Independence Day

It's 10pm (PST) July 3rd and tomorrow is our Independence day from America.

A few updates...

The movers came and went, successfully packing our storage, air and sea shipments. There was minimal damage to the house (although I'm convinced that the scratches on the floor in our bedroom were not there when we vacated the premises!)

It was kind of cool to see the actual sea container show up at our front door. The big green monster was opened and one by one our furniture and belongings were loaded. Since the delivery time is 3 months, I assume our container will be driven to Long Beach and loaded onto a freighter bound for the Panama Canal. It's a little disconcerting to realize that by the end of the journey, Stormy's cat tree will be more well traveled than I am. I hope that the ship makes frequent stops and that our Papasan chair has a chance to hop out somewhere in central America for a quick drink and dance lesson, or that when our 3-piece sectional docks in Europe, it can hop a cab to Amsterdam for a pub crawl (although if it arrives smelling like smoke of any kind I will not be happy!).

Our neighbors were kind enough to invite us over for dinner on Friday night where we shared 4 bottles of wine until 1am. Frank and Sandy are lovely people and I'm truly going to miss them. It's a shame that we didn't get a chance to spend more time with them (ie, I will miss Sandy's cooking and stories!!) but hopefully they will still be there when we move back!

Despite a late night on Friday, we were up at 7am Saturday, back to the house for cleaning (and Stormy cuddles), and the final touch ups that I hope will make the house ready for rent.

I then enjoyed a mani, pedi and eye brow wax (who knows where I will find that kind of service in Darmstadt!), a quick trip back to the house to give Stormy his meds and we are finally at the end of the preparation stage.

The Taylor's joined us at the hotel for a swim, dinner and fire works (to celebrate our send off of course!) and after many tears (yes mostly mine) we said our final good byes to the best friends we could ever have here in So Cal. I'm still crying...

So this will be the final update from these US of A. Since our internet is not going to be hooked up until July 13th (really? can we not do better than that??) I will provide an update of how the actual flight passed once Stormy and I have slept off the sedatives and I can find an internet cafe.

Happy 4th of July to all our friends in So Cal that we will miss dearly!!