Last night...

Its our last night on U.S. soil for over 180 days. It's scary and exciting. I honestly can't believe that the last 9 months of dreaming, planning and quitting our jobs has finally left us just 24 hours from takeoff. Literally. The last several days have been full of relaxing, enjoying family and friends and saying some difficult goodbyes. While we can't wait to begin this journey, there is also a piece of us we leave here. We leave our first home. We leave our favorite Vietnamese restaurant. We leave familiarity. We leave Chili's Bar and Grill. We leave our family, our friends and our beloved Romeo. I don't think I've ever left this much for this long and the weight of it all is beginning to settle in my stomach and push a little bit at the corners of my eyes. And yet, this decision has been ours from the start. Our idea, our planning, our plane tickets and I don't want to ever appear to complain. While leaving it all will be (is) tough, I can't imagine the things that we are about to learn, the sites that we are about to see, the places we are about to explore and the people we are about to meet. When I peer through the tri-paned glass of our Icelandair 747 at 7:20 tomorrow night I surely will watch the last light of St. Paul disappear, but I will also be looking for the ocean and with it will come an adventure of which I have never known.