And they're off...

Five 50 lbs. bags, five backpacks, one schoolbag, one purse, and three stuffed animals named Roar, Monkey Monkey, and Christmas Lights--yep, we're ready.

All right people, it is 7:15 AM, Monday, July 21st, which is a little less than 5 hours before we embark on a plane for our new life in Costa Rica.  We have so many people to thank to help get us to this moment, Mike and Andrea Rudolph, Grandma Martha, Mo Stewart, Granny and Grandpa, Katy Williams, etc., etc.; and we have so many people we want to say goodbye to, in Colorado and all over the bizzoint, the Hiebs in Seattle, the Daunics and  the one and only Hannah Vanderlan in New York, Mollie in California, all our Omaha homies, the Kanagys in North Carolina, and my magnificent sister in Wyoming, etc., etc.--funny, the distance draws the whole country and all our past experiences into a single concept of home--that which we know and thrive by and love--that which we will surely miss.


I honestly don't know what to expect, but my anxieties are for the most part held at bay--so far.  Well, I do have a mouth-full of canker sores, which suggests something working underneath the surface, but we're sleeping well--the babies aren't even up yet.  They seem to be taking all the many crazy transitions we have been going through in the last 20 or so days in stride.  But we'll see...  Setting our bags down later tonight in our new home in San Jose will be something indeed.  What we know is that we love each other--the five of us--like nothing else in the world, and, thanks to the examples of people like Mikey and Katy and Katie D, we feel confident that that should at least stay intact.

I don't know when next I will post.  Won't have a camera for another few weeks.  Not sure how soon we'll have a computer up and running--we are not bringing one with us.  We start work on Thursday and the kids start school on August 5th  (--thank goodness for Martha and Katy, who are coming down with us to help with the transition).  We'll have a new phone number too.  I don't know when I'll get it all together, but know I am trying to get back to you.

Keep positive thoughts and prayers and anything else you can muster coming our way.

Now, it's time for breakfast.  Talk to you soon.

Joe, Suzy, Scout, Charlie, Kiefer, and our stuffed animals...