Moving on up, moving on out.

We are officially moved out of our house in SW PDX. It's quite bittersweet. We loved our house, we loved the neighborhood, we loved living in Portland again, but we are excited for the next adventure in our lives.

Lucy has gone to live with a friend of mine while we are away. I already miss her terribly. Pepe is on his way to go stay with my brother in Seattle. We are trying our hardest to get all of our things in order, and we already feel the pressure building. We have so many things to finish before we can leave and we are running out of time!

Stella has been very understanding and flexible with our crazy schedules. She even tries to help me pack our bags... or UNpack, I should say. She's much better at taking things out of the bag than putting them in.

In the last few weeks, Stella has started saying "Mama" very often and is eating almost everything that we eat. She isn't walking yet, which is good, because I can't imagine how hard it would be to chase after her on the cruise ship!

Nick and I know that we are going to miss our friends and family while we are away, and we aren't looking forward to that. We put together a gathering at Henry's 12th Street Tavern (henrystavern.com) on Friday, April 2nd at 8pm for anyone who is interested in coming out to have some good food and drinks. We would love to see you there and give you a hug before we head off.

We hope all of our friends and family are doing well and look forward to keeping in touch while we are away!

Fish 'n chips - here we come!

Nick was accepted to Oxford!

This is an amazing achievement. I am so proud of him. Oxford was the "best" school that he applied to - and he was accepted. Way to go, Nick!

So, it seems that our travels will take us (first) to Germany for about 5 months, where we will stay at our friend, Paul's, Grandfather's house just outside of Hannover. We will then relocate our little family to Oxford, England, where we will stay until Nick is finished with his MBA.

Jess tells me that there are beautiful cobblestone streets in Oxford and Nick read that the school itself is very old school - students take their exams wearing their full robes... kind of Harry Potter-ish. How exciting!

In the meantime, we are liquidating most of our belongings. We will stay in our house in SW Portland until the end of the month (even though it's starting to look bare with less and less furniture every day), and then we will move to my in-laws' home in Vancouver for a week before we begin our 14 day journey from New York City to Venice, Italy aboard a ginormous Norwegian Cruiseline Ship.

I won't lie, I'm pretty nervous. But this will be one of the biggest adventures of my life. I can't wait to post pictures of Stella aboard the cruise ship and in all the places we will be stopping between Portland and England: Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany and England.

Speaking of Stella, she is changing more every day. This time in her life has been particularly fun because she is learning and showing off her humorous side. She now is trying to crawl, although she's still not very good at it. She tries to eat everything I eat: from indian food to ice cream to lime wedges, she hasn't found a food that she doesn't like.

Nick and I are very thankful for all of the wonderful time we get to spend with our daughter - watching her grow and change every day. We are starting to realize that we will sincerely miss all of our friends and family while we are away, but we also very much hope that each and every person we know will consider coming to visit us in our new home overseas.