Most everything is falling in order and going smoothly.  We close on our house on the 19th, we have given our notices at work, and Craigslist is coming through for us with buyers for the things we are selling.  Bryan has been so focused at one big house project at a time while I’ve done the majority of the research that last weekend it all hit him at once. It was fun to finally see how excited he is now that he gets to focus on the fun part!
We have been down to one car and have been sleeping on an air mattress for the past week, again thanks to Craigslist!  We have most everything we our taking on our adventure set aside, and let me tell you, it doesn’t look like a lot but it is everything we need.  We will try to pack everything, including my pack, into Bryan’s pack for the flights there.  We’ll have daypacks that we will carry on.  We will post a picture of what we are packing soon. 
Everyone wants to know where our first destination is, but we don’t have a solid answer yet.  We will buy our one-way tickets the day we close on the house because there is still a tiny chance the closing could be delayed.  We plan to time it so that we have some time in Missouri to visit family and friends before we fly out.  At this point we are lookong mostly at Vietnam first, but the flight prices could determine that.  Beijing is another possibility, it’s cheap to fly in and we have a friend there so it would make for an easy transition.  We haven’t yet decided if we want to venture into China yet because it is so large and tempting to try to see it all.  It is also more expensive overall. 
If you know of any must-sees in Southeast Asia, we’d love to hear about them.  We have a travel book and are doing internet research, but personal suggestions are sometimes the best!