Quick recap: Packers came on Thursday 6/16, Movers on 6/17, Jenny and my parents left on Saturday 6/18, we left on 6/20. Wow. Pictures and more below the break.
So friends were going to take our mattress on Sunday and there was so little left of our stuff after the movers took everything on Friday. Saturday morning around 7:30 AM Jenny left with the kids to give her parents our van for storage and pick up the rental van for the next couple days. She was going to spend the night there and I was going to work my butt off on “the list”. On that Saturday, Plaid Ultimate was also doing the Game to 100 and I so wanted to go but I had so much to do. Here’s the list from later that weekend.
While I was a having a little difficulty w
ith Jenny gone and me working on the list, it was the right priority call. I worked the day away and thanked my parents for their amazing help and sacrifice over the last week and released them to move their journey forward. More on this later but they were so so so helpful and I don’t think we would have made it out of the country without their selfless service.
On my afternoon running errands to try and get the list done (I needed an air pressure regulator for my paint sprayer), I ended up deciding to go to the ultimate frisbee game to 100 after all. I figured that i would just be bitter and angry the rest of the day if I didn’t go. So i showed up and was able to help the Dark team take the crown. 🙂 See if you can find me.
One thing I haven’t mentioned is that as part of the packing process, I had to decommission my freshwater aquarium. 🙁 I had called a couple different places and World of Fish in Bloomington would give me in-store credit for my fish. They also have the cleanest tanks, have been super-friendly and helpful, and I was happy they would work with me. So I said goodbye to my fish (several of which came from there) and watched them put my babies in their tanks. I took a close-up of our albino pleco, named Rufus. We will miss them but plan to have some fish in Japan.
So back to the house projects. Again, more on this later but I don’t know what I would have done without our great friends and neighbors, Pete and Leslie. I borrowed all sorts of tools and they helped on tasks, fed our family, and kept me company occasionally to keep me sane. The biggest project was painting the walls and ceiling of the kid’s toy room. I finally got the parts I needed from Menards and went to work.
The end product was great on the walls but the ceiling showed streaks due to the crappy old paint. This is still ticking me off. Father’s Day (Sunday) was filled with work and selling my Audi TT (goodbye Violet!!). I was up at 6 am working and Jenny got back around 1 pm and we got everything on the list done other than planting a few more trees for the windbreak / privacy screen. We worked super late (bed for me at 2 am and Jenny came to bed at 3 am) and we were up again at 6 am.
This is the day we leave! Only like 5 hours until liftoff! We were panicking a little by now. We needed to pack our bags and try and get the house done before we left. We ended up deciding that we would outsource the house cleaning after we were out. There was still 
so much to donate or trash but the kids were troopers getting everything put in the right places and getting ready to go. I am so impressed with them. They were doing so much better than us. I guess that’s one of my goals: my kids to do better than me in life. We FINALLY got everyone packed up and figured out at around 9 AM but had to stop at the bank prior to the airport. We had 8 checked bags (we could check 9 for free), 4 roll-on bags, and 4 carry-on back packs. So much luggage.
We went to the bank and deposited our load of Craigslist cash from selling everything and then hit the road to the airport. The excitement was starting to get real! We got to the airport around 10 AM (2 hours before departure) and I dropped Jenny, the kids, and our luggage off while I returned the rental van. 
We got through security ok and I took the family to the Delta Sky Lounge for about 20 minutes before our flight started boarding. We had some food and drink and then when to our gate. I’ll breeze through the rest but we boarded and had a great flight. The kids loved it and the attendants were so nice and accommodating for our kids. It definitely helped that we had business-class seats on our flight there. For our return visits home we will probably fly economy but it was a very nice luxury and made for a great flight.
I love my family!
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