Home for a little time off

I know you all will be shocked to hear that we still don't have a definite job hammered down, but at least we know what state we are going to: Washington!

We are officially headed to the Pacific Northwest. Now it's just a matter of who we will be working for and where that will be. Minor details. We have interviewed with a few companies, but have one more interview to go before we officially decide. We are very excited though. Washington was our second choice of where to go (behind Montana) so we are happy with how this is working out.

It was definitely sad to finish up in Olney, especially because of how well everyone treated us and how many friends we made there in just a few short months. Our co-workers threw Amanda and I an awesome going away party, complete with tons of food, multiple yard games, and HOURS of volleyball. I don't think I've ever played so much volleyball at one time in my life. Between that, and having done our Insanity work out earlier that day, Amanda and I were sore and out of commission for a good day and a half.



Some intense volleyball action

I truly cannot express how thankful I am to have met everyone in Olney. They took us in and really made us feel like family. They even put together a scrap book of pictures and items from around town which they presented to us on our last day. It is something we will always keep with us, and they left plenty of blank pages so we can continue to add to it as we go along. But of course, Olney will always be at the front of the book, first in line of all the great memories we are making along this journey.

After we finished our final day of work last Thursday, it was a mad dash to get things packed up and ready to drive home Friday morning. Early Friday morning. 4 A.M. Friday morning. Ugh. It was a necessary evil though as we had to get back in time for the Emily Martin-Dave Brown wedding extravaganza, which was to be held on Saturday. It was a great wedding, with a beautiful ceremony. It was well worth the long drive home. We are so happy for the both of them.

My body didn't handle all the action so well though. Between the late nights of organizing and packing in the days before our drive home, the ridiculously early rise on Friday, and the excitement of Saturday's wedding festivities, my body just shut down on Sunday. I was completely useless. I was lethargic, congested, sick to my stomach, you name it. I guess I just ran myself completely into the ground and couldn't get back up. So I slept basically the entire day on Sunday to recuperate. I really didn't start feeling back to normal until Tuesday, but thankfully I'm doing fine now.

Now that we are back in PA for a little while, and I can function again, we've been taking time to catch up with family and friends. We have a full slate of events, with minimal down time, taking us right up until we leave again. We wouldn't have it any other way though.

Actually, right now Amanda and I have split up to cover even more ground. She is with her family and friends for a few days and I am with mine to allow us to see as many people as possible. It's kind of wild though because we have spent just about every waking hour with each other over the last 3 months, and now going from yesterday (Wednesday) until Saturday without seeing each other seems like an incredible feat. I guess that's a good sign though that we haven't gotten sick of each other yet. If that were to happen, it could put a quick end to our adventure.

Even though we are busy seeing people, we are still working to plan our trip from PA to WA. Here is a map (thanks Google!) of how we want to conduct our 10 day cross-country road trip:



A: Leaving PA - Bye-bye
B: Louisville, KY - Just because
C: Olney, IL - All of our stuff is still in southern IL
D: Omaha, NE - For Yoga in the Park with Ian
E: Mount Rushmore, SD - I am very intrigued by this
F: Yellowstone Park - I hope we don't get eaten by bears
G: Somewhere in WA - Apparently the journey is more important than the destination

So there you have it, our master plan for getting alllllllll the way out west. We will be leaving on Wednesday, July 11th, and barring any setbacks we should be in WA a week and a half after that. Kinda crazy. That's where the second leg of this adventure will take place. We can only hope it will be a great as the first one. We still have one more stop in Olney though, so that chapter of the book isn't quite finished yet.