T Minus Fourteen Days

Here are some things that are going on. A few people have asked some questions, so maybe this is interesting...maybe not, but here goes...

The kids said good-bye to their cousins on Sunday and it was hard for all of us - grown-ups included. We are going to miss our family and friends like crazy while we're gone. Up to now, we've been very focused on what we're going toward, but not especially with what we're leaving behind. It's a bit of a rude awakening to realize how much we take for granted! The kids are starting to focus (just this week) on what they're leaving and it's becoming a little difficult for them to say good-bye. If you see them and they seem a little melancholy, you know why. They're fine of course, and this is all for the best, but it's hard to watch my babies be so sad!

Here are some less deep facts...

We are leasing the house to another person that works for my company. That family is coming to the U.S. for a 2-year expat assignment starting at almost the same time as mine. It was totally a blessing that we got put together and it worked out beautifully. There are 2 kids in that family and they will attend the same school that David has attended. I think the kiddos are excited to have a pool!

The moving company comes to pack us up next week. Everything single item in the house has to be organized into categories.

1. Air Shipment (small, takes 2 weeks to arrive)
2. Sea Shipment (big stuff, takes ~40 days to arrive)
3. Storage
4. Leave in the house

Walk into an overstuffed closet in your house and think about what you would do with Every. Single. Item. in the closet. Seriously, it's overwhelming! They said it will take 5 days to pack and I'll be here the whole time to make sure things go to the right place. This is so fun for the organizational part of my brain, but the controlling part of my brain is FREAKING OUT!

We aren't taking much furniture, but we are taking some. The kids rooms will go with complete furniture in an attempt to keep some consistency in their lives. We know that the houses there are smaller, but we think we'll be okay anyway based on some real-life examples that we've seen. We're also taking our bed (just the mattresses & bases, not the headboard/foot-board). That's about all the big furniture that we're taking. The rest of it will either go to storage or stay in the house for our tenants.

European TVs use a different color technology there (in addition to the power concern), so we are only taking 2 (I know, weird, right?) One of them for the kids' gaming systems (Xbox, Wii) and one for DVDs. Our U.S. TVs will play with their games and DVDs but the European ones won't, so we want to have both.

Since power is completely different, we have a few simple adapters for the things that will work with the 220v and we have one big power converter thingie (can you tell this is John's area?) that we'll use for the things that we need, but aren't compatible. Things like computers, TVs and recent electronics are mostly cross-compatible, so we just need a simple adapter. We aren't taking any kitchen appliances (mixer, chopper, steamer, crock pot, etc) since nothing we have will work there. I'm thinking a coffee machine will be a definite purchase, but we'll wait and see on the rest. No way I can live without a coffee maker and I'm pretty sure I can wear one out in 2 years anyway, so it's totally worth it!

We do not plan to come home for the duration of the 2 years while we're living in Germany. I might need to come back for work, but that would be pretty short. The family is not planning to come home, but ALL of the extended family is encouraged to come to us! Why come to Texas when we've been here! Our family needs to come to *us*, right?? We'll travel and see all we can while it's close by and keep in touch with the people here using Skype and Facebook.

We got "Smash books" for the kids tonight. I had not heard of this, but they're essentially very fast and easy scrapbooks that you put together as your making the memories. Much lower stress and less perfection than my traditional scrapping, and the kids are excited to preserve their own memories as they see fit. Tonight, we were opening them and the kids were looking through them. David wrote his name on the inside back cover and Katherine decided she wanted to write her name on the front, a random page, and the back inside cover. David was about to go into convulsions at the disorganization of it all! He said, "Mommy, can I please be more organized?"  I told him that of course he can...these are personal and they can each do it how they want to do it as long as they're writing down and saving things that will help them remember this time in their lives. He seemed relieved that he didn't need to worry about how crazy hers was and that he was doing it "right" too. I hope they keep it up! I think it will be so cool to look back on later for them. Of course, I have one too...need you ASK??

That covers some things that I've been asked a few times. Thank you all so much for joining us in this exciting journey! I feel like I'm living and breathing this move, so if I seem a little more flighty than normal, it's just that I'm hyper-focused on getting the family moved!!

Love to all,
Cindy