Aunt Janice hosted a wonderful going away fiesta for us!  She’s been studying up on Spain so she could make it as authentic as possible (which included renaming a couple of family favorite dishes to make them compliant). She even gathered cards from some out-of-state family, so it was great to get a big stack of love all at once.

Our time at home was brief, but we also made sure we got in a couple visits to Grandpa Isaacs, who is currently in rehabilitation center.  We also got to meet one of the newest additions to our circle of friends, Miss Alison Grace Jones, daughter of Jason & Sarah.

The worst part about this leg of the tour was saying goodbye to mom, dad & Penny Lane. Luckily they can all keep each other company, but if you live in the Stockton area and have a hankering to throw a ball, please go play with Penny, my poor parents can only take so much.

My parents are coming to Barcelona for Christmas and we can’t wait. We wrote a song about that too.

We were so glad to be there for Charlie’s polka dot party! You should’ve seen her attack that cake, it was impressive. She is so smart & beautiful… but look at her families, the poor girl can’t help it. We love her so much!

Her favorite show is the Backyardigans. I get the theme song stuck in my head just by typing the word! I actually wrote my own words to the tune, with original lyrics about moving to Spain. Chances are you will never hear it… sorry!

Ah, the highlight of our summers in America, Shast Lake. So peaceful, yet insanely fun. Food, floating, water sports, strange competitions (with prizes & bragging rights at stake), and plenty of time to catch up with old friends. There’s a group of us that have made this trip a ritual since grad school, as well as lots of new friends that have been added over the years.

The lake is sort of an annual reunion for us, so it’s fun to see how things change from year to year. This year, Del added a new palm tree on the Lido deck, we got to meet a few new significant others to the group, almost everyone has moved at least once, the Lucero’s have expanded their line of olive oil, the Preeo’s are pregnant, and the Kaufmann’s are homeless. My, how life changes.

It’s official - we are homeless and unemployed! At least I am, although Scott will continue working part-time for his current employer. It’s very frightening and freeing at the same time, but luckily we’ve been too busy for reality to fully set in.

It’s been a whirlwind, but after 5 years of planning, saving, freaking out and jumping up and down with anticipation, we’re finally achieving our goal of moving to Spain! Our plan is to live in Barcelona for one year, but we’ll hopefully spend about 1/3 of the time traveling throughout Europe (but of course we haven’t figured any of that out yet).

My last day at work was 8/17, followed by attending MasterMind, then a rush of packing, selling, donating, wrecking the car we were trying to sell… and finally moving everything that’s left into a 5′x15′ storage unit.

Packing for a year is super hard - especially the shoes. I literally had to justify every single shoe and article of clothing I packed, or Scott would nix it. Tough love. Overall, we had a lot of fun though, including camping on the floor in the living room for the last couple of nights in San Diego.

Saying goodbyes in San Diego was almost as tough as eliminating shoes. Our last stop was dropping off the car that the Zellers had let us borrow after we wrecked our own. Then, me, Scott & Penny Lane piled into the cab of our U-Haul, and I cried all the way to the I-15. They say nothing great was ever accomplished without a risk, and as Scott keeps saying, “either we’re crazy or we’re genius.” I really hope it’s the latter.

So now we begin our farewell U.S. tour… first stop: Lake Shasta. It’s already been an adventure, but I am sure there are many stories yet to be told (and written by me).

As of writing this post, you will notice not much is going on here. It’s pretty basic right now but I assure you that will change. Please feel free to subscribe to the right so you can get emails when we post something new. We look forward to brining you along on our adventure.