Ok, so I took 6 months off from blogging. This was not intentional. In true Dan and Amanda fashion, we have been busy traveling and loving life! Lets get you up to speed, shall we?!
1. In the Summer, I finally went back to working part-time (which meant we could LEAVE!) I went with my Mom, Aunt and Grandma on a week long Alaskan cruise in July! There were so many beautiful things to look at and so many memories from that trip that I will cherish always. The girl time was priceless. Our summer also included trips to Wisconsin Dells, Traverse City, Chicago, Florida (never driven it before, but it was fun!) We stayed in Daytona Beach (my first time there! We saw manatees and rescued turtles too!) And Dan and I did a Norwegian Cruise out of New Orleans in early September to Mexico. We ended up exploring New Orleans in the middle of Tropical Storm Lee. The cruise was fabulous and we had our first ever balcony room! This was our three year anniversary splurge (we booked it so far in advance that the price was super great!) We were apart of two awesome weddings beginning October 1st with Jeremy and Ellen. We were their witnesses and were so excited to be apart of that day! Then another of Ellen's great friends, that I have gotten to know well, got married not a week later up north amidst the prettiest fall colors I have EVER seen! Our friends are truly the greatest! And we are getting pretty ready for our next cruise over Thanksgiving to the Eastern Caribbean!
2. We are moving! Wait....we are building! We're moving and then moving again into our custom condo that will be ready, hopefully in the Spring! We fell in love with this neighborhood in the summer during our parade week of touring homes. We are so enjoying the process of picking everything out, from fixtures to lighting, to carpet, changing walls and doors, etc. We are really excited to be homeowners! Our current leasing office blames our friends Jeremy and Ellen, who did live across the street but bought a home over the summer and supposedly started a trend in the neighborhood. :) Anyway, we are moving in with Duane until our home is done. He won't be around for a large duration as he leaves for the winter. We'd be house sitting anyway, so we thought we'd try to save a bit of cash by living over there! I'm sure there will be plenty more to share with you on our journey to home-ownership!
3. In August, Dan's Mom passed away. We were in Wisconsin Dells when Duane called to tell us. We knew she had come down with pneumonia but she had a few other times before. We picked up Dan's other brother Kevin and his cousin, David, who live out of state on our way back home for a few days of funeral stuff. We had a full day of visitations, broken up into two groups. Then a private burial and then a funeral at their home church. Obviously, those days were very difficult, but thank you to everyone who sent lovely flowers and powerful words of encouragement. Dan and his family are doing pretty well. Us moving to live with Duane temporarily really couldn't come at a better time. Speaking of Duane....
4. I am his new ballroom dance partner! This has been so much fun doing this with him! So far, we've learned the Foxtrot and the Rumba, next week, Swing! (Hopefully, it's more like the Jive, that was the impression I got anyways!) I look forward to this every week and race home to show Dan what I picked up!
5. Dance has pretty much been an obsession of mine! Atleast twice a week, I am taking Zumba! Oh.my.goodness. Do I love it! it's latin dance workouts that are an hour and 15 minutes each class and the price is only at $5! I have become close with some other girls in the class, including Amy, the instructor. I am usually in the front row with my sister-in-law and my other great friend Susan, who I took cake decorating classes with. Can you tell we love to try new things? So far, I've tried Zumba nights just once...there are two instructors that trade off teaching every four songs and this goes for two hours!! It's hard core but you feel sooo great afterward!
6. I have bangs now!
7. Things back home have changed significantly. My Grandparents have decided to retire and move out of the country! They are in Ecuador now, scouting out the area for about three weeks to make a final decision, but it looks like that's where they'll end up permanently. They moved GG back to Iowa a few weeks ago so now she's in an assisted living apartment community closer to her siblings. We will get to see all three of them in November when we drive to meet them all there for a weekend. Grandma and Grandpa will be swinging through to see family members after they get back from Ecuador, head back to Seattle to finalize their move and then back to Ecuador! They've started a blog too: http://bruceclaudialiljegren.blogspot.com/
Hope all is well with everyone! We will most likely update again once we've officially moved in with Duane. We have tons to do before then. Wish us luck!
I am so blessed by your happiness.
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