The final countdown....

Wow....  I feel like I can consider myself a pretty well traveled person, but the experience of preparing and packing for this upcoming voyage at sea has been like none other.  I had no idea all the prep work that went into packing for a 3 1/2 month voyage around the world.  After multiple trips to the travel clinic for medications, lots of errands, finishing a few letters of recommendation, tying up loose ends, cleaning our house to prep for a sublet, and of course, prepping our technology, I am so wiped out.  I am also SO thankful that our first stop is the Bahamas, and we are ecstatic about arriving and just relaxing for a few.  I am used to fully and thoroughly preparing for and researching about the country I am about to visit, but because there are so many countries, it's been hard to dive deep.  Nonetheless, I am so excited about this new adventure and can hardly wait to meet the other staff, faculty and students who will be on the voyage.  It's really a shipboard community, and there are already a lot of connections being made.

Now, for the final days, we've pretty much wrapped up our packing and cleaning, and will be heading up to Roseville for a final girls night with my sister and some friends.  For Christmas I gave my twin nieces, Abby and Sophie, a globe so that they could follow along on this adventure too.  They know that their auntie is "going around the world on a boat."  They also plan to talk to me via the globe and send me lots of love.  Abby asked if I would write to her, and I'll most definitely be sending those two some notes from Auntie abroad.

We'll be on a plane, on our way in exactly 2 days, YAY!