72 hours

We shipped our things via Allied on Friday and won't see them again for 4-6 weeks. Meanwhile, our house contains mostly things we will leave behind and our clothes that will go with us. A box or two of items we forgot to ship will go UPS on Wednesday.

The stuff we use everyday is gone, so preparing meals is interesting. No mixing bowl, and that special wooden spoon is gone. They even packed the oatmeal! We made toast in the oven! But it's sort of like camping.

The people at Christ Church, St. Joseph, gave us a Visa gift card which will be a welcome and easy to pack addition to our travel stuff. Two days in Hawai'i will put a dent in it, and what a great farewell gift.

Thursday we head for Oklahoma and then Seguine, TX where we'll meet Steven and his fiancee, Diane for the weekend. We plan to go tubing and take in the River Walk in San Antonio. We'll update then, before we leave the mainland.

GETTING READY

Yes, we've known for some time now that we would be going to Guam for 18 months beginning in June of 2007. What we didn't know was it would be unlike any moving experience we've ever had. Going to a new climate (tropical) and a different culture (American with an Asian view, CNN comes from Hong Kong, for example) demands some new thinking. Add to that limited amounts of our stuff we can take, not knowing where we'll be living, getting our house ready for Ted and Joan who will live here while we're gone, and you have a crazy mix. Oh, we decided to have vinly siding put on before we leave (photo), just to add a little variety to our dull existence!

Two weeks from today we will fly from Houston to Honolulu for a couple fo days R and R, then on Thursday, June 8 we'll fly from HNL to Guam, arriving 8 hours plus one day later, "Where America's Day Begins". The BLOG will be our way of keeping family and friends informed of where we are and what's going on. We hope you'll check in now and then. We promise some pictures and anecdotes from life on Guam.

Love,

Ben and Jane