild pig. He cut off the ears to bring back to the lakehouse so that we would believe him. The next day we all treked out to see his victim!

We headed back to Ft Worth on Monday afternoon and spent the rest of the week there. We went to the Ft. Worth Zoo, ate at our favorite restaurants and had lots of fun times with Nama and PopPop Seckinger. Jackson loved Noah, my parents dog, and could not resist the urge to grab his tail whenever it was near.

On Friday we went to the Dallas area for a few hours where Jackson met my co-workers from the Infant and Toddler Intervention Program that I used to work at. It was so much fun for everyone to meet Jackson. After our visit there we met Jonathan, Meredith and Luke for lunch.  On our way back to Ft. Worth Seth started to get a bit green with some kind of stomach virus. He had a rough rest of the weekend with roadtrips and a flight.

On Saturday morning we got up, packed up and drove to Houston. We were in Houston less than 24 hours. We squeezed in a quick visit with Bo and Leigh who were visiting from Germany. And we were surprised to get to see Bonnie too who flew in from Florida. We had a family birthday for Lizzy’s 3rd birthday on Saturday evening.  Jackson enjoyed being around his cousins again. (we can’t wait to live in DC near cousins soon) After the party we drove across Houston to Friendswood where Seth’s parents live.

Sunday morning we enjoyed Easter in Friendswood with both sets of grandparents.  We went to church (leaving Seth at home on his death bed).  Jackson did an Easter egg hunt with Tommy and Ella which was a highlight.  After lunch we rushed off to the airport to catch our flight back to Bogota.

It was a fun getaway! We needed the fresh air and time to rest! We had so much fun seeing family and friends. We are officially on the countdown for our Sept 10th departure!!! We will have a month then to see people before diving in to German. We look forward to seeing friends and family that we haven’t gotten to see on our quick trips home!

Let’s see. Not much news here. Just preparing  to leave tomorrow for Texas. It is going to be a whirlwind trip as we once again try to fit in every family member possible in a very short period of time. We will spend time in Ft. Worth, Houston and Jacksonville all within our short week. We are really looking forward to it. Here are the small updates just so you have a blog to read this week…

On Monday evening Seth brought home a special box in the mail…. from GAP. Inside Jackson found his first undies! Yep, that’s right we have stooped low enough in the blog world to write about underwear. Jackson was so thrilled that he wanted to wear all of the pairs at once!!  Here is a picture that we will for sure show to girl friends someday!

3 pairs later

On Tuesday Jackson and I hosted the American Women’s Club baby group. My oh my. It has been rainy lately so everyone came….yep..over 20 kids and 20 parents. We colored eggs and played and snacked. I was exhausted when everyone left!!!! I think I am still getting the house back in order. Here are some pictures.

just spotted the peeps before everyone came

Jackson surprised me with his egg decorating…he sat still as can be and knew to be careful

Jackson and Natasha (a buddy from school). He held her hand and ran around with her the whole time!

That’s about it from here. We will update you after our Texas adventures! Hope you all have a wonderful Easter!

It’s been a while since I (Seth) have posted, mainly because so much of my Colombian stories are work-related, and probably shouldn’t be shared.  But I do have a few quick stories from the past month or so that I thought I’d share.

We were watching American Idol through our slingbox last week and right after the show was over it went into a new show (at least for us) called Lie to Me.  We were slightly intrigued because the commercials were talking about a murder at a diplomat’s wedding and something to do with an ambassador.  (Since we’ve been to a diplomat’s wedding, we quickly realized that the story was overdramatized.)  Anyway, the opening scene showed a hispanic man shooting another one in the chest.  Then in the corner the location of the murder popped up.  Cali, Columbia.  The only thing is that Colombia isn’t spelled Columbia.  It’s a common mistake, but it was especially embarrassing we thought because here is a show on Fox and they don’t know how to spell the name of the country.  I told my co-workers the next day, and we all got a good laught out of it.

The nice thing about living in Colombia is Valentine’s Day.  Mainly because the “holiday” hasn’t caught on here yet.  I remember last year we were driving to a restaurant for VD and at the stoplight there was a guy selling roses.  I bought some for Kristen thinking I was being all romantic.  And then I told Kristen how cool I thought it was that they actually were selling roses on VD.  Then Kristen reminded me that they always sell roses at stoplights and it had nothing to do with VD.  Which brings me to why VD is nice in Colombia.  One, it’s super easy to get a reservation for VD since no one else is wanting one.  Two, roses are super cheap.  On any given day, you can get a dozen for like 3 bucks.  And Kristen said she’s seen a truck that drives around selling 2 dozen for 75 cents!!!  Remember, all the flowers you buy from your local florist come from Colombia.  Three, there are no Hallmark cards in Colombia, so you don’t get ripped off buying those.  Instead, you can write something on your own…from the heart.

The traffic here can be horrendous.  The other day we were driving 3 miles each way.  It took us 45 minutes to get there and 45 minutes to get back.  Unbelievable.  They’ve tried reducing some of the traffic by institutuing “pico y placa” which means that if your license plate ends in a certain digit, you can’t drive on that day.  Up until a month ago, “pico y placa” was just from 6-9 AM and 4-7 PM.  But they are doing major construction around town starting in a couple of weeks, so “pico y placa” is now extended to 6 AM until 8 PM.  Thankfully as diplomats with diplomatic license plates, we aren’t affected.  But I will say, we haven’t seen a dramatic decrease in traffic despite these new rules.

A few weeks ago, a bomb went off at a Blockbuster about 7 or 8 blocks from our house.  We have friends who live about 1/2 block from the explosion.  And my boss was at that exact Blockbuster only 45 minutes before.  Thankfully, no Americans were hurt, although 2 people did die.  Needless to say, things were quite tense around here for several days following the explosion.  The next night, Kristen and I heard three explosions, and immediately called the embassy.  Turns out they were only fireworks.  Which led us to think that fireworks should be banned for at least 48 hours after a bomb goes off.

And the biggest highlight of all.  McDonald’s is looking at building a restaurant at the embassy in the coming months.  I am quite pumped, although Kristen has said I’m going to have a monthly quota on Big Macs.  Before we got married, I average meat on a bun at least 3 times a week (Justin can attest to that).  We are now down to about once a month.  McDonald’s won’t be as good as Whataburger coming, but with only about 7 months remaining, it’ll suffice.

Seth turned the BIG 30 on Friday! We headed out of town to the finca with some friends for the weekend and celebrated there! We didn’t take many pictures of the birthday festivities but have a few.

Jackson and I are so thankful for Seth! He is such a loving father and husband! He is the most wonderful friend and I really cannot imagine living life without him!  My friends keep warning me that turning 30 can bring on an early mid-life crisis. So far Seth is his normal cool, calm and collected self! Maybe just a little bit sassier than he was a few years ago!

We celebrated Seth’s birthday a little early (since we were going to be out of town) last week by going to dinner at an Argentinian Steak house

We had a wonderful dinner with grilled beef tenderloin, etc and our friends Nicholas and Kima brought desserts from a wonderful bakery!

Jackson had a great time at the finca this time! He did last time too but was old enough now to really enjoy it!

snacking on the porch, EARLY in the morning!

a little grumpy on our hike

Ben and Katie, our fellow travelers

All geared up!

Valentine’s cookies!

Reading on the way home!