Kim and Jeremy in Thailand

It's finally time for me at least to leave!! Our things are all packed for Thailand and loaded into our car. Jeremy is back in St. Louis finishing up his class. He's got a final on Friday, then he'll join us in Ohio. In the meantime, I am going with my family up to Chicago. Tonight we're going to celebrate my grandma's birthday with her. Then tomorrow we're all going miniature golfing before we drive to Ohio. There we're stopping by King's Island amusement park for a few days. My brother Jon is flying out there when he finishes class on Thursday. Then on Friday we're driving up to Sandusky, picking up Jeremy, and heading to Cedar Point amusement park, which is our favorite roller coaster park. We'll be there for a few days, then on August 2nd we fly to Thailand! It's one week from today and has really snuck up on us. But I think we're just about ready!

It feels like we have been moving for two months now! In reality we have to some extent, and I'm so glad we spread out the move into about 6 big chunks. It was about 100 degrees in St. Louis yesterday, so we were very glad to be carrying boxes and furniture for only about an hour instead of all day. Finally, everything is moved to my parents' house. We left a twin mattress, the microwave, a toaster, and a fan for Jeremy. That's it!

It's such a relief to be finished with moving. We're in Jacksonville now for our last weekend here, and on Monday we'll be heading up to Chicago to celebrate my grandma's birthday with her. I think we're going to go miniature golfing too, so that should be a lot of fun!

Our apartment is looking pretty bare now. My mom and brother came by today on their way back from Carbondale and took another load of boxes, so we have almost nothing left now. Even the fridge magnets are gone, and that really makes it look like we're leaving. Tomorrow my parents and our friend Gene are coming by to take everything else out of the apartment. Our things for Thailand are even pretty much packed at this point. We have two packed boxes that are 69.5 pounds each (the limit is 70!) and then our suitcases for the next few weeks travelling with my family. It's hard to believe that moving day is almost here!

This past weekend we were in Wheaton, and we had a fabulous time!! On Saturday we were able to visit with Laura, one of my best friends from college, for lunch while she eagerly awaited delivery of the new Harry Potter book! Then we met with Sam, who has been out at Grace this past year and will be our boss next year. We were able to start brainstorming for our projects, and I got drafted to teach a Microsoft Word class for the high school. I'm excited about that!! Next Sam went with us to see Genie and Raelynn. We returned a pappazan to Genie and had a really nice visit with them. Our last stop for the day was Cindy and Dave's place. Cindy was my roommate at Wheaton, and she and Dave just decided last week to move to Italy in a month, so we had a great time talking about all the complexities of moving to another country!! Then Dan and Jewels came upstairs. They're also friends from college, and Dan actually grew up in Chiang Mai. His siblings even attend Grace. He was able to give us lots of pointers on Thailand and Thai culture.

On Sunday, we went to First Baptist in Wheaton. It was so wonderful to be there again!! We saw many dear friends at the church and I'm so thankful that we had that time. We spent Sunday afternoon with my Grandma, watching the Cubs game, putting together a jigsaw puzzle, and playing Phase 10. She was so excited that we could come and I'm glad we were able to spend some extra time with her. Then Sunday evening we got together with several friends from church to play cards and chat. It was a really fabulous weekend. There are people that we didn't get to see, which is disappointing, but we definitely had quality time with the people we saw. All in all, it was a really great weekend. You can see pictures of us with some of our friends here.

Today we're headed up to Wheaton!! We're going to take Heath, the cat we've been watching for Angela, to his new owners. We're also returning furniture and then trying to meet up with as many people as possible this weekend. Tomorrow we'll be saying our goodbyes at First Baptist Wheaton. We're looking forward to some great times with our friends this weekend before we go.