Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

I do! It's on the 8:30 American Airlines flight out of Little Rock tomorrow! Actually, that one goes to Dallas. We'll pick up the flight to San Jose from Dallas, and we land in the good ol' 408 at 1:05 p.m. I'm so excited...

It promises to be a great trip. We'll be spending some good time with my family. No one besides my dad has seen Pepper since Pepper was 10 months old. This is so overdue!

The main focus of our trip is to raise some new support. The economy has been tough on our support, so we need to rebuild our team. This task will take us all over the state--as far north as Redding, and as far south as Disneyland, where we'll spend a day with my cousin Katie and her family. Matt will be preaching at a church in Monterey on the 25th, and speaking at a men's breakfast in Redding on the 31st. We get to see old friends, meet new people, and eat good Asian and Mexican food. Yup, should be a great trip!

I'm very proud of myself. Because American Airlines now charges $15 EACH WAY for EACH PERSON'S first checked bag, and $25 EACh WAY for EACH PERSON'S second checked bag, I had to get creative. I can't afford to spend $120 to ship my clothes to California! I considered UPS or mailing them through the post office. But I don't have enough clothes to get by without the ones I would send. Since we will be traveling a fair amount again this summer, Matt and I invested $120 in carry-on suitcases that meet the airlines' size requirements. I spent another $20 on vacuum pack bags. We chose our clothing carefully. And I packed. Here's why I'm proud of myself...I was able to get 5 weeks' worth of clothing and necessities for 4 people into 4 suitcases measuring 20"x14"9" each! Each bag is at least 5 pounds under the weight limit, too! I'll be able to do this again this summer. The best part of this is that we won't have to worry about losing our luggage, and we won't have to wait in the baggage claim! Woo hoo!

The only part that concerns me about this trip is that we're leaving our pregnant kitty behind. Did we want kittens? No. We were told when we got Zoe that she was fixed. She is an indoor cat, so even if she was not fixed, it wouldn't matter. But then she developed lightning paws and escaped out the door one day in December. About 2 weeks later, Zoe's personality changed. She started sleeping a whole lot, seemed lethargic and queasy, had bad breath, and got ultra-cuddly. I would have gotten very worried, except that her weird behavior was only in the afternoon and evening. So I got online and did some research. Sweet Zoe exhibits all the symptoms of pregnancy, including morning sickness (in the evening). It has been fun to watch her little body change over the past few weeks. The morning sickness is gone now, and her belly has firmed up quite a bit. She still sleeps a lot, is much more mellow, and very cuddly. She purrs all the time and follows me everywhere. I've also found her in some very strange places. I figure she's scoping out delivery rooms...Anyhoo, by my calculations, Zoe is due a week before we get home from CA. I'm so glad Debbie will be here. Debbie has lots of experience with mommy cats and kittens.

Okay, I need to get back to work. I still have kiddo backpacks to pack, and a house to tidy up before I leave to pick up Matt in 2 hours. It's pretty clean already, just needs a few things put away and the vacuum run. I am so excited for tomorrow! It can't come fast enough for me.