7 days before we travel

7 days until we travel. The five day forecast predicts 40-50% chances of rain each day for Addis Ababa.

Now that we're fully-packed the time is starting to drag and I'm wondering how on earth we're going to make it 7 more days. The good news is this time next Friday we'll be flying to Amsterdam, Netherlands. It would probably be best if we were sleeping on the plane, but I have a feeling that's not going to be the case. Eric is rarely asleep before midnight so why would things be different next Friday?! I hear there's meals provided on the plane so I'm getting excited about that. Do you know how long it's been since we've had food on a plane other than pretzels or pay as you go Pringles?

My friend Mimi did a practice run of picking the kids up at our house and dropping them off at school today and it went fine. So, that means the kids will be making it to school while we're gone-check another thing off the to-do list.

Last night I had a dream that we couldn't get our dollars converted into birr so I went to an Internet cafe and faxed dollars to the US and then our bank faxed birr back to me. The sad news was that we didn't get a receipt for the transaction and so vendors wouldn't accept our faxed money. I was crying as none of the clothes that we had brought for Joseph fit and I had to buy clothes so that we could travel home. Eric, (Mr. Schmoozer), bless his heart, finally talked one vendor into accepting our money and the man gave us an Ethiopian costume. Joseph thought it was the greatest outfit ever.

I'm sure my dream meant something and I'm hoping we don't find it to be a reality once we arrive in Ethiopia. I've already been to our bank and have gotten 2001, and newer, $100 bills that are supposed to be best when exchanging money in Ethiopia. I'm guessing one of these nights soon I'll have a dream with Joseph not wanting to come home on the plane with us. That's going to be a long night.