It's really real

Over the past two weeks, this trip has gone from a decision to a reality. We've rented our condo to a professor from Princeton, whose wife will be doing a postdoc at Harvard. Liz and I have both told our jobs that we'll be leaving in September. Liz was very happy and excited when her job agreed to do their best to take her back when we return in April.

We've also purchased our plane tickets! We will spend 10 days in Italy with Liz's family, starting on September 17. After that, we'll fly directly to California for a pair of weddings, lots of catching up with friends, and perhaps a visit to Yosemite or Big Sur. Then we have one way tickets to Auckland on October 21! There's no backing out now!

We still have a ton of things to arrange or figure out - we need to move out of our condo, and in with Liz's mom, by August 15. We need to book travel insurance, figure out what to do about filing our taxes in case we aren't back by April 15, and apply for our visas. And a million other little details that pop up when you want to disappear for 6+ months. But we are working our way through them, and are getting more excited every day, especially now that our travel is booked.