Only 52 hours to go...

WHOOSH! The past two weeks since we received our travel approval are really a blur, so I'm taking a moment to write about them before they fade from my memory. I can't believe we will be departing for China in just a few days--hours, really. We've had seven years to prepare, but it seems like most of the work has happened in the past 10 days. Here are some of the highlights and the lessons we are learning along the way:

• Our dog Lindsey knows something is up and she is NOT happy about it. The night we received our travel approval, Bill and I went out to dinner to celebrate.  When we came home we discovered she had eaten about a dozen ketchup packets (not just the ketchup, but the packets, too) and the contents of Bill's Monday-Friday pill box. It was only Tuesday, so she ingested lots of vitamins and fish oil pills. The emergency vet advised us to give her hydrogen peroxide to make her vomit, so we used our newly acquired baby gates to cordon off the kitchen and well, you can imagine the rest. Lesson #1: We need to step up our baby-proofing immediately before Wendy comes home. The next day I gave Maddie a tub of outlet plugs and challenged her to find every hole in the house. Thanks, girls!

• Maddie, who never gets sick, came down with a nasty cold and a painful bladder infection last week. At three in the morning when she was feeling miserable, I realized we had no children's ibuprofin in the house. I was shocked because I always used to make sure we had ample supply, but we've taken her good health for granted. Lesson #2: Be prepared.  The next day, I spent a fortune at Walgreens stocking up on infants' and children's medications, but it is totally worth it. I even discovered Pedialyte now comes in popsicle packets, which may be just the perfect size and shape for travel.

• Bill and I were so proud of our efficiency this morning. We managed to go to five banks before noon on a Saturday to take care of several financial aspects related to the trip. We ordered new ATM cards from different banks so we will have backups if one of the cards doesn't work in China. Likewise, we requested some crisp U.S. currency and some Chinese Yuan, as advised by our agency. Well, it was supposed to be Chinese Yuan. It turns out we have Japanese Yen. Huh. Lesson #3: Pay attention to the details. I could blame my other half for this error, but that would only result in having to learn another lesson. We don't know how this will be resolved, but the good news is, it is fixable and not life-threatening, which means in the scheme of things, it really doesn't matter that much. We can always exchange the Japanese money for Chinese currency, but that means we will pay the conversion fee twice. I'm sure we will laugh about this some day... but probably not today.

• In addition to packing for China, I've also been packing up my classroom for the end of the school year because my hallway will have HVAC work done and I'm trying to make life as easy as possible for my awesome sub. I tend to be OCD about planning and you would think by now I would be better at letting things go, but that lesson is still a work-in-progress. I stayed late Friday to wrap up most of the work because I really want to focus on just being with the students on Monday and enjoying teaching them on my last school day for this year. (Also, I hate the thought that their last memory of me might be of a distracted crazy woman throwing highlighters into a box). However, it occurred to me that maybe I've been thinking about this all wrong. Maybe the real lessons I'm teaching them are about perseverance and never giving up on their dreams. Sure, they have learned about The Great Gatsby and 1984, but I imagine my real legacy on this year's batch of students will be more about the value of family and on being open to new ideas and solutions when life doesn't go as planned. Lesson #4: Slow down and enjoy the moment. We may not have the right medicine, the right money or the right something else for this adventure, but we do have the right hearts and the right sense of humor to figure it all out.

Let the countdown begin...