James and I were high school sweethearts. Now we're a family with two sons, ages 19 and 14.
Initially, James worked as a Sheriff's Officer for the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. He stayed there for more than five years.
After that, he was hired as a federal employee and was nearly tortured to death by soul sucking evil demons in the depths of hell. That fun period of our lives lasted almost six years. We couldn't get away fast enough, nor could we be more thrilled that he's outta there.
He was offered his dream job (Special Agent) with the Diplomatic Security Service (which makes him a Specialist in the U.S. Department of State, and also a U.S. Diplomat) in 2008. His initial training lasted through 2009, and our first post was Houston, Texas. We stayed there for a year, and then left Houston in the summer of 2010, in order to begin the year-and-a-half-long training for our second post: Chengdu, China. We were THRILLED to get Chengdu, and James and I started full-time Mandarin Chinese language training at FSI in the fall of 2010. We arrived in Chengdu, China (our first overseas post) in September of 2011, and are scheduled to be here for two years.
We love Chengdu! The food is amazing (UH-MAY-ZEENG), our boys really love their International School, and is there anything more fun than a Marine Ball? I think not: James, Matthew and I at the 2011 Chengdu Marine Ball
For the last decade, I have been a stay-at-home mom, and before we came to Chengdu, I homeschooled our two boys during that time. I am now what is called an EFM (or Eligible Family Member) for the State Department, which means that I am James' dependent.
Thank you for your blog! My husband was just hired, starts training in May. We are so excited! It is great to see a family living the life :)
Posted by: A Facebook User | 03/23/2012 at 01:27 PM
Hi,
My husband applied for a FSS and as I was researching about homeschooling overseas as a FS family, I found your blog.
In one of your posts, you had Chinese training along with your husband. Are you also FSO or can you tell me how you were able to train for the language as EFM?
I would like to ask you a few questions via email, if you don't mind. You can contact me via the email provided.
Thank you for your time.
Posted by: Kim | 03/17/2013 at 05:35 PM