quick update.

Life here is rather calm considering.

We spent all day yesterday watching/helping the packers pack up all of our belongings. I continue to be amazed at the amount of things the two of us have!! Slightly ridiculous! I am sure that we be taking several loads to the airman's attic once we can actually go through everything!

Today we are taking the car to Dallas. The military ships one car for us, but we have to drop it off in Dallas! Jery is busy on base this morning finishing up some out-processing details, and then we will be on our way! Thankfully my brother has given us his "spare" car to drive back in!

Tomorrow we will again spend the day at the storage unit watching/helping the packers load all of our now packed belongings into crates. I was promised that it wouldn't near as long as it did yesterday, and I'm praying that is true! After we are all finished my brother should be here!!

Thursday will be our final day in Abilene, and the United States for that matter. We will hopefully have a fun-filled relaxing day enjoying Abilene and our family! It is also Jery's "final-out" day so he will have some duties to attend to, but it shouldn't take him long!

Friday we will finish packing our suitcases, empty out my apartment, and say our final good-byes. It will be such a bittersweet day, and at this point all I can do is pray for God's peace. Peace that surpasses all understanding.

As far as the canine companions. Harlii will spend a couple weeks with my mom while we get somewhat settled, and the rest of her quarantine days are fulfilled. Then she will board a plane for an eight hour direct flight where we will be waiting for her! Samson will be staying with my mom as well, for now. Just as soon as we began looking for him a new home, we find new hope. My cousin, Michael, found a website that specializes in shipping military family's dogs. We have looked into them, but no decisions have been made. Paying this company to fly Samson gives us great peace of mind, but comes with a somewhat heafty price tag. They would greet my cousin/bother *whoever would take him to the airport* and they would take him through the airport paper work, get him on the plane, get him off the plane, take him through customs, and bring him to us. We would not be responsible for dealing with the airlines at all. They would handle any problems that came up, and ensure me that he would be able to fly.

Several people have asked why Samson is a problem and Harlii isn't. It is somewhat of a complicated answer that can be answered in a simple way. He is huge. Now for the complicated part. The airlines require that animals have AT LEAST 3 inches above their heads when they are standing in the crate. For those of you who know Samson you understand part of the problem. For those of you who don't - he is 41 inches tall from the ground to the top of his head, and he's only 10 months old *meaning that he WILL grow*. So in order for Samson to ride on the plane he has to have a crate that is AT LEAST 44 inches tall, given that he doesn't grow between now and then. They do not make crates this big, well they do not make airline approved crates this big. The biggest airline approved crate they sell is 35 inches tall. But you do have the option to build a crate. To make this more complicated I spoke with the airlines over the weekend and discussed with the the details of building this crate. Only to find out that the door they load the animals through is 40 inches tall. Basically saying he won't fit, much less his crate. The gentleman did give me the option to load him through the actual cargo door, but explained that they would probably charge me triple to do so. The underlying problem here is that if we were to ship Samson in a crate that wasn't at least 3 inches taller than him, there is a chance we could be taxed $10,000 by the British airport system. They are very serious about their pets, and would consider that a form of animal cruelty. And lastly, every way that we have found to fly him is expensive. Double, triple, quadruple the price of a actual seat on the airplane. We both love Samson and can't imagine giving him away, but we at some point have to decided whether this doable financially.

All that to say we aren't sure what we are doing with Samson yet. For the time being he is going to hang out at my mom's.

So much for a quick update.