Last Minute Luggage

Terry and I leave in less than 21 hours! We're off to Paris and London for Christmas and New Year's. If you've been following along, you may have noticed that things have been quite busy for us lately. Terry traveled to Florida for the last two and a half weeks for work; my work has been as busy as ever; and we've dealt with some tough personal stuff. And now, suddenly, our European adventure is upon us!

As you can imagine, I haven't accomplished nearly as much as I would have liked by this point. In fact, I think you could say we're just a tad bit behind. As in, tonight at 7:55 pm I found myself standing in line at Marshalls purchasing the luggage that we will use on our trip. I enjoyed a few awesome conversations with folks who wanted to know where I plan to travel, and they literally laughed out loud when I told them I'm leaving tomorrow. Super!

Scout also disapproved of our last-minute luggage
purchase but ultimately made his peace with it.
Luggage: London Fog, via Marshalls

So tonight Terry and I are (in theory) piecing together the world's most last-minute packing job. Our flight leaves at 5:30 pm tomorrow, so we will have a few hours in the morning, but we wish we had just one more day to get ready and feel more organized.

Instead, as we get ready to leave, I've been thinking a lot about the original idea behind our trip. We've always wanted to spend a Christmas vacationing somewhere, and we absolutely fell in love with Europe on our honeymoon in July of this year. Our favorite city was London, and now we're excited to experience Paris. We're sad to be away from our families, but we're excited to spend some quality time together after a long time apart. We both need to decompress from work, so we loaded up our new Nook with books we've been wanting to read (on my list: the third book in The Hunger Games series, The Help, American Wife, and Violets of March) and have big plans for reading, sightseeing, sleeping, and eating tons of pastries, cheese, wine, and bread.

Luckily, in preparation for this culinary adventure, I completed an excellent cardio workout yesterday:

1. 30 minutes on the treadmill, incline level 8, speed 4.5 mph
2. Jump rope circuit workout from Julie's blog (our apartment is too small to actually use a jump rope, so I just jumped without one - no excuses!)

I hope to post a few times while we're away, but we aren't sure how solid the WiFi connection will be at our hotels. Either way, I hope you have an incredible Christmas and spectacular New Year! May 2012 bring you and your loved ones joy, peace, and love.