Goodbyes and Affirmations!

Yup - that is what the past week has been.  Work goodbyes, friend goodbyes, family goodbyes.  Last week we ventured down to Lakewood to say goodbye my 96 year old Grandma (Oma).  It was tough - she is 100% convinced that there is a 100% chance she won't see us again.   You can imagine how intense the actual goodbye was... Somewhat of a coincidence is that Oma's only living relative besides us actually spent 8 years in Kenya after escaping Germany before WWII.  Later this week Oma told her that her great-grandchildren would be moving there --- the relative's response was that it was a beautiful country and that people should visit us.  Hopefully those positive words eased Oma's heart just a little bit.

Also last week were goodbyes at work - of course, at least for the time being, I'll still being 'seeing' everyone on IM and email as I've got a full list of work projects to keep me busy.  What was especially nice were the random thoughts about what a great experience this will be.  I am really thriving on these comments as, honestly, nervousness, worry, and concern have been quite prevelant.    Nervousness about finding the right schools for the kids, worries about seemingly mundane matters like Nairobi traffic -- yeah the country might be beautiful, but if we can't get around to see it (scroll to fifth paragraph)-- what's the point!  and concern about personal and family safety -- I won't go into that too much since its pretty much everything you imagine.  However, hearing lots of comments about what a unique opportunity this will be helps to validate our decision to go.

One fun thing among all the packing / organzing / paperwork / appointment etc was going to the Jet Giant game with Matthew and my dad (Matthew's Opa).  Attending the Jet Giant game with my Dad was a bit of a family tradition going back to when it was played in the 70's at Yankee Stadium... now two stadiums later here we were with Matthew....