Advice

Well we had a weekend full of advice. Chris got home from meeting with another team member in Switzerland and said I got some good personal advice about living abroad

1- overspend the first year-
2-even if your are tired if your wife wants to sightsee do so
3- travel whenever you get the chance (he invited us to come stay and ski in Switzerland while his family's au pair watches our kiddos- sounds good to me)

Nice it came from a 3rd party so I can safely say Chris is back on the weekend sightsee plan.
Sat headed to Costco- I felt weirdly back in Plano- spending $300 on stuff I may not need but loving every minute of it. We found a bunch of cute bday presents for casey- which we put in the basket and she would say "I really wanted an ariel pillow mom- when I get bigger can I get one" Supposedly I was blissfully unaware at 3 when my mom would do the same thing.

Then we headed to the American Club gourmet night. I was given an italian antipasto dish. Recipe pretty easy to make besides converting all the kg to US measurements and buying baking trays that fit in my oven. Due to the recent advice Chris was given- no complaints were made about hanging out with 10 strangers for the evening. The group was pretty cool- mostly 40 year olds with 7+ years of international living experience. Everyone was very sweet about helping us find sitters, dentists, and activities. Some of the couples are from London financial institutions so we discussed the bailout of AIG and the general dismal state of the economy.
It was funny because one couple kept talking about a high school for boys that would be great for CJ. I didn't want to break their hearts that there really was no possibility we would be here for high school. I think I have adapted pretty well with the frame of reference that this is a short term assignment- in truth I would be freaking out if this was permanent. But 5 courses of italian food and plenty of red vino made for a tired sunday:)

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