The rest of the farewell voyage!

We finished our time in the States by traveling about 3000 miles by car and taking a flight out to St. Louis to visit our families. We started out in NY to see Ed's parents, Alanna, AJ, and the kids for a few days. Cameron and Hannah have grown even more and we had a great time visiting with everyone. This first trip to NY was short because we wrapped up our voyage again in NY.

Our next stop was WV and we stopped to visit Molly and Fred for a night on our way down to Huntington. Unfortunately, it was a short stop and we had to head out after Molly made us breakfast and gave us a quick tour of Morgantown. We spent a few days in Huntington, visiting the State Capitol building and going to a Marshall game while we were there.

While in Huntington, we decided that since we were only three hours away, we would make the trip down to Blacksburg and meet up with Matt and Rachel for the VT homecoming football game. We arrived a couple of hours before gametime, bought tickets from some guy on Price's Fork Road, drank some Miller Lite (gross!) at Matt's tailgate, then headed to our seats. We are old now and decided to get seats in the West stands where we would be able to sit down marking our first game with seats outside of the student section! Go Hokies!

We drove back to Richmond with Matt and Rachel and stayed at their apartment for a night before heading back to RI for Ed's 6 week post-op appendectomy appointment. Their apartment is awesome, right down in Shockoe Bottom with an excellent view of downtown Richmond. We spent a couple nights in RI before heading to St. Louis for the arrival of baby Alex! He was born at 11:05am on Oct. 10 and weighed 7lb, 11 oz. (a lightweight compared to me!). While we were in St. Louis Ed and I visited the Arch, went to a Mizzou game, and spent lots of time with Megan and Sparky (Scott's nickname for Sparkles the dog). We also got a chance to have a brief visit with Becky, Barb, and little William (Barb will get mad if I call him Willy...hehe).

After St. Louis, it was back to NY to drop Ed's car off, pick up Hokie, and have his parents drive us back to RI for our flight to Tokyo. It was an adventure but we made it to Japan with no issues. It was daylight for the entire plane ride and we had some nice views of the mountians over Alaska. There ends the voyage and next time we will let you know how we are settling in!

Beginning the farewell voyage!

All the work is complete on the house except for the kitchen countertops which should be done in the next couple of weeks. After 4 truckloads of trash and old boxes went to the dump and then 3 sets of movers had taken all the rest of our stuff we were finally all ready to hit the road for NY. The contractor finished all the painted and helped get the transition pieces down for the kitchen floor. Here are some pics of the work that was done. Most of it was painting and staining the new windows which took forever and I'm glad I didn't have to do it! But for the most part, Ed and I did the kitchen floor ourselves and I think it turned out pretty well.

The Nissan was packed to the brim with all of our luggage on the way to NY. We have everything we still have in our possession in the car, including the cat! Hokie is having fun playing with the bird at Ed's parents house which is good cause she'll be stuck here while we make the trip down to WV. Finally I'll be away from New England with their pizzer and soder (pizza and soda) and back to a place where I can say "ya'll" and call soda "pop"!

So we'll be in NY until Monday and then start for Huntington. We'll be in Huntington for the Marshall game on Oct. 3. Hopefully they will beat WVU this weekend so we can strut our stuff in our Marshall gear!

Trying to Get Outta RI

We are nearing the end of our time in Westerly, RI and trying to get the house rented. We have it listed on a military by owner website and it looks like we are getting a lot of hits, but no interest so far. The base housing people are coming on Oct. 2 to take some pictures and get it listed on their website and we are hoping to have much more luck that way. The neighbor's son is going to do the property management and we really like and trust them so that is a relief. This house had been in their family for over 50 years before it was sold outside of the family so it has sentimental value to them and I know they will take care of things well. Check out the house pics.

The first set of movers are coming tomorrow morning to take our "essentials". Basically they will take most of our kitchen items and any clothes that we aren't packing and bringing with us while we travel. The other two sets of movers come on Monday and Tuesday and then we will be off to NY to start our farewell voyage. We're going to see the Red Sox at Fenway on Monday night. We decided to wear our matching green Guiness shirts so that we fit in but are not actually rooting for the Red Sux.

We have plane tickets for Oct. 18. We are flying United and our friend Jim's wife works for United so they are going to try to hook us up with some good service on the flights! That should make Ed happy since he won't be able to ride first class. United will only allow Hokie to ride with us in coach and of course, she is the boss. That will be a miserable trip with her stuffed under the seat in front of us...I feel sorry for the people seated around us!

The contractor who is doing the finishing touches on the house is coming by in a few to work, so thats all for now. Check back for pics of our farewell voyage!