hello everyone

sorry it has been so long!

The last four months have been an insane journey - I have so much to share but I haven't have much energy to deal with the world ... I did update on Facebook as that doesn't even need a full sentence for an status update where Typepad needs thinking and grammar and planning.

Thankfully I am slowly energising myself so I am hoping to update my blog again on a regular basis. I actually bought some double sided tape to start scrapbooking again - I haven't made a layout in over 10 months!! I left all my design teams last spring - thankfully MME, Prima and Bombshell understood how burnt out I felt and I have missed the girls on the teams. I haven't even made a card or a crafty present in that time either. It's like the craft love in my brain just turned over and went into hibernation. It feels like a form of mourning in my heart.

I like to think leaving the DTs was a touch of for-sight as my BiPolar kicked off in the summer and deteriorated pretty badly for a few months. I'm slowly cycling up now but I've got some way to go to get back to my level of normal. Slowly, Slowly, baby steps forward is the name of the game.

I will be doing posts for each month I've missed for August to December 2012 to get the memories down on 'paper' so keep an eye out for those.

The biggest news is that now we live in Barcelona, Spain.

(Park Güell is our our local public park)

In October, the publisher cancelled the game that Ian was working on - over two years of work down the drain for the games company and all of Ian's team out of a job.  While we had expected something like this - especisally as Ian was on contract - it still sucked.  So we having to figure out what to do - do we stay in the industry or change, do we stay local to Portsmouth or further away. After deciding to try the Games industry one more time, it was looking more and more likely that we'd be moving again as the industry in the UK is so small and timings sucked - the same month as Ian's job went, two other studios closed down completly and since then 3 more.

After talking to a bunch of studios, while Singapore and other places offered some amazing adventures, we made a conscious decision to stay in Europe to be close to Ian's folks who are a major part of our life. We made some big decisions as to our long term views and expectations not just for Ian but our girls so after a bunch of interview and negotiations, we accepted an awesome contract with Gameloft Barcelona. The opportunities for Ian creativily and for us as a family are what we need right now and for the near future.

So we moved to Barcelona the week before Fay's 9th birthday and have been enjoying the beaches and sunshine since. The benefits here have been great for us all so we are hopeful for the future. The bureaucratic paperwork has been interesting and the lack of the language has lead to some interesting and some awesome results. People here speak Catalan first, Castello (Spanish) second and then English if you are nice to them.

They adore kids here so we seem to get a lot more help here than some of our single friends have recieved becuase they start talking to the girls who are picking up the basics fast.  The girls start school next week - its been an interesting experience getting the girls registered and meeting teachers and working with their systems.

We lucked out with our apartment - it belongs to a Unicef & National Gepgraphic Photographer and is over 100 years old - 14ft ceilings and stained glass and a garden with orange trees~ It rocks!!

so life is slowly moving in a more positive directions so expect to see more scrapbooking, more crafting, more photos, more of my awesome kids and more life.  so I am leaving you right now with a picture of my girls who I adore and who have coped with another international move with such amazing spirit.

Comments

[Sarah Keerie]

:) have a great adventure, your post makes me smile :) <3

[izzy]

what a wonderful place to live! :) Glad to see you are blogging and scrapping again - I enjoyed catching up here.
izzy x

[Jen]

So exciting! And lovely to see you blogging again too. Take care x

[jaihn]

Happy to hear of your new adventure, and to see your Beauty-full new home. Well Done! More 2013 Blessings cominatcha! xxxj