Happy Holidays and Thank You!

I know that I sent out massive e-mails to several groups of people to let you know about this website (I want everyone who wants to be informed... well, informed!). So, I figured while I was at it, I would update a bit. Thank you so much for all of your kind wishes and gifts this season to help me prepare for this trip. I'm getting extremely excited... the kind of excited where I'm ready to start packing my bags and have already written out lists of exactly what I'll need to remember not to forget. Yes, it's the remembering not to forget that's the hard part! It's been wonderful seeing family and friends again before I head out. I'm still trying to pack in a bunch before I go. I wish I had more exciting things to update you on, but I don't. This post is pretty much just about the fact that I'm excited. I'll connect you with the websites of some of the places we'll be headed if I can and hopefully get up some pictures (we'll see how hard that is to do with public Japanese computers). I'll write more when I've got more to say (but it sure is funny how I can stretch nothing into an entire paragraph). Much love to you all.