Second to last week in Ridgecrest

This past week was pretty eventful. We spent a good chunk of it with Susan, Betty and my parents to fix up one of the back bedrooms. Mostly we just cleared out the stuff in the back room, took down the wallpaper and the shag carpeting in there, and repainted. It looks pretty good! I'll post pictures once we get everything finished in there (still need to get some blinds and a light fixture). We also spent a lot of time purging, shredding and donating (please remind me to always ask myself "Will I need this or miss this in 7 years?").

Sorry Susan, your Legends of the Fall poster had to go!

The room in all its glory. A tiny bit of me will miss that wallpaper and carpet. A very very tiny bit.

Painting is fun...for the first 1o minutes!

Covering the floor with Chinese newspapers

In other news, it was also my suegra (mother-in-law)'s last day of work this week. She is now officially RETIRED!! It was an exciting day for her since she has had a countdown clock since last year! I loved the shirt that she wore on her last day!

My suegra with her countdown clock...0 days!

No more work but a lot more of fun!

With her colleagues

We also received a CD in the mail from the Peace Corps with some presentations about what our programs will be about. After going through it, I'm getting pretty excited. I think that Adam and I are going to have an amazing and challenging experience...and hopefully we will be better people for it! I think that we will be able to make a difference in the world, even if it is just sharing our experiences with people both in Ecuador and the United States.

The rest of the weekend, I hope to relax a little bit more and spend some time with the family before they take off for home. Andy & Gaby and the girls are flying in tonight but Susan flies back to Utah on Sunday and Betty drives back to LA on Sunday. Then, the countdown will be on because we will have one week to get all of our bags packed, and of course dot all our "i"s and cross all our "t"s before we leave the country for what will hopefully be a full 27 months! Lots of paperwork to go through before we leave!!