7 weeks....

Yes, our house is officially for rent! What a dose of reality to come home from the gym and see that we now have a "For Rent" sign. I guess we really are moving to China.

It still seems weird that someone else is going to live here! We've spent all but a few months of our married life here - almost 13 years!

I've spent the past few weeks freshening up the paint in the house... I used to like painting.... only a few more baseboards to go! Sticking with my love of food, the latest colors I painted were called "Butter Yellow" and "Butter Cookie" - yum!

We are on track to finish our list of things to do by June 15! Yea us!
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8 weeks and counting!

Did you know that the number 8 is considered lucky in China? Eight (pronounced "ba") sounds like the word for "prosper" or "wealth." Did you notice that the Opening Ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Beijing started at 8:08:08 pm (local time) on August 8, 2008. Does that mean that we'll have good luck this week with only 8 weeks to go until we fly out?

All of the pieces are in place and it looks like it will really happen this time - we just received our visas, the movers are scheduled for June 15-17, and our plane leaves Portland the evening of June 18. We will fly to LAX, then to Seoul, South Korea, then to Dalian.

We still have a list of things to do, but we are feeling pretty relaxed and ready considering a large chunk of the work was already done in the fall.

In Dalian, we will move into the same condo that we had reserved before (yea!), and will enjoy (?) a hot, humid summer before the kids start school there on August 13.

Our goal is at least weekly blog updates until we leave...
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Summer in China - Probably Moving in June

Looks like we are rescheduled to go to China in June, hopefully the week after school is out (the week of June 15). We'll keep you posted as we know more.
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Spring Break

We had a great Spring Break being vacationers around the Portland area! Here is a photo album of some of our fun activities. Click on the album cover to see all the pictures in our Picasa Web album.

spring break 2009

Now if it would only stop raining!!
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Silver Lining....

Every cloud has a silver lining.....The benefits to being delayed in our trip to China....

10) We had a relaxing Christmas and lots of fun in the snow.

9) We had a fun 2 weeks at Disneyworld...Did you know that we plan to see all of the Disney parks before the kids are off to college (or sooner!)?

8) Our paperwork and stuff is even more organized than we could hope for.

7) We have donated loads of stuff and furniture that we no longer need.

6) Our bathroom will soon be painted a sunny yellow.

5) We don't have to bring all our winter clothes on the airplane - they can go in the air shipment.

4) Kiana got to play basketball one more year and both kids will get to play flag football before we leave.

3) We have more time to learn Chinese (we need it).

2) We've had more time to spend with our favorite yellow lab, Chimay.

1) Debi had a mini family reunion with her family. Dad, Mom, Debi and sisters, Laurie and Katie, spent the weekend in their hometown, Ukiah. They also visited with Debi's Grandmother, Aunt Katie and brother-in-law, Ron. Lots of fun and laughter!


Maybe we'll have another 10 benefits before we leave. The latest news is that it will probably be early summer.....but nothing definite yet....
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Disneyworld

We had fun at Disneyworld - a big variety in weather to warm and sunny, rain and COLD! We definitely needed 2 weeks to see all of the parks.

It still seems that mid-June will be our move date to China. We'll keep you updated.

What are you going to do now???

Debi and the kids made a quick video to show how we are coping with our delayed plans for moving to China....the house is ready to go, we are ready to go, but we are still in the US....