We are on our way!!!

It has been a wild frenzy of activity, packing, sorting, house projects and saying good-byes to dear friends and family.   Today at 11:40 AM CST our family of 4 departed Minneapolis International Airport with our 8  checked bags in tow.  Believe it or not I am writing this blog post from 38,000 feet in the air!

After just 3 hours of sleep last night, we actually made on the plane with all our stuff (Air shipment is coming within a week hopefully, more on that in another post)  At 9 am we pulled away from our Shoreview home.  Our business class seats are providing a great experience for our 12 hour flight.  With quite the extensive menu choices we will eat 2 meals, snacks, and get unlimited beverages and use of the tv and entertainment system.  The best of all is that our seats recline to lay flat.  We all slept 4-5 hours. Due of the time zone difference we will arrive  in Japan 26 hours after we left Minnesota. We will arrive in Tokyo on Tuesday afternoon.

With tremendous support and help from Caleb’s parents we were able to get our home rent ready.   There was such a large list of projects to get done in addition to the sorting and packing of our items. We got to spend 6/12  at Valley Fair Amusement park together.  It was a good stress reliever for ALL of us to ride roller coasters.  Yeah you read that right…. 3 generations all on roller coasters together.  Lots of laughs, squeals and screams as we rode the “Wild Thing.”

We have officially passed on the property management to a local agent who will work with Boston Scientific’s preferred Property Management company.  The agent will continue to show the home, get a signed lease, and will also check in if issues arise in our absence.  I should have passed all of that on to the property management company much earlier.   Lessons learned!

Coordinating travel logistics with travel has been interesting. On 6/18 the kids and I met my mom, dad, and brother in Madison, WI do drop off our van.  We just paid off our Honda Odyssey and didn’t want to part with it.  My dad generously offered to store the van at my grandma’s house.  We met at an Enterprise car dealership in Madison so they could take my van and I could take a rental van back to Minnesota, and have a vehicle to get us to the airport.  Things worked out well and we had Pizza lunch before Nick had to take off and head back to Illinois with my van.  My parents, the kids and I headed to a nearby hotel with a  swimming pool, real bed and real food; all things I  was beginning to miss in our current state of moving chaos.  Caleb stayed home to wrap up some projects, he made great progress paining ceiling and walls of the kids toy room, draining the hot tub, installing a door.  Its amazing how all the projects at the end are so time consuming.   We even found a Japanese restaurant to eat dinner.  My parents first time trying sushi and they did great!!! Even used chopsticks with the help of “trainers”  We had a Dragon roll, spicy tuna roll, BMW roll, miso soup, and a chicken dish.  No one particularly liked the eel wrapped roll though.  The flavors and texture were just a little much I think.  I am so happy I got this chance to connect with my parents and brother before we took off.  We missed my sister but she is awaiting the arrival of baby #2  very soon!!!

I think I will wrap up this post for now.  As always thanks for reading.  I have our official mailing address please send me an email if you would like me to send it to you.   It may have been the wrong format if I gave it to you previously… oops.  More posts coming soon …..