The beginning and they aren't even gone yet!

I have decided to blog about my experiences of being an empty nester.  An unexpected empty nester at that.  My son Zach graduated High School in June.  He did a pretty good job with no real effort that I ever saw!  Got himself accepted to Michigan State University and we deliver him there on August 28th.  One down!  My daughter Sarah is going to be a junior in High School.  We thought Sarah would be around and we would be adjusting to a family of 3.  Sarah had other ideas and decided to apply to Rotary International to be a youth exchange student for her Junior year.  Not surprisingly to us she was accepted and she moves to Friedberg, Germany on September 9th.  Two down and that's it!  My husband Brian and I are excited.  First we are excited for our kids who will both be doing new, exciting, scary, confusing things.  And, we are excited for ourselves.  I can already picture the dinners together, not rushing to one thing or another.  The quick weekend get-a-ways to explore parts of Michigan we haven't seen.  Mostly I am excited to see how our relationship grows and also how I grow.  I too will possibly be doing new, exciting, scary, confusing things.  I have never followed a whole week of recipes from Real Simple magazine.  I think that will be one of my first goals.  I am going to re-find our office under all of the piles of papers, I may wait a month or so for that one.  And I will write.  I will write to document how I change and learn but I will also write to keep in touch with  my children without interfering too much into their new lives.  Pretty excited.  More once they are on their way!  Julie