We've had a lot of excitement? chaos? opportunity? not sure of the right word...but we've had a LOT going on in the past several weeks.
The Kautz family reunion in Carpenteria, CA was scheduled for July 5-12. On July 4th, John's dad, Gordon, unexpectedly entered the hospital. We decided that I would fly south with the kids in hopes that John and his dad could join us later in the week.
They never made it down - and after getting out of the hospital, then a brief stay in a rehab recovery center, he ended up the following week in ICU and never left until he passed away on Sunday, July 20, 2008. Gordon's memorial service was on Saturday, July 26th and it was an honoring service.
He was a wonderful, generous, giving man and will be missed greatly by his family and many friends. John's mom, Dorothy, passed away five years ago.
The morning after his passing, the packers were on our doorstep ready to pack up our house to ship our belongs to Zambia. No rest for the weary or grieving!!
On Tuesday, the following day, they came back and loaded our stuff into the container that will be placed on a train, then a ship, to Zambia.
I think it'll take about 3 months to for the container to arrive in Zambia - we'll probably learn how easy it is to live without a lot of our stuff! Besides what does arrive may be toast (almost literally since the containers are supposed to get over 100 degrees inside!) or un-needed. We'll see!
DELAYING OUR DEPARTURE:
Because we've had so much going on with John's dad, the memorial service, family in town, etc. we decided to push back our departure date. The good news is that we did get a flight on a later date, the bad news is that it will take us a lot longer to get there!
We leave Saturday, August 2 - take the red-eye to WA DC, have a 12-hour layover in DC, then fly to Johannesburg (via Dakkar, Senegal). We over night in Joberg (which normally woudn't be bad except that we'll have 12 - 15 pieces of luggage to schelp around!!). We arrive in Lusaka on Tuesday night (August 5th) tired, but glad to be out of airports, airplanes, and hotels!!
