Can you believe we made it?? It's June and the month of Joel's and my anniversary. About this time last year, I was trying to get all the last minute things done oh like figure out the ceremony program and get the reception favors made. What a world.
To start things off, if you want to continue to get monthly email updates from us, please email me. I probably won't be doing them in this format anymore. Joel and I will probably start one of those "blog" websites that both of us can post on, and that you can go look at anytime. Haven't really decided yet. But I don't want to keep bothering anyone who doesn't want these emails, so just let me know.
May was madness. The first half of the month was taken over by the community Auction. I vow to never do one of those again. At least unless I can get out of it by next year. But, it was a resounding success, over 100 attended (maximum capacity) and we raised $10K, after costs. That's about 3 times the amount raised in the past. So it was a fantastic event. Still never want to do that again. What insanity. The current issue is where all that money that we raised is going. Part of it will be paying for the lifeguards, etc. at the pool, but that still leaves about $4K unaccounted for. There will be a meeting this week of the Association, and I'm hoping that my arguements are persuasive enough that my office gets those funds for events.
The following week I hosted two "wine and cheese" receptions for work, and then I was off to Florence for a week of language training and immersion. I stayed with an Italian family and then went to individual language classes for 6 hours per day for a week. Very intensive and hard. But, I would say that I speak on at least a third grade reading level now. When I got out of my classes at 4pm I ran around and did the sightseeing stuff before I headed home for homework. Oh, and apparently I now speak Italian with a "Florence" accent. One of my teachers thought this was funny, so I thought I would pass this along.
So since I was in Florence and all, and we had bid on, and "won" a 2 night stay at a 4 star hotel in Florence at the auction, Joel came up to join me for Memorial Day weekend. We did alot of sighseeing and just enjoyed the city. This was our early anniversary celebration. Joel got me an "Nomination" charm bracelet (very popular Italian charm bracelet thing, pretty) and I got him a leather briefcase. Very grownup looking. It still amazes me that I'm now a grown up.
In the midst of all of this, my partner ended her time in our office (her husband is being transferred to his next post) and we had to sit in on interviews for my new partner. Wow, that was stressful. But they chose a really nice person to sit in with me, and hopefully her paperwork goes much more quickly than mine did and she starts SOON.
Poor Joel had to put up with me through all of that, on top of his new boss arriving - who has turned out to be very nice and a really good guy for Joel to be working for. Joel is still working long hours, but this week we've both resolved to leave by 6pm. His boss will be out for a few weeks to go back to the States to bring his family back over here now that school is over, so we have to take advantage of it while we can. This will be my first full week alone in the office, but hopefully next week I will have two of my "summer hires" begin. Summer Hires is a fancy way of saying highschool and college go-fers and lackeys. Just kidding. But at least that will take some of the menial work off of my plate.
I'm trying to keep June a quiet month, after all the insanity of last month. Probably won't happen, but it's a nice try. Joel and I won't be traveling much this month with his boss being out of town, and then I get the fun job of working the "official" 4th of July event at the Ambassador's residence (fancy thing, not a fun one), so hopefully it will be a quiet summer around here.
Talk to you all soon!
Julie and Joel
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