I have said it before, and before that, and probably even before that. I really do intend to be better about posting — to be more deliberate and consistent — each time I say it. It's not that I don't have things that I want to say or share on this site, but I guess I have a hard time getting up the motivation to actually sit down and write, not to mention that we have a 2-year-old running all over the place.
Well, my department leader at my job has inspired both me and Lissa to take up what will hopefully be some more regular posting. That, combined with the fact that Lissa and Brennan are out of town this week, has given me some motivation to technologically update the site (mostly under the hood) and write this. Needless to say, much has happened in the past 27+ months since my last post when Brennan was born. I will try to recap in some semblance of chronological order:
- We made it home from the hospital safe and sound (as you probably guessed), and got little sleep for awhile. But, Brennan is amazing and good, so everything has gone smoothly overall.
- We paid off Lissa's car. No more car payments!
- We paid off Lissa's last student loan. No more student loans!
- We are debt free except for the house! (Sensing a theme?)
- We led a Financial Peace University class at church.
- We traveled to Nashville to be trained as Certified Financial Counselors. Yes, both of us! Note: Financial Counselors, not Financial Planners. There is a huge difference.
- Brennan turned one. We rented a pavilion and attempted to have a cookout to celebrate, but it was freezing, and we ended up back at our house.
- After much prayer, discussion, angst, and advice-seeking, I applied for a web development position with The Lampo Group, Inc. in Nashville.
- I — and actually Lissa too — had several e-mail and phone interviews with Lampo over the next 3 months, and when they were seemingly about to hire me, I turned down the job. It's OK. That particular position just wasn't a good match for me.
- We took a vacation to South Padre Island with my parents (my mom was newly-semi-kinda-retired), and we hated it. The trip and the company were great; it was the area that we hated.
- While in South Padre, Lampo got back in touch with me about another position that matched exactly what I had told them I was hoping to pursue!
- <<Insert more e-mail conversations and phone interviews here.>>
- Lissa and I traveled to Nashville without Brennan for final in-person interviews.
- I accepted the job as Lampo's new System Administrator, I tendered my resignation to Idearc, I did a knowledge transfer at work, we worked endlessly and tirelessly on the house to prepare it to sell (with immeasurable help from friends), we moved to Nashville, we lived temporarily in a condo, I began my new job, we accepted an offer on the house after three days on the market, we found a rental house in Nashville, we traveled back to Dallas to pack the house and move, and we moved everything we own to Nashville (ourselves) and into the rental house...all in the span of two months! <<Deep breath.>>
- We are completely debt free and have a fully-funded emergency fund.
- Brennan turned two.
- We experienced the remainder of what have likely been nine of the craziest, most exhilarating, most difficult, most rewarding, most faith-challenging, most relationship-challenging, most emotion-draining, greatest months of our lives as we learned and fought and grew and prayed as a family.
- ... Oh, yeah. Then we got called by our former neighbors in Dallas to tell us that their had been a police standoff at our old house, and a man had been shot and killed on our front steps by a sniper.
All in all, it has been fairly quiet and calm in our lives since my last post. 
