This Is Where The Fun Really Begins!!!

As I begin to type this, it is 4am on a Sunday morning and we are camping at Normandy Farms in Foxboro, MA. I am awake initially because Abby was at the foot of the bed crying. This is usually a sign of her needing to go out. But as I got out of bed to help her, I realized that she wanted space on the bed. Bed her sister Sierra was blocking her from jumping up. When got out of bed Abby quickly jumped up, taking about 60%  of the spot I previously occupied. My attempt to get any worthwhile space in the bed was just not happening so I decided to get up. I have a freshly brewed cup of coffee (I love K-cups!) and my iPad, so as a sports talks how host friend of mine might say: Here. We. Go.

There is so much happening that I have no clue where to begin. And again, I have failed to stay current on this blog. But I really do have an excuse this time because life has been beyond crazy. This past weekend was our estate sale. We hired a guy who came into our house, took a bunch of pictures, advertised online on Craigslist among other places, arranged everything as you might at a yard sale, and essentially sold away our entire stick and brick life. We sold all of my workshop tool, my John Deere lawn tractor, a bunch of furniture...pulling in roughly $5k over two days. This is a large part of the reason we are camping. There is nothing left in the house. We had a few things remaining: kitchen appliances, dining room furniture, and the custom bar and bar-back mirror/stemware rack that I built about 6 years ago for our huge family room. So we posted them on Craigslist. Saturday was the dash for cash day as we had buyers come to the house to pick up the items they bought. The hardest was the bar. Back when I did a lot of woodworking, that was (and still is) my pride and joy!

The two big pieces of news are that everything is squared away on the house and we are free to leave town. And we earned that Faith's employer is going to allow her to keep her job and work remotely from home, from wherever we might be. On top of a paycheck, this means we will still have health insurance. And was a huge load off my mind !!

OK! That is it for looking back. Time to look ahead. As the title of this installment says, this is where the fun really begins!!!! At last, after 4 years of dreaming and planning. After many trips to Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Daytona during which every sentence began with "Someday" or "When we...", we are just 5 days away from beginning the adventure of our lives! It's truly somewhat bittersweet. We have friends who we will miss. But the first snowfall is only a few weeks away and I promise I will not be missing the white stuff!! Oh, and we sold the snowblower too!!!!!

Thanks to Faith's employer we are able to take our time heading south. With the exception of maybe a conference call or two, she is going to be able to take time off until November 12th. So we have time to get where we are going and get settled in. Leaving here Friday morning, we are traveling to my Brother in law's place in the Philly area. We'll spend the weekend there, enjoy their incredible hospitality, go to my nephews baseball games and potentially hoist a cold one or two.

Then it's to DC for a few days. We are looking forward to going back. We were there last summer and the heat really prevented us from having as much fun as we had hoped. So we are going to spend a couple days seeing things we missed like Arlington National Cemetery and the Museum of American History.  I am kinda bummed that neither the Orioles or the Nationals made it to the World Series this year as we would be in DC at the perfect time! 

From there we will pretty much take a straight shot through Virginia and the Carolina's taking an extra rest day in North Carolina just to catch our breath and maybe do some laundry. ETA for St. Augustine is Monday November 5th.

As I have complained several times, I still can't get pictures to post on this site using the iPad. I may just get a laptop for the trip... Jury is still out on that. But the other thing I am thinking about is just posting pictures to my Facebook page and providing the link in this blog. I think I can post them so they are accessible to the public. But if you need to send me a friend request, please do so and I will happily accept!

So for now, I think I will make another cup of coffee and plan to head back to the house this morning to sell off the rest of our belonging. I am hoping to catch my this week but I am making no promises. At the risk of repeating: Here. We. Go!!!!!!