For my girl...

I feel like the above song was written for Christine and I...listen to the lyrics, the guy even talks about leaving his girl to sail around the world, awesome.

So anyways this post is dedicated to those wondering about Christine and I being apart for the trip.  In the future I will probably try to get her to write a post talking about her experiences and how she's holding up, and even how she feels about her travels. For now I'll address a few things: some people are concerned about us being apart for 18 months, so I think one thing that may help is for people to understand that we will actually only be apart for about 2 months at a time.  We currently have plans to see each other about 4 times a year.  We are fortunate that Christine works a teaching schedule, so this Christmas she will meet up with us in Mexico, and then for spring break she will meet us somewhere near Tahiti.  I think it also helps for people to realize that this is not uncommon practice, military couples do this kind of thing all the time for longer periods of time, and still have amazing relationships.  We are both excited for what we will learn from this experience, but also nervous about being apart.  I am not excited about being apart this much, and I totally wish that we were doing this together, but sometimes you have to take what you can get.

To help ease the pain Christine had an action figure of herself made to keep me company on my trip, which is totally awesome, so this is the start of a series.  I plan on taking pictures of her everywhere I go, so that she can experience the trip too.  As it has been pointed out, it's probably only a matter of time before I go all "Castaway" on it and call the doll Wilson, and have complete conversations with it, etc.

Christine and my Dad out for lunch

So the above is the first in the series, it's a picture of Christine and my dad as we had a farewell lunch together.  See ya in 18 months Pops!  As I type this I realize Christine is a weird name for the doll, so what are some suggestions for a name for the action figure that looks like Christine?

Thanks for the prayers, and keep it real!