Plans

I never thought that leaving the country for six months would require so much preparation. All the documents and back-up documents...
We are trying to pack as little as possible. Liam, who is six, is old enough this time to carry his own backpack. After his essential clothing is packed, he is allowed to fill his bag with whatever else he wants, as long as he is able to haul it around for the week that it will take before we hope to be settled. That leaves two adults to carry the rest for ourselves and our two three year old daughters, Ila and Mei.
We are leaving our home unoccupied during our leave. We have thought about renting it out while we are gone, but things are too uncertain for that. Maybe if we continue to do this every winter, we could eventually profit from it. The stresses involved in preparation however, do not compare to the excitement that I feel more as the big day draws nearer.

Here are our plans for the first few days:
On Monday, October 23rd we leave in the morning for the US. We'll get on the Greyhound bus in Great Falls, Montana in the afternoon. We thought of taking the bus from Lethbridge to Great Falls but it goes some crazy route over to BC and back that takes well over 24 hours. So, we opted for getting a ride down to Great Falls instead. By the way, thanks Jay!
We'll be sleeping that night on the bus (mmm comfortable), and we'll get to Salt Lake City around 5:30 am. We're gonna spend the day there, visit the great big beautiful temple, maybe visit some of Rus' family. Then we're picking up our rental car and driving to Phoenix, Arizona. We're gonna stop to see the Grand Canyon and sleep on the way. We have some friends(Jen and Jim and their 3 kids) who just moved to Phoenix from Raymond who have kindly welcomed us to stay with them for 2 days and 3 nights . They have a swimming pool in their condo community and a girl who is Liam's friend, so Liam is pretty excited about this part. Then, early Saturday morning October 28th, the moment we have been waiting for...we catch a bus (Tarahumara bus lines) into Mexico. Nuevo Casas Grandes, to be exact. Around the corner from the bus stop in Nuevo, there is a hotel waiting for us. Maybe the room will come complete with free cockroaches! Rus had a couple of pet cockroaches once. Yum! From here we start to look for a rental in the nearby small towns of Colonia Juarez or Dublan. So that's our plan so far. We'll see how closely we stick to it...

I have been casually learning on my own a bit and my friend Teauru gave me some spanish lessons. These are some of the things that I remember how to say so far. (I will apologize now for any grammar or spelling mistakes)
Yo quero rentar una casa pequina. -I want to rent a small house. (This one I made sure to memorize because that will be one of our main concerns!)
Donde esta el bano? -where is the bathroom?
Mi nombre es Elisabeth. -My name is Elisabeth.
Yo quero agua purificado. -I want purified water. (Another main concern.)
Usted hablo ingles? -You speak english?
These are the main phrases that I can remember how to say and spell right now. (and i'm not cheating) I'm working on how to say things like a place to sleep (dormir) and eat (I don't remember anymore). Some words on their own I know too but I think I will really learn it when I am totally immersed in it. There's no harm in a little advance preparation. I haven't figured out how to type the spanish accents like the "n" in bano and pequina that makes it sound like "ny".
Beck's song "Que onda guero" translates as "what's up white-boy".