Somehow we managed to find the time to buy a house in July.

It all happened so suddenly, especially considering that we had been going to open houses and thinking about doing it for years now. In this case though, we finally got ourselves an agent, got our loan pre-approval, figured out what we were looking for, and where we might be able to find that in the DC area. In the end we got a townhouse in Falls Church city, which is just to the west of Arlington and right along the desirable Metro orange line. It's also known for having some of the best schools in Virginia, which crosses off one big worry for us. Here's a picture of the house. Coincidentally, we're buying it from another Foreign Service person.

In other news, we enjoyed a visit from Crystal's sister and her family. Sandi, Don, and Nik came out from Arizona to spend some hot and humid days with us. Our first big trip together was to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware for Adham's birthday. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate for our weekend away, which ended up being cool, gray and rainy most of the time. On the positive side though, we had a lot of great food (including some fantastic all you can eat crab!), and enjoyed poking around a new place. We spent about a half hour on the beach one day before it started raining, but that was long enough to marvel at all the dolphins that were swimming and playing right off shore.

The next weekend we all went to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which is about two hours away. While Sandi et al visited the Civil War battleground monuments, we took Tasman to the "Land of Little Horses", a farm a few miles outside of town which specializes in breeding and training, you guessed it, miniature horses. It was pretty amusing, watching them being dressed up in all sorts of costumes and made to do tricks. Needless to say, the average age of the audience was about three. Still, Tasman seemed to enjoy it, even if he probably won't remember any of it.

At work, Adham has been involved in organizing a program called "Two Bays, One World" for the State Department's OES bureau, which handles environmental and scientific affairs. He's doing that as what's known as a "bridge assignment" in the lull between periods of extended training. It's been fun most of the time and a great education in the culture of the State Department, as the atmosphere is markedly different at the headquarters building compared to the training center in Arlington. It's back to wearing a suit everyday and paying close attention to the hierarchy. In a few weeks though it's back to full-time training, when South Asian area studies starts up, quickly followed by 23 weeks of Bangla language. That's going to be really fun!