Moving Day

Today is the day...out of our house we go. Thought I might have a hard time falling asleep last night, but fell asleep just fine. Problem: woke up and could not go back to sleep when the clock said six-something. I am so NOT a morning person, so packing another box or sorting anything right now is probably not a good idea. So, I'll visit/have coffee with you guys instead! (Again, not a morning person, so I as I reread what I've already typed, I see this post leaning toward the "not-so-complete-sentence-style".)

Visa developments:

• The missionary in Spain, Isabelle, who we will be working with, was able to speak to someone in the Madrid office, who actually located our files!
• Had a big scare when they mentioned that we were missing a document. A phone call to the Toronto office assured us that they had already taken care of it. Whew! What a relief! If it would have been a document that we hadn't yet submitted, that would have meant finding/creating the document, having it translated by a certified translator, having both the original and translation notarized by a lawyer, sending them to Ottawa to be authenticated for Canada, then to Toronto to be authenticated for Spain, then to the Spanish Consulate in Toronto (still not sure what exactly they do there), then back to Madrid. That's the process, the one that has taken us five months already! Praise the Lord Toronto already had whatever that document was!!
• Isabelle also found out that the person handling our application was away on holidays this week (of course! ~ sorry, please excuse the exasperation), BUT it's Friday! So the week is over and we'll pray that person comes back from holidays next week, refreshed, ready to get down to work and zip those apps through =)

Preparations for leaving:

• purchased 4 extra sticks of my favourite antiperspirant - trust me, I've tried others and only Secret Solid Unscented will do - so hopefully, that will last the 11 months.
• purchased extra of my favourite moisturizer and powdered mineral foundation (Pure Anada - manufactured by my very own make-up-making cousin). P.S. Candace, I'd link to your site here, but again, it's early, and I'm a rookie blogger, and not sure my brain can pull that off right now, sorry. P.S. Everyone else: Google it - good stuff! Manitoba grown! Steinbach-ers: available at Mission Nutrition. ~end commercial break~
• Best recent purchase: Digital luggage scale...it's astounding how heavy jeans are! how light winter parkas are! Will have to do some very random-abstract packing to max out the 50 lbs. per suitcase...2 jeans, 8 T-shirts, 3 winter parkas, 4 deodorant sticks, 1 textbook, 1 plug adaptor, socks, underwear and a few Barbies/Polly Pockets to fill in the gaps = 50 lbs. That's hard for a concrete-sequential girl to do!
• Great Canadian Thanksgiving meal with friends! Had a turkey in my freezer that needed to be cooked, so mashed potatoes, stuffing and yummy sesame green beans made it official! Thanks E & H for the great evening! (Had a picture to prove it, but I see my diligent husband has already packed up the cable needed to be able to show you.)
• Got to meet the family moving into our house...we couldn't be more blessed!

~Heavy sigh~

Okay, back to finish packing. Should be awake enough now. Thanks for having coffee with me this morning! Any packing/travel advice is welcome!

Oh yeah, so our home phone number will now get you the Barkmans. And Emery's cell phone will now get you a different SCHS teacher. Emery's parents' home phone number will somehow find us. Just sayin' :)