blue moon

Tomorrow our girl turns 7! And in celebration tonight is a blue moon. So much has happened in the SEVEN years that I have gotten to know her. (I feel super grown up having a seven year old). Thankful for the calm moon that shines here and will shine around the world later today on our friends and family far and wide.

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...

planning for take off

These days when I am laying in bed at night (listening to my family sleep) I am left wondering how we will ever condense our already reduced stuff into four backpacks? Burning questions like Which pair of shoes is "the one"? fill my mind as I sleep with my family in various rooms in various houses belonging to some lovely friends who are generously housing us.

almost ready...

We have rented our house and are vagabonds in one week! But we won't be leaving Canada until August. Instead we are going to visit a few favourite spots, housesit and swim at the lake with friends. Our life as explorers is almost here...

london calling

We have decided our direction and our first stop will be London! A chance to visit with a dear friend (and sleep for free!) and do things from a kid perspective. I was in London a year ago and all my photos show that I was already thinking of things that are kid-friendly and free - like bridges. The one thing on our list is Stonehenge.