Its been awhile but we have been super busy with life and then of course with MOVING!!! Eleanor's first birthday went by without much ceremony. Mike's big last show was the next day and then, his birthday. We went to a nice dinner with the fam in Louisville, but that is pretty much it! The inauguration of our new wonderful president then followed (as far as big events are concerned) which was thrilling.  And now we are moving right along to begin our Big Adventure. It has been dubbed as such by more than one of you so I suppose I will now refer to it this way. The Big Adventure begins on the February 2nd. We are going to SF to visit with our west coast family. Our home base is in San Francisco at Kristin and Trip's apt, but we (depending on how things go) will hopefully make it down to Santa Cruz, LA and Auburn. Hooray. Then we are going to go bicoastal on everybody and hang out with Kim and Alex at their home in D.C. Hooray! After that our Big Adventure leads us to Rehobeth Beach, DE to max and relax with Uncles Bud and Alan. Its been over a year since we have seen them so we are really excited to spend some QT time with them and their children :). Following that excursion we are going to our final stop in the states St. Thomas, PA to see Mike's sisters and their families, Pap and BJ. That brings us to our departure date: March 30th, 2009 we will leave the ol' US of A and head for Deutchland.  It has been a supreme challenge trying to figure out how we are going to get our stuff to our new home as cheaply as possible (if any one has any suggestions please you have two days). At this point we have vacuum packed our clothes and are planning on bringing that in rubbermaid storage bins on the plan. As for our other junk, its packed away to be gotten another time.  What does make a house a home? Is it that junk????? We shall see. Despite the stress of getting there we are super excited, a little anxious, and and and...so many other things. Leaving one place for another is bittersweet. E Louise is thriving, though she has dropped in weight and height in terms of percentiles (i know its dumb) but her head circumference, boy, is up there 75%- whew! So I get now why people continue to have children after their first. The biggest love that could ever be fills your heart after you have a kid. You think back to the pain of birth and the complete transformation of your life since the birth and it is all completely worth it. The love-the intangible, the incredible, the humungous, the entity unto itself- is born along with the baby and it grows and changes just as the baby does. Well, that enough philosophizing now, I have to vacuum pack some more clothes.