Progress

You know how in my last post I had a package addressed to the US Passport agency?  Well last Friday (which was exactly one week after I mailed that package), my Kirkwood Mama received a package from the US Government on her doorstep.  Apparently, "Expedited" means "ridiculously, unusually, miraculously fast!"  I count that as a HUGE blessing! :)

This is what my office door looked like last week - it's a lot more bare now.

This week has been busy for me with finals and working on moving stuff out of my office, and Gabe's tax office had corporate tax deadline on Tuesday, so it's been a bit nuts for him as well.  We made our last household meal plan, and most of it will comprise of eating out of our pantry in an effort to minimize what we have to give away!

Also on the topic of giving things away, we've started packing, and in that process, we've started figuring out what we'll be taking with us, what we'll be storing, and what will be in the "to sell" pile for our upcoming garage sale (March 28th, if anyone's interested!).

To sell!

To take (the government makes food pyramids - I make clothes pyramids!)

Meanwhile, we're still doing important things like reading Narnia with Abigael when we're all home in the evening!

Working on The Silver Chair

 And continuing to work on the to-do list that has been hanging on our wall for over a month:

THE list.

I'm placing an order for our photo cards this evening, and working on writing the official mailing letter that will be going out to our various churches and friends and family.  I have a large number of people who have already asked to be put on the list, but if you haven't yet and would like to, let us know!  You can FB message us or text/call us or shoot us an email.  We'd love to have our photo on your fridge!

Passport Application Status: Sent

As you can see in this photo, I had a package ready to be mailed off to the National Passport Processing Center!  Hooray!  Last week I did another round of phone calling regarding my passport name change (dropping the hyphen out of my name and changing my last name from Shulke-Kirkwood to just Kirkwood, officially), and found out that the most straightforward process was going to be going to the county court and doing a court-validated name change.  Since we're down to slightly less than 7 weeks until departure time, I thought straightforward sounded like the wisest choice!  So Friday I appeared before the judge and became un-hyphenated.  An hour later I had the passport application completed, the check written for expedited service, and I was mailing it 2-day post to get it updated.  The turn around for expedited passports is 2-3 weeks, so we're hoping I will have my new passport back in my hands by the end of March.

In other news, we were met with a warm, supportive reception at Renewal City Church two Sundays ago when we shared about what we're doing.  We appreciate how many people in our community have been excited for us, encouraging of us, and are asking how they can financially support us.  Wow!  God has been SO kind to us!  It's truly an honor to partner with so many of our friends and family.

We enjoyed a belated birthday celebration for me last weekend, spending two nights with my sister and brother-in-law in Seattle, and attending the Star Wars costume exhibit at the Experience Music Project.  As longtime Star Wars fans, Gabe and I got to geek out a little going through the rooms full of costumes from the movies.  We also LOVED getting to spend time and play Skipbo with Heather and Kyle.  I did manage to walk into a wall in the middle of the night, but my EMT husband made sure my nose wasn't broken, and I prompted went back to sleep (I'm not sure he fared as well; it's rather shocking to the system to wake up to someone ricocheting off the wall onto your bed!).  I haven't even had a black eye!

This week we've also finished up our formal applications to become commissioned by Renewal (is it indicative of Gabe's and my differences in communication style that his entire application was 8 pages long and mine was... ah-hem... 16 pages? :-/ ), so it feels like we've been checking things off our long-standing to-do list.  As I type, Gabe is faithfully working on his TESOL course which he has now put in about 6 hours of time on today.  He's almost finished!  We've also started a PILE of stuff that we're going to be selling on eBay and/or selling in our Courtyard/Carport Sale March 28th.

Whew!  This is what I think we call "progress" :)