less than 3 weeks left

Hello everyone,
Just a quick note before I go get kids ready for school. We are leaving in three weeks from yesterday. We spent this past weekend putting most everything that we'll store into boxes and then stacking them in Gabe's room. There are boxes covering most of his floor stacked 2 and 3 high. We removed his bottom bunk bed and hauled it downstairs into what we've always known as the playroom. He's sleeping on the top bunk now and when I check on him at night, he looks a bit displaced sleeping high above the boxes like a monkey sleeping in the tops of a rainforest tree.

My parents and brother are coming to spend a week with us this Thursday. We'll be celebrating Christmas on Saturday (that is, as long as Santa got our letter and is willing to come early--Jordan says that he will even though we haven't heard back from him. She says we really didn't have to write the letter because he just knows. I suppose the letter was just a formality.) Yesterday Jordan got so excited that Christmas is just a few days away. She said, with a big excited smile, "It feels like Christmas is the end of my life!" As though all she's done so far in her life was the build-up to this Saturday and after that there will be...nothing. I so relate to feeling that way about things. Like this trip to Australia, for example. Though knowing that there will be life after Australia has been important for me to remember so that the leaving part isn't quite so hard. For Jordan, there is no hard part about Christmas, of course, so she can see this as the grand finale of it all and not think about what may or may not be after it passes.

I have been having a wonderful time with all my friends. Someone said to me the other day that this experience of getting ready to go away for a year must bring a great deal of value to what we have in our lives right now. She's right. I've spent much more time with my friends in the last few months than I typically do, especially this time of year (pathetically ironic) because I don't prioritize things that I take for granted. Right now, I'm not only not taking people in my life for granted, I'm paying extra attention to my friendships and it's fabulous! I highly recommend that everyone put people first and the to-do list second. Try a whole month of putting your relationships with the important people in your life ahead of everything else (excpet taking care of yourself, though they are often one and the same.) I hope I can remember to do this when we get home in a year.

Time to go get our day started. Have a good week and I'd love to hear how y'all are doing too!
Love, Nancy