And it’s been so ridiculously long. I never thought I would just stop writing in this space, with a bunch of drafts saved that never got finished!
We’ve had trips, we’ve had visitors, Ellie is now a full blown toddler and so far from being a baby now! (And this picture is 2 months old!) She still not talking much (ah, the bilingual thing is confusing…), but understands everything, makes animal sounds of a LOT of animals, knows what fruits she likes and asks for them, and in general, gets her message across.
Karl got his next assignment, and leaves in July for Islamabad while the rest of us hang out in Rio for another year, then DC for a year so he can learn Korean — and off to Seoul for 3 years in 2017 (crazy knowing this far in advance where we will live!).
We’ve had other news to share…
Because life with a toddler isn’t challenging enough, let’s take the husband out of the picture for a year, and add a newborn to the fun!
We ran a half marathon in July when Kathy was visiting from DC — and was my slowest half by far thanks to under training…
And since then I haven’t run one bit. Ellie hates the jogging stroller, she started afternoon day care three times a week, but it’s the hottest time of the day, and let’s face it, I’ve been EXHAUSTED. We live so far from everything, our garage doesn’t have assigned parking, so I get anxiety every time I take the car out if there will be a parking spot I can fit my car in (the spots here were made for Fiat Unos — no one in the building drive those, so they all take more than their spot), so I never end up driving. I walk everywhere, which includes a 25 minute walk each way to drop her off at day care, or any other errand I need to run. This week I’ll finally get a cruiser bike with a bike seat on the back (my road bike did not work with the child seat *at all*) and should make my life easier at least until the new baby arrives.
We’ve been to Buzios for a weekend trip, went to Iguassu Falls for Easter, spent a couple of weeks in Portugal where Ellie finally stopped nursing on her own accord, and now have a trip scheduled for the end of the month — sans kid for the first time! — to celebrate our anniversary, in the northeast of Brazil, in Natal. We booked our R&R to South Africa (but haven’t had a chance to figure out the details of anything else!), and booked a return to Maragogi where we went for our honeymoon (and I blogged it here), for a last trip before Karl goes to Pakistan, this time with Ellie and the new itty-bitty baby in tow, with my brother and sister-in-law tagging along.
We even survived (and loved it!) the World Cup in Rio and the humiliation of Brazil’s defeat. We got to catch a couple of games in Maracana, even if we failed miserably at scoring tickets for the finals.
And I’m still sharing pictures almost daily on instagram (blogging for lazy people?) at whereiscarla.
I haven’t given up on this space, I’ll be back. I just hope eventually I can get my crap together to go back to blogging regularly. It’s not lack of things to share, just lack of time to sit down and write them. But I miss it, though sadly, laziness wins most days…
