After discussing the move-up of the inevitable departure date with my mom - she stated that we could, under NO circumstances, leave prior to Christmas of this year. I reassured her that it was fall of 09 - but she must have seen how excited we were and how much we want to start this world exploration. She knew something that we didn’t at the time.

We had not considered moving it up earlier than the fall of 09 - but as we plan for our vacation next week to Montreal - we are both growing even more restless. I am back in language acquisition mode with French. Brett is preparing for capturing every angle of Burlington and Montreal with his camera. We are researching and reading and planning again - something we haven’t done since moving to Indiana in the spring of 06.

With the itch to leave stronger than ever - we are putting the house on the market when we get back from vacation. We know that we are not able to leave before this coming Christmas - per instructions from my mother - but after that - we can leave whenever.

We have decided that we do not need to strive towards an arbitrary savings amount. We will leave whenever we are ready in 09 - be it the first week of Jan or the middle of summer or late fall. We are more excited than ever. We get to tell Brett’s family while we are out there next week.