the 14 of 2014: our next assignment

After the oh-so-crazy bidding process began, we were on pins and needles, wondering about our next assignment. To make matters more nerve-racking the State Department released a cable telling all bidders that, basically, this was the hardest bidding season to date.  What great news to get in the middle of your first time doing midlevel bidding (not!). The numbers didn’t look great, especially if one wanted to get an overseas assignment.

Prior to coming to Serbia, we had decided that we would return to DC for our third assignment. But then we’ve been having so much fun living abroad and traveling, we weren’t so sure we wanted to go back quite yet. In the end, we did bid heavily on DC assignments, but did include overseas positions as well.

The night before heading back to DC for a training trip of Grant’s, he checked his email as we were walking back to our car after a dinner, where he had received an email informing him that he was the “bureau leading candidate” for what we considered to be our number one pick. Did he like them, too? SURPRISE! More than a full week ahead of the earliest date we could officially found out where we were headed, we found out more “unofficially.” And it was our TOP CHOICE.

What, exactly, is this top choice of ours? Drumroll, please… we will be headed to Brussels, Belgium, where Grant will work at the US mission to NATO. Yay! I won’t tell you how many people he beat out for this job (it was a lot), but I am so incredibly proud of him. It feels like all of his hard work paid off and although the job itself will be demanding, we are absolutely thrilled and think it was the best choice for both our family and his career.