One week, we leave in one week.  We spent this weekend alternating between enjoying the air and water show and panicking.  We have a busy week this week of packing in seeing people, celebrating major events, saying goodbye and dealing with the many logistics of being gone for a year.

The list of things to do on the boat seems to possibly be getting shorter.  Meanwhile, the list of things to do at home seems not have moved at all.  This week we have to move our clothes onto the boat, clean up the house, figure out what to do with our cars, get the house ready for winter, deal with the houses in Michigan, grocery shop, and on and on and on.  Neither Laura nor I have gone anywhere for a year since we went to college.  We had a lot less stuff then.

At the same time we’re trying to make sure we are ready on the boat.  I still haven’t taken all the stuff off the hard top.  There’s still a pretty long list of things I either think I need to or feel like I should do to get the boat ready.  We continue to be able to find room for most of the stuff that we’ve schlepped onto the boat but that is starting to get harder.  It seems like each time we go to the boat the car is packed to the roof and we get on and dump hundreds of pounds of stuff in the middle of the salon.  Hopefully at some point that will slow and that point will come before the boat is barely floating with the weight of all of our stuff.

We’re still planning on leaving next Monday, 8/29.  That’s dependent on our getting everything done and on the pool on the sanitary and ship canal being low enough for us to sneak under the 19′ bridge we have to deal with.  The plan is for my father and possibly my niece Sophie to join us for the first day or two.  The extra hands will definitely be helpful.

I think the girls are starting to get excited.  Maddy is still trying to figure out if this is strange or not, this morning she asked if we are the first people to do the great Chicago loop.  I’m not sure she’s fully got this down just yet.  Molly is pretty excited but a little sad as well about leaving friends.  We took the girls school shopping this morning and I think they enjoyed that and it’s probably good for them to stick to some routines.

Okay, off to empty a freezer so we can turn it off.