End of July . . .

Thursday saw my last full shift serving in the Provo Temple. Friday saw the big project of emptying our salt water aquarium in advance of our move.  See pics at Preparing to Leave.  On Friday Elaine and I also got our vaccinations: four shots, two in each arm, at the county health center go get our immunizations up-to-date for the Middle East.

Quick Explanation of "Pages"

Some are you are familiar with these blog page setups, but I wasn't. In addition to the posts that will start appearing regularly on this "home page" once you come to our blog after Aug 24, there are some detail pages that you may or may not want to check.  For instance, before we leave, there are pages called "Preparing to Leave" and "Our Summer of Fun."  These and future pages appear in a list in the right margin column.  I might set something up like that for different countries visited once we are over there (e.g., Jordan, Turkey, Greece, hopefully, if things settle down, Egypt).

We leave four weeks from today!

On August 24, just four weeks from today, Elaine, the children, and I will board a plane for Atlanta and then from there to Tel Aviv to start our year-long adventure. It is hard to believe! We have had a busy summer . . . lots of activities that have kept us from sitting around twiddling our thumbs and simply counting down the days.

Next week we go to California for 8 days for a wedding, as well as some fun at Disney Land and Sea World. We are hoping the trip will help further prepare Samuel for flying and for all the changes that are ahead for him. Rachel is unabashed enthusiasm personified. Elaine and I are beginning to panic at the prospect of packing for a family for a year with just two 50-pound suitcases each!