Yikes!!

 Skyping with our friends in Lille!

As Golda and Ruby get more and more ready to go on the inaugural leg of Preposterous Plan 2013, I get less and less ready!  I'm excited, though, with the planning and preparations.  I bought some hostess gifts today, which I am pleased with.

Bringing chocolate to France seems silly, but I am sending some local artisan chocolate, as well as some specialty sea salts.  Some is Hawaiian and some is Himalayan, for my friend Genevieve, who lived in Nepal for a time.  She is the woman Golda and Ruby are staying with in Lyon.  Our friends in Italy are Utah Jazz fans.  I am still planning to buy some of those colorful, chocolate-covered sunflower seeds.  Again, bringing sunflower seeds to Spain is like the proverbial carrying of coal to Newcastle, so we might have to give those to our French friends.  In any case, there are all token gifts, and I'm sure the families will be fine with whatever we offer.

We have Euros, packed bags, Visa cards, tiny containers of essentials, google phone numbers...what am I forgetting?  My sanity?

I have to think of it as if I were the hostess.  If I had a friend sending her children to me, I would be ready, everything would be taken care of, and her children would have a wonderful time with our family.  I'm sure it's the same for the families waiting for Golda and Ruby!  I won't think about the time I arrived in Spain and called my friend Angel when he didn't show up at the airport to pick me up.  He said, "Oh.  You're here?  I thought it was tomorrow."  Not to worry.  That was in the days before cell phones and I was STILL just fine.  Just spent an extra hour at the Madrid airport. :)

We skyped with the Laviessiere family today and they are prepared and excited to arrive at the airport in Paris on the correct day at the correct time.  But first...New York with Dad!!