Life Updates (Tomorrow Is Another Day...)

So, how do you like my every five months posting schedule? I'm thinking about writing a tutorial on the worst possible ways to operate a personal weblog. I've finally found my calling! Anyway, insert empty promises about updating more often, blah blah blah... moving on.

Actually, life has been rather exciting over the past few months. I mean, exciting in a way that only a suburban, married mother of two would find to be a thrill, but busy nonetheless. Since October...

We had a spooktacular Halloween with two of the cutest rag dolls I've ever seen.

I met up with these beauties in Paris for a girls' weekend that included a boat ride down the Seine, the best steak and frites I've ever tasted, a mentally unbalanced young man sketching us in a bar, shopping on the Champs Elysees, and did not include children. I insisted that there be candles and sharp knives on every table we dined at!

We celebrated the 3rd birthday of those aforementioned rag dolls, also known as Charlotte and Annabelle, Three has been a bit of an awakening in terms of how difficult parenting can be (and I don't kid myself that it gets any easier), but they really are the sweetest girls, and so freaking smart and hilarious it blows my mind on the daily. We're pretty convinced we should keep them.

We hit a few Christmas markets for our last holiday season in Germany and time marched inexorably on as I turned yet another year older.

We visited Louisiana for Christmas and New Year's enjoying a flurry of family time, and finally getting to experience the magical Christmas Tea at the Roosevelt in New Orleans. We left the kids with my inlaws for a weekend to spend a few days in the Big Easy with our dear friends, Tim and Nicole. And Annabelle also survived the trauma of her first haircut, finally ridding herself of the dreaded mullet she'd been rocking for far too long. Now when I go get my hair done, the girls ask me if I get to sit in a pink car and watch Frozen--I wish!

I stayed in Louisiana for a full five weeks, while Colby had to return to work, but he joined me for a week in the Northern Virginia area so we could find a house at our new assignment. We landed on this diamond in the rough that we got for a great price and will spend the rest of our born days renovating.

My mom accompanied me and the girls on our flight back to Germany, and as well as being a huge help to me while we prepped for the move, we snuck in another pottery shopping trip, this time to Nove in Italy with a side excursion to fair Verona.

Colby and I took a Valentine's Day kid-free weekend trip to bid farewell to our favorite city, Paris. We stood in the rain for an hour so we could finally visit the catacombs, accidentally spend the equivalent of a new hot water heater at a fancy dinner, sipped on decadent hot chocolate, and visited the gorgeous palace of Fontainebleu. It was a delightful way to end our time in Europe.

We had all of our belongings packed up, then spent the next month living at a friend's house and two different temporary apartments, had going away lunches, coffees and dinners, and finally made it to a couple of Easter markets where my obsession with hand painted Easter eggs was fully ignited.

We made the flight back across the pond, and have spent the last week closing on our house and working furiously to make it at least habitable, if not beautiful before we move in tomorrow. More on this later, hopefully with at least a couple of afters to show for all of our work!

A whole host of family including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins big and small celebrated Colby's birthday with a chocolate cake from The Swiss Bakery, because we found ourselves in need of a little taste of... home???