It's Official

After weeks and months of planning, we are officially heading out to Illinois. I know you are all thinking it's about time we got back to work, and trust me, we agree with you. We will be leaving on March 19th. It's hard to believe this is finally happening. It's taken a little longer to get going than originally thought, but we enjoyed it. It has given us the opportunity to see a great deal of our friends and family, spend time at the beach, play lots of disc golf, and even spend a day at the spa. I know, a spa trip is incredibly unmanly, but I don't care. It was pure relaxation. Nothing wrong with that.

Before we leave next week, we do have a few more stops to make, most notably to visit our newest niece, Anna. She was born on last Tuesday and both her and Amanda's sister Betsy are doing great. We can't wait to go see them, along with Anthony and Ellie of course. 



Our newest niece, Anna

















Ellie is the proudest big sister EVER.

Now that the finality of this whole process is setting in and we know for sure that we are leaving on the 19th, I would like to take the chance to thank everyone, especially our parents, for their support during this whole process. Amanda and I are so fortunate to be surrounded by a great group of friends and family who have had nothing but a positive response from the moment we started talking about the possibility of travelling. All of you have encouraged us every step of the way and we can't possibly express how much that means to us. It has made some very difficult decisions easier to make and allowed us to fully appreciate this opportunity we have been given.

There is no doubt we will miss you all, but we hope to keep in touch via Skype, text, email, and of course this blog. Skype is my new favorite, I'm pretty much obsessed with that, so feel free to Skype me at any time. Thank you again for all of the support and stay tuned for the next update, which will happen after we arrive in Olney, IL. Hopefully we'll get to meet one of the famous white squirrels we keep telling you all about.