Day One: Leaving, but Still in Appleton

I literally have one minute to do this update. We haven’t left yet.We get on a plane a little after 1 p.m., which means that we have to be at the airport at about 11 a.m.. My father has taken a day off to drop us off, which is excellent, because we really, really, really don’t have room for all the stuff we have to bring.Right now, that’s:Two 30-inch duffel bags worth of stuff for the care center who is looking after our child.One 30-inch duffel bag worth of stuff for us.One 30-inch duffel bag worth of stuff for the baby – including, you know, formula and diapers and such.One backpack with mostly electronics.One backpack with a change of clothes in case of lost luggage, plus anything and everything that didn’t fit into the duffels.One diaper bag which will, of course, have stuff for Mihret as we’re coming back, but right now contains the last vestiges of our “adults-only” family – large paperback books (no room for hardbacks, up to and including the last Harry Potter sitting on the nightstand, which has two very eager Pattersons waiting to get their eyes on it).In the next three hours, we’ve gotta eat, mail the bills (so we don’t end up paying the credit card company interest for the cost of our flight today), put the final stuff into our bags (my comb, which I needed this morning) and take care of things like throwing out the trash.I have less than three hours.After that, it’s Appleton to Chicago, Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany, and then we’re in Addis Ababa. We get there Friday night, after 8 PM.Hopefully we’ll be able to update again after that.

-Josh