the long goodbye

We have had an amazing six weeks getting ready for our trip without having a home base. It gave the children time to adjust to not going home while still being surrounded by friends and familiar houses and places. You'd think with six weeks to get organized we would have had time to test out the backpack situation to make sure this one-bag-per-person thing would work. Instead we were enjoying time with friends and family right up to the last second of departure. So the first leg of our journey to Seattle led us to the local REI (like MEC for our Canadian friends) to purchase a better bag for Buddy. We've re-purposed his bag as a carry-on for all of our electronics. And we made sure to tell him that this cool backpack is his early birthday present - we're slick like that!
The morning we were leaving was very hectic and I had to downsize the items we were bringing twice in the last thirty minutes before departure, plus leave another bag of downsized items with family to be stored somewhere for a year.
We managed to squeeze in a few more goodbyes with friends right up to departure. We feel very thankful for the love and support that have been given to us and are looking forward to whatever comes our way...