One day and counting ...

In 24 hours, we will be in the air, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. After a day in Chicago, the pups have done well, it's been great to see my parents, my cousin Michael and family friends Harve and Sally. (I want to publicly apologize to Josh's Aunt Margaret and Uncle Jon, who are much much closer than we realized and had we known you were closer we would have planned to meet up! Hugs!)

I must admit it's all a bit surreal, though. How do you digest such a huge move in such a short time? I mean, on Thursday afternoon, we handed over the keys to our house in Chico. We dropped my car off at Josh's dad's house, said goodbye to his grandma, and headed down to meet up with his sister, who drove us to the San Francisco airport. (We actually booked a hotel there to catch a few hours' worth of sleep before a long travel day.) But upon waking up Friday, we headed to the airport, loaded the pups up, checked in our luggage and flew for 4 1/2 hours (after a two-hour delay) and, voila--we were in Chicago.

Tomorrow will be much of the same. We'll sleep in a bit, repack, say our goodbyes to my parents, who drove up from St. Louis to hang out and show us their old stomping grounds before our voyage, and the real journey will begin. We'll get to the airport, load up the pups and check in our luggage. Load on a loooong flight (8 1/2 hours). And when we get off we'll be in France. FRANCE!

Until then ... au revoir!