Hello dear readers – Hard to believe that this is the first time I’m writing about bidding this go round (oh yes, it’s that time AGAIN). I think I was in denial a bit because we’ve loved our time in Bend so much and don’t want to go . . . but go we must because Nick’s time in Baghdad ends this summer and that means we have to make another move—our 11th in 17 years! Fun fact: on January 2nd we celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary, which also means we’ve officially been in the Foreign Service for 17 years, since that particular adventure began just three days after we said “I do.” It does not feel like 17 years have gone by—for marriage or FS life!
But back to bidding . . . bidding was rough this go round. It felt a bit like the bidding hunger games, if I’m honest. After the layoffs in July (which we think Nick just narrowly missed), everyone has been edgy for fear of another round. What that meant was that everyone overprepared to bring their A game, bid on more posts than they would have typically, and were extra dodgy about sharing anything regarding their bid strategy and posts they were going for.
Since moving around a bunch is such a core part of foreign service life, The State Department maintains a somewhat-updated list of projected job vacancies (called the Projected Vacancy List, of course!). We’d been tracking it since summer and had a solid preliminary plan. But when the formal bid list dropped in September, about one-third of the positions for Nick’s cone (Public Diplomacy) were suddenly frozen for policy reasons and not being filled this cycle. Several of our top contenders disappeared overnight.
So we did what we always do: regrouped and made a new plan with the most current information. It wasn’t perfect, but it was solid, realistic, and the best path forward we could see at the time. We were pumped when Nick got interviews with 8 out of the 9 places we bid on, which felt like good odds for landing at least one.
After all the interviews wrapped up, it became clear that we likely wouldn’t come out on top for any of them. That meant heading into handshake day on January 23 without an assignment and preparing to start over in round two with whatever remained. Not uncommon—but definitely not fun. (That’s exactly how we ended up going from Lima to D.C., after all.)
Then, in the 11th hour, just when hope was dwindling, a former colleague reached out to Nick about a post that was still seeking candidates. It was a long shot—very late in the cycle and there was a language requirement Nick didn’t have—but at that point we had nothing to lose and had grown quite comfortable with rejection anyway. 😉
To our surprise and delight, they offered us a handshake yesterday (Nick was eligible for an “early handshake” since he’s in Iraq), which we promptly accepted. We are thrilled to announce that in Summer of 2026 the Novak family will be moving to . . .
Isn’t that insane?! Nick will be the Spokesperson at Embassy Berlin for the next 3 years. Nia will start high school at an international school, and I’ll be leaning into my favorite roles: pursuing hobbies, coordinating friend and family visits, and planning all our European adventures. It’s a perfect tour for us, pretty much exactly what I’d dreamed of.
We feel very blessed and hope lots of people come to visit! I think Nia may be the most excited of all of us—she cried happy tears for a good 15 minutes straight when Nick told us. Our WWII-obsessed girl is gonna have a field day seeing all the sights she’s read about. And they have a big gliding culture so she may just get to continue flying too!
Please enjoy some pictures of our new home and remember—never give up hope! Life is full of surprises!
