It's the moment we've all been waiting for (by Carolyn)

Today was the day that determined the day that the kids and I would leave for our big adventure. By that I mean that today was the Princeton Girl Choir winter concert at Richardson Auditorium, Princeton University. As many of you know, Abby loves to sing. Actually, all of us in this loud family of ours love to sing, and Abby happens to have a beautiful voice. This was her first year in the Choir, and today was the first real concert of the year, so we stayed around here for the big event. It was well worth the wait on many levels. First, the girls' voices (about 30 girls grades 3-5) were angelic. Second, the whole experience of singing in a choir has been great for Abby. Third, so many people we love came out to join us and send us off...my parents, Jim's mom and sister and her husband, Abby's wonderful teacher, Mrs. Siggelakis (who saved the day by remembering to bring flowers...our heads were spinning too fast for us to remember...), and my dear friend Karen (mother of Abby's friend Emma, who is also in the Choir) and her family.

In other family news...

• Abby's basketball team won their first game of the season on Saturday night, beating a tough team by whom Abby's team had been crushed on several previous occassions (see picture of Abby with her teammate, Allyson).
• Becky and David had a sleepover at their friend, Griffin's house on Friday night.
• Carolyn finished up her last US based work assignment on Friday.
• Becky and David got their faces painted at the Peddie School Carnival just before going to Abby's concert (and so showed up painted like a butterfly and a bandit, respectively)
• Carolyn's mom and dad spent the weekend in Hightstown and were a tremendous help with the kids while we packed.
• Sadly, Jim's dad had an incident that landed him in the hospital earlier today, but the word is that he's on the mend for now.

So here we are, acting as though we're calm, when really we're excited (about the adventure), nervous (about the unknown, about being a single parent for a short time), tired (from all the thinking and anticipation), and sad (about leaving Jim for 3 1/2 weeks, our friends and family for 4 months, and Jim's dad when things are so uncertain). Most of the greatest joys in life come with some of those emotions involved, I suppose.....thus the elation of the joy that follows.

Now that I finally know how to post to this blog, I intend to write more often. And for now....final touches on the packing and off to bed.