Christmas Letter 2014: A Life of Transition

Merry Christmas!

Here is a song that has been on repeat during this Christmas Season.  Feel free to listen to it while you read (you will probably have to endure an advertisement before the song comes on).

It's been a few years since our last Christmas letter...cough....cough.....since 2011!  Oh my.  Well, we will catch you all up on the latest and greatest in the Mentze home and you will quickly realize why it's been a while.

2012-

Elijah Blaze was born on Kristin's birthday (May 21st).  If you want to read Eli's birth story, you can go here. (no gory details)

The first 6 months of parenthood were adventurous just trying to figure out a new "normal" 

November 6th- We were notified that Cirrus Logic would be shutting down their Tucson office and relocating us to Austin, TX.  This was a very advantageous move for us as they offered to help us sell our home in Oregon as part of our deal to move.

We finished the year with spending Thanksgiving with the Mentze family (traveling to Portland) and Christmas with our new little family (in Tucson), and the Barclay family (In Phoenix) right before we moved!!!

December 27th- Our moving truck left with all of our stuff headed to Texas 

2013-

January 5th- We moved to Austin

We lived downtown until March (paid by the company) so we could take our time to figure out where we wanted to live.  This was a lot of fun in order to explore our new city.

A few weeks later we flew to Portland for a whirlwind weekend of cleaning up our house to be put on the market.  We had an offer the first weekend and closed within 30 days (March 4th).  We even received more than we expected.  If you need a great realtor, we know one!

In March we moved into our hipster, 70's fabulous, 2 bedroom/1.5 bathroom, walking distance to parks/restaurants/downtown townhouse.  We picked a great location.  We compromised on space because it would place us near downtown where Erik was working.  Traffic is a major issue in Austin, so it also helped us avoid that situation.

April 1st- We lost Grandpa Thomas Trees, so we headed to Oregon to spend some time with family for a week.

April 28th- We discovered that we were expecting a new addition to the Mentze family!!

May 21st- We celebrated Eli's birthday with friends in Tucson and then went to Disneyland for a sweet vacation for just the 3 of us.

June 28th- We celebrated 5 years of marriage!

August 19th- We found out that we were having a BOY!!  Here is our reveal video.

Kristin's pregnancy was pretty uneventful, just lots of swelling!

October we took a trip up to Uncle Earl and Aunt Sue's farm in California for the Sheridan Iron Chef competition! We had a great time seeing the Mentze side of the family.

Our Thanksgiving was sweet and intimate for the 3 of us, all catered by Whole Foods!  I highly recommend a stress free Thanksgiving by having someone else make the food.

Christmas quickly came and Gary, Terrie, and Adam came to spend Christmas with us since Kristin was very pregnant.  We were hoping that Zak would make an arrival before the end of the year because we had help in town with Terrie caring for Eli.

2014!!!

January 3rd- Zakariah Thomas was born!  If you would like to read his birth story, you can go here.

This year started out with a big transition of adding another member to our family.  Eli did very well with the transition and in general is very loving towards Zak.  We had a lot of help at the beginning as Kristin's dad came for 2 weeks, and afterwards her mom came for 3 weeks.  When all our help left, we were on our own!  We did hire a nanny to come for a few hours a day, which was a great blessing!  We also had incredible, servant hearted friends who would drop by and help.

April 2nd- Erik was notified that the division he was working in was being cut, and he was being laid off.  This cut was very sudden and unexpected.  It was a "here is a check, and here is the door" lay off.  This was a new situation for us as anytime there has been a lay off, "we have always made the kickball team."  There is always more to the story, but that is best left for a personal conversation, not the Internet.

We were not very public with the change going on as we felt that we had some decisions to make, and we didn't want to get a lot of people's hopes up.  We took the opportunity to look into various options from Arizona, Oregon, Texas and North Carolina.  After a couple weeks of studying and looking into various job options, Erik lined up a handful of interviews.  He ended up accepting an offer from Cactus Semiconductor in Chandler Arizona.  Cactus specializes in low power integrated circuit design, with quite a bit of history in implantable medical devices (yes, computer chips that go inside you!).  He finished his first project within 6 months of starting and is quickly settling in.  He describes it as "The most fun I've ever had working the hardest I've ever worked".  So far it seems to be a really good fit with a lot of opportunity for Erik to grow.  

May 10th- We moved to Chandler, Arizona!

May 17th- Erik started work at Cactus Semiconductor

May 21st- Eli turned 2!!

June 28th- We celebrated 6 years of marriage!! (In Oregon)

We were able to take a vacation up to Oregon during the week of our anniversary and 4th of July.  We went to Cannon Beach for a quick weekend, and had a blast with Gary, Terrie and Adam!  Eli still talks about going to the beach and flying kites.

We came back and survived the hot summer and monsoon season here in Arizona...yes we survived the Phoenix flooding.

November we headed to Portland for 2 weeks for Thanksgiving.  We had a great time with family, friends and a bit of sickness too.

And now you are caught up on our crazy life!

So if you do the math with all that we have done...we moved from AZ to TX to AZ all within 16 months.  We also had two kids 19th months apart!  Are we crazy?  Maybe...but we survived, and we know that God has been incredibly gracious to walk us through all these transitions.  Are we done moving?  Probably not.

Just to give you a little insight to our boys...

Eli is a slow roller in the morning.  You cannot rush him to do anything.  He is fun loving and always out for a good time.  He remembers everything, but usually in the context of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  He LOVES buttons!  If there is a button to push, he is your man to do the job. 

Zak is bight eyed and bushy tailed in the morning.  He loves to get up before Eli and have his run of the toys.  He was crawling at 9 months and will be walking soon, but may revert to crawling because he can get where he wants much faster.

Kristin is full time domestic engineer at this time.  She also still works with Take Shape for Life clients.  If you are interested in hearing about the program please send her a message. 

We hope this Christmas season is filled with JOY knowing that God came to earth!  HE CAME.  It's pretty amazing to ponder the event and reason.

We would love to hear from you too!  Feel free to leave a comment.