Down to the Wire

It's Sunday night of the last weekend before the trip. The bedroom is piled high with open suitcases, clothes, three stacks of kid's carry-on stuff, a partially checked off list... Tina has been packing all day and is out with girlfriends for a last taste of Mexican food for a month. I told her that Bali has Mexican food - it just tastes a lot like fried rice.

The picture at the left is one of Eliot's recent artworks. It is a Balinese dragon hiding behind a pagoda style temple. We've been looking at pictures in guidebooks and on the internet to show them what it's going to look like. I thought that it was all sinking in, but just yesterday we saw some more internet pictures, and Eliot said "Dad, that really does look beautiful. I'm not as nervous anymore."

I still need to pick out some more clothes and go over the list again. I'm waiting for those visions of geckos to fill the kids' heads before I rustle around upstairs. Whenever I start to get nervous about taking the right stuff for a month long vacation, I think of my boss. He just left today to move to Hong Kong for a year. I can't imagine closing up the house for a year. But I guess that might make it easier to pick out which clothes to take - all of 'em! We did make one step towards getting the house ready today - Jodi agreed to adopt all of our plants for a month. It would have been too hard to have the neighbor come over and water them since we'll have the water off. I don't want to take any chances with the pipes freezing. This morning in Chicago it was -8 degrees. Bali was 82!

Every morning lately, Sophie has been giving both countdowns - 4 days till Bali, 2 days till me and Charlie's birthday. We aren't having any big party, but we did pack up 16 goody bags for them to take to school tomorrow. Grandma sent them money which they are looking forward to spending in Bali. Eliot told me that he wanted to buy a sarong so he could go to visit one of the cool looking temples. He must have seen my goofy picture from before. I think we'll spring for the sarongs and let them buy some fun wood carvings. It's going to be quite a math lesson - about 9,000 Indonesian Rupiahs to the dollar.

Well, I'd better get productive. With only 3 business days left and about 80 hours of work to do, I need to start some serious multitasking. Getting on that plane will be all the sweeter.