Whoa. This is gonna be a crazy couple of months.

Nick and I have started a countdown. 57 days. It sounds like a lot of time but, we’re discovering, it will go fast.  I have 3.5 weeks left of work. We have 2 months to get our visas applied for and accepted. We have 3.5 weeks with my parents and 4 with Nicholas’s parents. We just did a trial run of packing our suitcases. Man oh man.

Nicholas was talking with a friend who currently lives in Shanghai. The only thing he wants us to bring for him is a ton of Slim Jims… Nothing else. His advice to us? Don’t bring much, you can buy most goods in China for cheap and then you don’t need to carry them across the world. Which, after packing up what clothes and things we want with us, thats sounding like pretty good advice.

Lucky for me, I found plane tickets on American Airlines! They let us each have 2 free checked bags… And Nick’s guitar wont be charged as oversized. So far this is the plan:

Jessie: 1 VERY large checked suitcase. 1 Carry on suitcase. 1 Backpack as personal item.

Nicholas: 1 Guitar. 1 Large checked suitcase. 1 Backpack ( that might be counted as a checked bag in the end). 1 Camera bag as personal item.

Nick and I keep going back and forth with his backpacking bag. It looks large enough to check, but small enough to get away with on the plane. Technically, it is the same cubic diameters as my carry-on. But with airline companies, who knows?? Oh and this little guy…

He wants to come too. I have a feeling he’s going to miss us once we leave. All in all, we’re busy trying to tie up loose ends and figure out how to tackle the big move. What a great adventure we’re on.