The Leen

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Hello there, friends in bloggy land.

How have things been for the past, oh, almost two months? Yikes! Two months! That’s longer than I thought it would be between posts, but, you know, oh well. Gotta remember that whole “no stressing out” thing, right?

Really, things have been fine at our house. Busy, stressful at times, but fine. Let’s see if I can sum up in a quick and not boring way.

Since my last post, we’ve done quite a bit of traveling. Brett’s traveled for work to L.A., Iowa, and Norway. (Yay for frequent flier miles!) Brett’s mom was here while he was in L.A. and Iowa, and my mom came while he was in Norway. Both visits were quite fun!

As a family, we’ve been to Portland for the United States Barista Championship and to the Oregon Coast, where we are now. We head home tomorrow, which will be nice since we’ve been gone for 10 days, but I have to admit that I’m loving the lazy beach lifestyle, and am not too eager to resume the quick pace of normal life.

Really, nothing else too exciting has happened. Brett did great in the barista competition last weekend, placing in the semi-finals, and as it was in Portland, our families watched Elanor so I could participate in the fun. And it was fun! I got to eat amazing food, drink great wine, and hang out with fun people. I even got to stay out too late at a party after drinking a little too much, which I haven’t done in over two years.

Elanor is more funny and amazing every day. We’ve been trying to transition her into a crib for at least part of the night, since she’s so big that sleeping with her is getting to be a challenge. She inherited her papa’s and her Auntie Rachel’s propensity to thrash around violently in her sleep, which means Mama and Papa don’t sleep much as a result. The transition is going okay; some nights she’ll stay in the crib almost all night, and others only a few hours. But that’s okay with me. I’m not looking for an instant change — gradual is fine.

She’s walking EVERYWHERE, babbling up a storm, signing really well, and looking more and more like her papa every day — I guess I should save some of this for her monthly letter, which I should post in the next few days. Maybe I can write it in the car on the way back to Seattle tomorrow.

We are waiting to hear about some things that could mean some really good but somewhat big changes for us. We’ve come to terms with the fact that change is going to happen in the semi-near future, and being the impatient person that I am, now that I’ve made that decision and am anticipating change, I want the change to happen RIGHT NOW! But that’s not how life works, especially not in this instance, so I am trying to trust God and be patient.

We don’t have a car yet; we are kind of waiting to see how these changes pan out before we take on any more expenses. And that’s okay for now. I do want one in the somewhat near-ish future, but I think it’s more prudent financially to wait right now, so that’s what we’re doing.

I’ll leave you with some pictures from the past few months. I don’t have a ton; Brett took the camera with him on his travels. I’ll save the most recent ones for her 14-months-old post, I think, but here are some from the previous month.

So, I will be back sooner than almost two months, I am sure. Hopefully within the next few days, actually. I have Elanor’s 14-months-old post to do, and finally, Brett is ready to do his post about making a french press, which was requested by Annie. (Yay!) We’ve also been making some amazing food lately that I want to tell you about, and I want to share some projects that my friend Rosanna and I are excited to work on.

The bottom line is that there’s a lot going on with us: none of it terribly thrilling, most of it good. I promise, another post about everything is coming soon!