Panic is setting in

I arrived home from Steven's Point, WI on Saturday with my son Mac. For the second year he and I attended the American Suzuki Institute to further his violin studies. He loves it and I love getting a little one on one time. The only down side is living in a dorm room and the quality of the food. Oh, and the long drive back and forth. Not enought to keep us from returning next year.

To recuperate I spent the weekend watching the olympics. It has been so exciting. One of our olympic swimmers, Matt Grevers, is the younger brother of Mac's swim coach. He has been swimming phenomenally and doing better than anybody expected. Tonight (or tomorrow morning, depending on your perspective) he competes in the finals of the 100 meter backstroke. Yesterday he swam the preliminary heat of the 4x100 free relay, helping to set a world record. The record was shattered by the team that swam the final, but he was a big contributing factor to the team win. In September Mac will be attending a stroke clinic that Matt will lead. So exciting.

Anyway, here we are less than a week away from our departure for China. I made long lists of what we need to bring. Before children Bill and I could travel for two weeks with three bags - a carry on for each of us and one check through bag. That check through was proabably quite heavy and with airline regulations the way they are now wel need to go with fewer, lighter bags. But then, there are the children. The flight is 14 hours in each direction. Hopefully they will sleep for a decent portion of it. But while they are awake they need to be kept occupied. Each of them has a Nintendo DS with their favorite games, plus one new game a piece, not to be opened until we are on board the plane. In addition each one has a dvd player. Hopefully they will double up and watch some movies together, but once a battery goes it will be good to have a back up. Of course we have to carry along the rechargers for these items and the movies and disks that they play. I want to bring my computer so that I can update this blog and check email from home.

Finally, there are the things that need to get done before we leave. School papers to be completed and sent in, hockey registration, music school registration, international cell phone coverage activated...

panicing here, totally panicing