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.

Stella at 6 months

On a daily basis, we say, "I can't believe how big she is!" and "I can't believe how much she has changed!".

Stella has changed so much in the last 6 months. Some of her current milestones are:
-Sitting up by herself
-Starting to crawl (mostly backwards) hah!
-Moving toys from one hand to the other
-Chewing on EVERYTHING
-Grabbing EVERYTHING in sight - even my hair :)
-Laughing and giggling all the time
-Making funny faces that she knows will make us laugh
-Standing up with us holding her hands, for long periods of time
-Recognizing the sign language signs for "Eat, change diaper, dog and cat"
-Cooing and making many sounds

She has also started to try solid foods. Some of the foods she has tried are sweet potatoes, carrots, celery and apples. She has liked all of them and I hope this is a sign of a non-picky eater - like her mama and papa :)

We are enjoying all of the new milestones that she is meeting and we know that soon enough, she will be walking and talking, so we are enjoying these precious young months while they last.

Here are a few photos of our bundle of joy at 6 months. We really think she is the coolest person in the world and look forward to sharing some new adventures with her soon!

By rail and boat we go!

The Tostenrude family is headed to Europe!

At the beginning of April, Nick, Stella and I will begin a long (but fun) trip from Portland to Italy. It will start on the train from Portland to New York. Once in New York, we will be departing on a 14-day cruise. The cruise stops in Ponta Delgada, Portugal; Lisbon, Portugal; Seville, Spain; Granada, Spain; and ends in Venice, Italy.

Once in Italy, we will likely do some sight seeing and traveling around before settling down in our own flat/apartment/house while Nick starts his graduate school program. We aren't exactly sure where Nick will be going to school - he is applying at a few different places. Here are the possibilities: Oxford, Italy, Sweden or Germany. We will be living in one of those places while Nick studies for his Masters degree, which should take approximately 12 months.

That's the exciting news over here on our end! In the meantime, Stella is learning to crawl and sit up - and we look forward to taking her on our big adventure!

In preparation for our big move, I've been working on figuring out what to do with all of our "stuff" and accommodations for Pepe and Lucy. If anyone has any ideas, throw them at me!

We hope everyone has had a great start to a wonderful New Year, and we hope to see you before we head off!

Happy Holidays!

This year, we had a great time spending the holidays in Bellevue with Dad, Sonja, Chris, Jess and baby Seren. On Christmas Eve, we hunted down the Marination Mobile, which is a food truck that specializes in Hawaiian/Korean fast food including Spam Sliders (yum!) and was voted the best Food Cart in America. Delish.

Seren and Stella were cuddled and played with, naturally, and of course dressed in their Christmas outfits. Dad concocted a delicious mexican breakfast of potatoes, sauteed sausages, nopalitos with eggs, tortillas and my favorite... mimosas!

We sat around being lazy all day and opened gifts in the evening after many rounds of mimosas, spiked apple cider and red wine. Dad gave the grandgirls matching necklaces (see pic) and spoiled me with the most beautiful turquoise earrings - probably because I'm always stealing Jessica's :) Jess overdid herself by stuffing my stocking with ridiculous amounts of chemical free and organic body products and topped it off with a delicious honeycrisp apple tucked in to the toe of my stocking - just like Grandma used to do.

Nick and I are thankful that we were able to spend our holidays with our fantastic family and look forward to the new year with our new addition.

Cousins

I really hope Stella and Seren grow up enjoying having their pictures taken together, wearing matching outfits and all other sorts of weird things that Jess and I plan on making them do until they are old enough to move out...

Visit with Grandma & Grandpa Evans

Rhonda and Tommy were beside themselves when they found out I was pregnant, and even more so when they found out it was a girl. Even though they aren't technically Stella's Grandparents, they will always love her as if she were their own.

Rhonda made Stella about 10 different handmade things for my baby shower from booties with matching hats (seriously, 6 sets...). quilts, blankets, onesies... I'm sure I'm missing quite a few things...

Stella and I went to hang out with them and open her Christmas gifts. We had almost as much fun as they did and can't wait to see them again :)