Hellos and Goodbyes.........

The countdown continues...11 days until we fly to DC to attend the PC staging. We will meet the other members of our group. We have corresponded with several of them on a Georgia PC Yahoo group. There are 50 in all which is a surprise.

We have also been networking with the volunteers who are currently in Georgia. We are the seventh group to go there so we are known as G-7's. The G-6's are introducing themselves online and sending many tips about packing and what to do in our last days at home. The major recommendation is to eat lots of Mexican food (not available in Georgia), spend time with friends and have fun. Well, we definitely have been doing lots of that. Every night we get together with different friends who send us off with hugs and good wishes. Last night was with Mark’s high school buddies at the local pizza joint. Last week Lisa’s tennis friends in Saratoga had a luncheon with poems, pictures and gifts of travelers’ clothes.

On the practical front, we are readying our house for our new tenants...changing addresses on bills and learning how to put cars away for two years.

On the packing side we each can bring 2 bags of 50 lbs. The length plus the width plus the height of the bags can total no more than 107". That’s a challenge!!

Jake-a-loo (our dog) has had a visitation of 2 nights with my cousin and his wife in Delmar. He will vacation there for the duration. After returning we will share “joint custody” of Jake. I think we are all winners, the dog, my cousin and us.

PC has sent us language discs so we can practice all those gutteral sounds which are almost impossible for English speakers to make.. The G-6's have sent us an Alternative Handbook on CD to clarify some of the info in the Official Handbook. And of course we have more forms to fill out for staging in D.C..

This weekend we are off to our daughter Molly’s college graduation from Cornell. Lots of things are happening as we near blast-off!!

The countdown.........

We have rented our house, which is a major load off our mind. It is the kind of house that needs to be lived in, and because the expense of simply owning it is so high, it was good to find actual renters, rather than someone who would just agree to live in the place "to keep an eye on it". It is even better since we have found renters who we feel comfortable with and who we think will take good care of the house (which we love) while we are gone. They came for dinner tonight and we all had a good time. So far so good.