4 More Sleeps!

Coming to you from Manchester, NH, Good Morning! For those of you keeping score, yes, I have eaten my words. I was NEVER coming to Manchester. I was NEVER going to FIRST headquarters. We arrived in Manchester on Friday, January 3rd and we went to FIRST headquarters about 20 minutes after getting into town. What can I say? I was wrong. I have been using the following words to describe Manchester….quaint, cute, and cold. We have Airbnb’ed a small apartment a couple blocks from the river and a couple blocks from downtown. It is a very walkable place and we have enjoyed catching up with friends from all over the USA prior to leaving the country. Note: I have not completely gone off my rocker. I did not attend FRC Kickoff nor did I attend the reception at Dean’s house. I still have my limits people 🙂

So, 4 more sleeps. Today is Friday, January 10th and the plane leaves for Oz on Tuesday, January 14th. Wow. We have been waiting, planning, and anticipating this for so long and it is finally here. My current state of mind: excited, anxiety filled, anticipation, grateful, and ready. Ready to tackle what lies ahead. Now, I reserve the right to fall apart and cry in the next hour over all of this, but currently…bring it, I am ready.

We will be out of the country until April 8th. Our hope is that we will be gone long enough to get a good feel if we are ready to move to an international location permanently. When this dream started we were set on just picking up and moving to Australia in one big swoop. Now, we are taking our time with it. We will spend 6 weeks in Sydney exploring and living. We will be in an apartment, using public transportation only, doing big city living. Then we will visit Taiwan for a couple of weeks, then back to Sydney for another 5 week stay before returning to the states.

Once we are back in the states we have a few months worth of plans and then we will have decisions to make again. Until then we will enjoy each day, explore and be thankful that we are lucky enough to have this opportunity.

I would be remiss if I didn’t address the fires going on in Australia right now. We have been following this story for months now and just recently news stations in the USA have started carrying the story. We are aware of what is going on and we check air quality and where the fires are every few days. We will be mindful, careful and not take risks with our lives. IF we arrive and things are worse than we anticipate we will find somewhere else to go. Thank you for your concerns, questions and love.

More later, NB