Counting Down

Hello everyone!

The official countdown has begun! We just bought our tickets this week; We'll first fly to California to spend a couple days with Carrie's mom and some friends, then on July 22 we'll head out to Hawaii and start a new phase of our lives. (Cue the inspirational music by "Iz." One of the classes at Sophie's ballet school performed to Iz's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" but it was mistakenly credited to Eddie Izzard. Which is so many kinds of wrong.)

Our imminent move seems more and more real all the time, especially as we pack more things and get rid of even more. We had our yard sale -- really a "sidewalk and basement" sale -- this weekend with some help from some goods friends Linda, Jay & Shuang. We made a little bit of money and sold a few things, but still have a basement-full more to go. By the way, if you didn't stop by our house for some reason, you missed out on some really indispensable items. A stuffed bird sitting on a plastic nest: only $1! Why didn't anyone buy the bag of wee-wee pads? It's a mystery.

Sophie was the star of the yard sale. She stood in her yellow voile floral dress and sold pink lemonade to passers-by, looking as perfectly and graciously Southern as any half-Asian New Yorker can be. She effortlessly raked in $16.60, giving minute by minute updates on her total throughout the day. ("I only have 40cents to go to get to $10!") We're not sure how it happened, but we seem to be raising a card-carrying capitalist. Hopefully she will make lots of money and support us when we are incontinent (see "wee-wee pads" above) and toothless. She proudly set aside several dollars for tithing, without any prompting by us.

We are starting the process of saying goodbye to friends here. It has been good to see people, to remind them of how much we appreciate their friendship, and to pray with them before we go. We will miss our friends and family here in New York tremendously!

Please pray for us as we pack and decide on movers - we want to find a reputable company we can trust. (We just watched "Batman Begins," so we know that strange things can show up in shipping containers.) Please also pray for our housing in Honolulu - we would love to find a place to live that is conveniently located and spacious enough to host both our neighbors and our out of town guests - all within our limited price range!

That's the update for now. We love you all very much and we thank God for your friendship and prayers.

Ryan, Carrie, Sophie Joy and Daniel