A funny thing happened on the way to the future...

I had a baby, Mark became a stay at home dad, and we got bored and moved to Seattle! We bought a sewing machine, I started making simple art, and fell in hate with running, though I try to do it most days.

We got to welcome this little gem:

She arrived right on time: 8 days late after 8 hours of pitocin on May 13, 2010 at 3:13 PM, 13 days before Gage's birthday. Cool, huh? We liked her, so named her Vesper Olivia and took her home!

She was still forming an opinion on us. We were off to a rough start.

My little man turned the big oh-5...

...and started kindergarten! (Setting himself up for a disobedient life already, since I explicitly forbid the growing of up...)

Mama went back to work after 4 months, begrudgingly at first, but eventually became ever so grateful to work in a somewhat stable industry (that doesn't involve sick people - don't hate. We all have our strengths.) when Daddy was laid off after yet another company went out of business, and became a wonderful stay at home daddy/husband/mechanic/butler/housekeeper/chef. I don't know how he does them all so well. I think he may have a secret butler robot. A butler/chef/housekeeping robot. Yep...

Fast forward, Vesper turned 1 and Gage turned 6!

One day, I was sitting at work. In June. In Southern Arizona. With no makeup on because my allergies were sooo bad, and I couldn't take allergy medicine because I was getting allergy shots - there's a brilliant system (and, yes, you can call it "off meds" and giggle). Our pipes had frozen and burst the previous February. And dealing with 108 degrees and frozen pipes was so confusing, we decided it was time for a change. That's how we found ourselves in the Emerald City that October looking for a house! 

We rolled out of Tucson on Monday, December 5, 2011... and stopped in Phoenix 2 hours later. Do you know how exhausting moving is? We did, however, escape Arizona the next day, and two days later, after 14 hour days, getting stuck a couple of times with that behemoth pictured below, so much fast food, even more coffee, two hotels (one nice, one with strange loud noises all night...) and more than a little wine, we were there!

Home sweet home!

And that brings us to the end of 2011. More later. Carry on, pretending like you have better things to do.