WE did it. We said goodbye (sold it all) to all of our stuff
and houses in Minnesota and came down to Guatemala with 6 suitcases that
contained our life. I guess not really our life, just our stuff.
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| Last family photo at Minneapolis house. |
We were in Minnesota for 5 months. It was good to be there
and to be able to reconnect with many people that we miss on a daily basis
while living in Guatemala. Charlie
changed a lot over the months in Minnesota. He grew a lot of hair and developed
a ton of comprehension. He seems to understand everything we say at this point.
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| Fun with friends |
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| Townhouse patio |
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| Minneapolis Pride Festival |
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| Splash pad |
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| Park fun |
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| Loving the REAL bathtub |
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| Driving to the cabin...always during nap time |
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| Construction observation |
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| Lots of bike rides! |
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| Outside dinners |
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| Garden fun |
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| Brandon turns 40 |
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| Bjorn and Charlie |
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| Owen and Charlie |
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| Cousins |
Oh and yes, I became pregnant early on in our time in
Minnesota. This came as a complete surprise to both Brandon and I. We really
thought that we would be a 1-child family as we had a really difficult time
conceiving Charlie. This baby is a boy
and we are expecting his arrival sometime in early to mid February. My mom will be here again for the birth (not
at the actual birth this time but taking care of Charlie) and to help out after
the birth which is really amazing of her!
We have been back for about 7 weeks. We moved back into the
home that we had lived in before. We love the location and the garden. I
decided that comfort during this pregnancy is important to me and so Brandon is
working with his friend Cruz to build a sectional couch for our patio. This
will expand our living space. I also brought another chair down from Ikea. The
furniture situation is much better this pregnancy than it was with my first!
It’s kind of funny how life can just pick back up. We do
have our routine back with our sitter coming to take care of Charlie so we can
go and do the things that need to get done without a child. Like taking the
boat and lugging all of your groceries home on foot. This is much easier
without Charlie. It is also really nice that we have a community of friends
here now. There actually were people that were excited for our return!
So even though we don’t have 9-5pm jobs, we keep very
busy. Brandon hasn’t given up on finding
remote work and in the meantime we are working together on creating our small
business. Tesoros de Atitlan is in full swing over here. Meetings with
artisans, working on developing our logo, meetings with exporters, and overall
developing Tesoros as a brand is exciting and has been taking up our time. We
plan/hope to have a collection complete by May 2018!
I plan to keep this blog alive. My posts really slowed down
after Charlie’s birth but it is really fun for Brandon and I to look back at
the documentation of our first year here. I want to keep it going so that we
have an artifact of the months leading up to the arrival of our second son and
the months there after. I also want you all to know that we are alive and well
(and when we aren’t doing so well too).
Next visitor is my dad!! He arrives 12/19/17 and will be
spending Christmas here with us. We hope he is ready for his 5am wake up calls
from Charlie!
XOXO,
Katie, Brandon, and Charlie
