We're super-excited to be DJing the Mom Inc book launch party, tomorrow night at West Elm! The subject—running a business from home—is near and dear to my heart, and I'm eager to snag a copy and see what authors Meg and Cat have to share. Plus, local design moms from Yellow Owl Workshop, Petit Collage, and Chewing the Cud will be selling their wares. We hope to see you there! (Details here.)

One of the highlights of last summer was our weekend in an old miner's cabin at Malakoff Diggins, a California state park that includes an amazing restored mining town and is sadly scheduled for closure in June of this year. Click here for a letter you can download and send to our governor, to try and prevent this fate.

May 2011: A rainy bocce birthday party.

May 2011: Didn't have much luck, but it was a lovely day.

This is part of a series about our search for a new home last year.

Other Lives at the Barrel House, May 23 2011.

At dinner after this show, we received news of yet another delay in the repairs to our apartment. We start to realize we may need to find a new place to stay permanently.

After New York and North Carolina, I joined Matthew (and Bella!) at Steve and Ling's place for a few weeks, while we waited to see what panned out with our apartment. At this point we were still hoping to move back in well before the baby was due, but the doubt was starting to creep in.

Steve's grillmaster skills distracted us a bit.

The scenery didn't hurt either.

Though I was probably looking at apartment listings on craigslist here.

Around this time last year, I made a week-long trip to the east coast for business/pleasure. During that time, Matthew stayed with friends so our landlord could make some repairs to our bathroom—we had no idea we'd never live in that apartment again. Once work was started on our place, it was clear it was going to take a lot longer than a week to deal with everything. But at this point in the story, we had no inkling there was anything wrong.

First stop: New York, for the National Stationery Show.

Next stop: North Carolina, to visit my nephews.

While we're on the subject of photo series, we somehow never got around to posting the weekly portraits Matthew took when I was pregnant. We kind of broke with tradition and didn't take the portraits in the same clothes and same location every week, which is lucky because about halfway through the pregnancy we had to move out of our apartment! It definitely was not fun at the time, but I do like how our weekly photos ended up being about more than just my growing belly—they also tell the story of our search for a new home. (More on that soon!)

Oh, how these last few months have flown by—it's hard to believe our little guy is six months old and fast approaching seven! Nicole and Rubyellen inspired us to take these monthly portraits of Dylan, and we're so glad to have a record of how quickly he is growing and changing. Our plan is to take the monthly photos for at least one year, hopefully two if we can swing it.

Dylan Marlowe Davis, born 9/26/2011.

It's been a busy year! We got pregnant, were quasi-homeless for three months, moved into a new apartment, and welcomed our son Dylan to the world—all while continuing to seek out new projects and adventures along the way.

So real life eclipsed our internet life for a while, but we hope to share some of what we've been up to over the last few months—and we definitely will be sharing our adventures going forward!

xoxo!
Matthew, Sandy, and Dylan