Eight Years of Adventure

Today is the eighth anniversary of the Nomadic Newells as a family unit.  Leave it to me to be so preoccupied with what was on the moving agenda today that The LT was actually the first to realize what the occasion was, about an hour after we all started our day.  Out of the 8 anniversaries we have celebrated, this is the third one (along with our wedding) that has occured during a move.  We decided it was unfair to a sitter to ask her to watch the kids in an empty house, so we are going to wait until we get to Homer to celebrate.  Today we went on a family date to a playground at the beach in Niantic and then to East Coast Taco for dinner.  Very romantic!

 Guess it's time to teach one of the kids to use the camera phone so we we can avoid self-portraits.

We are finally starting to feel like we're on vacation.  The LT finished up work at the CGA on Friday, earning his first Coast Guard Commendation Medal.

After 22 hours total of packing and loading (by 1.5 moving guys), our household goods are finally on their way to Alaska.  We have been told that they are going via ship from New Jersey...so no wonder we won't see them again for up to 2 months!  One of our cars is also on a ship, making its trek.  We had to drive it to Edison, New Jersey, which is an 8 hour round-trip drive from our house.  Let's just say that we are choosing to forget that day entirely.  Our "unaccompanied baggage" (aka cookware and a bin of toys meant to get us through at the new house until the rest of our stuff arrives) was picked up today...but we were told that it is also riding the slow boat.  Guess we will be dining out for many, many, many nights in the next few months.  We have one more pick-up tomorrow of the furniture we will be sending to storage for the time we are in Homer.  We are happily down-sizing our living space, so we don't need as much stuff to fill it.

The dog has started to get nervous that we are leaving him behind, so we had him watch us put his kennel in the car.  Two more days in CT and then we hit the road!  We will have wifi for the whole trip aside from the two nights we are spending in Yellowstone National Park, so we intend to update the blog daily with favorite highlights from our travels.  Stay tuned!  First stop, outside of Scranton, PA.