These are two of the sweetest young men you could ever want to meet...Kevin and Sean Lewis (Kevin is in the blue shirt). They are former students of mine and friends of Grayson. We were getting boxes at Triphammer Wines and Spirits and ran into Kevin, who works there, and we got to talking about our move to California.Without being asked, Kevin offered to help with moving our furniture if we needed it, and today, we took him up on it! The guys came at 10:00 on a Sunday morning, which is pretty impressive, if you ask me! They carried down about 6 pieces of the biggest, heaviest furniture, making our lives SO much easier. Now, there is really nothing we can't carry ourselves left. We are so grateful! Thank you Kevin and Sean! You ROCK! They refused the money we offered them, so I was really happy that they were at least willing to take some of the furniture we need to get rid of, making this a win-win all the way around.

The POD is working out great. It is divided into four sections and right now, we have one of those sections about 1/2 way filled. Doesn't sound like much, but it's a lot of stuff gone from the inside of the house, so it is seeming much more possible than it did before to fit all of our belongings into this thing. We are literally filling every inch, from the floor to the ceiling and side to side. They say to tie things down, but it's so tight, I don't think ANYTHING will be able to shift!

I took Quincy for a nice trail ride this morning, before it got hot. We had a really nice time talking about our trip. I told him that it's going to be kind of hard getting to California, but that once we did, it would be fantastic. I explained that it doesn't get humid there, like it does in Ithaca and that we can ride almost every day of the year. I'm pretty stressed about the actual trip, but totally excited about our new lives out there.

Chris is working his tail off trying to sort out everything he has left...books, collections, etc... He sold so much of his Bakelite, but luckily, he was able to hang onto enough of it so that he can do some jewelry making once we get settled in our new house. He is going through boxes of books he's already packed, trying to thin them out even more. He has really mastered the art of letting go! It's incredible......

We've been having many great farewell parties with our friends. Tuesday night was a Purity party with my barn friends. Thursday, we got together with my high school circle, including Jeff, Rick, Ann Marie and Q, at Jeff's house. It has been so much fun seeing everyone, and of course, it makes us wonder why we don't make the time to do more of this kind of thing. Important lesson to learn!There are just 20 days left!

Will write more later......much love!