Time for this gypsy wagon to move on

In less than 2 weeks, the movers will come and pack our belongings, we'll hop on a plane, and we'll head for our next 6-month home in Virginia. David told me we're living a bit like gypsies during our 2-year adventure, and I've realized how true it is! We roll into a new town, unpack our belongings, mingle around in the community for a little while, then pack up our wagon and move on to the next new town where we start all over again. It's funny -- I've always known growing up that we actually do have gypsy roots back on my dad's side. We've always talked about our gypsy roots as being the source of our love for adventures, travel, hopping in the car and just taking a drive. Now we get a chance to live like gypsies for 2 years, and although parts of it are very exciting, it's also ... unsettling. It's hard to become part of a community for 6 months and begin to really enjoy all the little intangibles that make it feel like home -- knowing the best streets to take, seeing the same friendly faces at Mass every week, making friends with the library lady that we see all the time, etc. Two weeks from now, we'll leave our community here and the hole will close up behind us and we'll plunk down in another community in another state, and we'll have to start finding all those little intangibles all over again.

This gypsy lady is looking forward to when the wagon stops for the last time!

That being said, I definitely feel like a veteran at moving this time around. Less than 2 weeks to go, and we don't know where we're living in Virginia yet (we have a couple of potential houses, but nothing definite yet), I haven't started sorting or organizing our belongings, I haven't done any cleaning, and I'm not really all that fazed by it. OK, I'll admit that I am a little bit tense :), but as David would put it, my Worry Box is only so big, and I just don't have room for everything in it right now!

I'm also excited about going to Virginia. It's a beautiful part of the country with tons of interesting museums, historic sites, monuments, etc. to see. We have good friends from college that live out that way, and we'll also be able to visit Bonnie, Jason, and Joyce. We can even take a trip up to Hopkins to see how the old alma mater is doing.

Now, hopefully we can all stay healthy these next 2 weeks -- we've had a terrible time with sickness here since going to California! Jack was sick, Thomas was sick, Peter was sick, David was sick, I got sick, Jack got really sick again (stomach bug that came and went for almost a week!), and I got sick again. I tried to figure out what good God might be able to do with our sickness, and I decided that slowing down, taking several sick days off from homeschooling, and not worrying too much about our move to VA was probably a good start. So, we're in a good place, soaking in the lovely Colorado fall (it's already started here! Cooler weather, leaves changing colors -- it's gorgeous!) and looking forward to our next adventure.