Well, this won’t be a particularly exciting update but things are continuing to move along as September (aka … the last full month we’ll be living in the United States for the next few years! gulp!) approaches. My thoughts are kind of scattered today because Fiona turns TWO in a few hours, so I’m going the bullet point route.

1. Chris got his sponsor! The sponsor’s job is basically to answer questions and help smooth the way for us in Sicily. His sponsor is awesome and has given us a ton of advice, and his wife is equally cool. They also have little kids, so they know exactly what we’re going through.

2. It looks like full-steam ahead for moving out in September. All we have left to do is wait on the report from the assessor and schedule the closing, and we should be good to go. That makes me sad when I think about it too much — we brought both our babies home here! — but I’m trying not to dwell. Chris and I realized this weekend that we only had two full weekends left before the movers (scheduled to be here mid September for four days) start, so we are finally getting organized. It isn’t really that we are “packing” because the movers do that, but we need to place all our belongings into four categories: a) stuff we are sending to storage, b) stuff we are sending in the giant package of our household goods, to arrive about 2-3 months later, c) stuff we are sending in our “express” package shortly before we leave and d) stuff we’ll need to take with us in suitcases.

I know people have been asking, so here’s the deal with our stuff — we are taking most of it, though leaving behind some furniture and all our small appliances and about half the kids’ toys. We are also shipping our minivan, though I’m not sure when since it will also take between six weeks and three months to arrive. I keep seeing people on the Facebook groups I’ve joined suggesting that people ship their cars super early, but to be honest I don’t really understand the logistics of that. I mean, I need my car now, obviously. Yes, I’m going to be inconvenienced in Italy if I don’t have a car but I also can’t really function without a car here in Indiana so ….

3. Speaking of housing, I’ve been spending a lot of time searching various websites for houses to rent. It’s a bit of a pointless exercise at the moment because none of the homes we see are likely to be available when we arrived in October, but it is nice to know there are some really pretty options. Chris has been doing a lot of research today based on advice from our sponsor, and we think we have a good idea of what towns we are most interested in. We won’t really know until we get there and start seeing places though!

For my part, I’m just hoping we find some place fairly quickly. I’m less worried about the hotel stay in the U.S. because we’ve rented a place with two bedrooms, but I don’t know if we’ll be able to do that out in Sicily. Not to be a whiner, but sharing a room with the kids is pretty much my least favorite thing ever because none of us ever sleep much. If we are all sharing for a month or more, we’ll probably lose our minds. Or just get used to it, I guess.

4. Emotionally, I am feeling really good about the move like 95 percent of the time. Periodically I get bummed out (like when I imagine Owen leaving his amazing preschool, or missing events with my friends and family) or get panicky about the fact that we are actually moving to Italy but mostly I am feeling really positive about everything. And I’m not yet too stressed about the logistics since we figured out where we are going after we move out of our house.

On the other hand, I keep having very realistic dreams that my teeth are falling out and waking up astonished that all of them are still there and not even wiggly. I don’t usually think much of dream interpretation, but I googled this one and apparently it is a super common dream when you are stressed about a transition. So I’m guessing my subconscious doesn’t agree with my previous paragraph?

5. Lastly, FIONA TURNS TWO TOMORROW. How did this happen?! Tomorrow we are going to have a big breakfast (she is obsessed with breakfast food), go to Open Gym so she can run around and jump and climb like the little daredevil she is, go swimming with Daddy, go out for pizza and have cake and presents as a family. She’ll have her party on Saturday!

In honor of my baby girl’s birthday, here’s a couple bunch of pics. Enjoy!