I have been in Los Angeles for the last few days visiting with my extended family – my parents, my aunt and uncle, my brother and his family – and while I am incredibly blessed to be able to do this, it’s definitely difficult emotionally.  We have been living at a distance for more than 20 years, but the chasm between Seattle and LA and Barcelona and LA is, quite obviously, wider.  My intellect says that with Skype and iMessaging, and planes that fly, that distance – like aging – is relative.  It still doesn’t completely alleviate the sense that yeah, we ARE moving far away…we are initiating this great leap across oceans…the buck stops here.  Mind you, I am not regretting this decision, but I am reflecting on it, a lot.  Encouraging is the fact that my extended family loves to travel, plan to travel, and are already plotting visits.  And so this needs to carry me along for the impending big transition.

The final step of the VISA acquisition process happens tomorrow!  I am meeting Andrew and Eitan in San Francisco tonight and tomorrow we – the Big Guy in Charge willing – will leave with lovely little stamps in our passports that will allow us into Spain as new residents and not tourists.  With that complete, all we have left on this side of the pond is to complete the merge-purge process of packing and get on our plan next week.  In between, we’ll welcome many of our local friends to sit among our boxes and suitcases for a bon voyage send off over the weekend.    Looking forward to that!