Coming Home for Christmas

Dave just scheduled his Oral Assessment. For those trying to keep track of all of these exams, this will be the final step of his second candidacy. Should he pass the Oral Assessment, he would be added to a second list of ready-to-hires. Should he pass with high marks, he will be called to the next class. His original candidacy was in the Political track, where he now sits at around #70 in the queue. We do not expect to ever receive a call in Political at this rate, unless he should pass a Mandarin test. This new candidacy will be in the Economic track.

We've scheduled the test for January 3rd.
The girls are off school from Dec. 16 - Jan. 4, and so we expect to be in the states for all of this time and then keep them out for the first week back.
We'll be spending Christmas day in St. Louis with my folks; Dave and I will spend a few days in DC around Jan. 3; and we'll also fit in plenty of time in Chicago. We're shooting for 4 weeks total, and looking forward to every minute of it!