Homeless!

With the help of many hearty friends we have banished all of our worldly possessions into the safe keeping of friends and family. For the record, we have 55 labeled boxes, 10+ boxes I didn't bother to label, many plastic bags full of bedding and pillows, and the usual sets of furniture. We managed to give away about two car loads of old clothes and various other junk we used to treasure. It was a very cathartic experience that I highly recommend. Spending 3 days boxing up and moving all of our crap actually makes us want to just toss it into a big bonfire and incinerate everything. Perhaps we should do that when we return and have survived living a year without any of it.

After delivering much of this stuff to my parents house my Mom called me and had only one complaint: I had neglected to drop off our Roomba. Apparently the piles of stuff we left clogging the attic don't really matter as long as she gets to reacquire my Roomba (nickname: Roomy). Never fear Mom, once he is done cleaning our now empty apartment Roomy will be yours again.

Caleb and Elizabeth have taken us into their home for the week, and we have created a staging area in their upstairs bedroom where we are completing our final packing for the journey. Currently there are a dozen piles of possible things to bring with us: electronics, medical stuff, clothes, camping gear, etc. Somehow over these last few hectic days we'll whittle everything down to a manageable (and packable) set of traveling gear that can fit into our two backpacks.

Oh, and to finally quash the question from our parents: yes, we have completed buying health insurance.