Here we go.....

In a little over a week, my family will be boarding a plane for a ten-month trip around the world.  We've been planning this trip for over two years, and now that I see that first sentence in print, I'm realizing it's really happening.  Yikes.  As we're preparing to leave, our feelings are running between excitement and nervousness.  We're anticipating many great adventures on the road, but the to-do list before we leave is never ending—eventually we'll just leave.

My name is Michael, and I'm a 50-year-old painter.  My wife, Deena, is a perpetually twenty-nine-year-old physical therapist assistant.  My son, Joseph, is a seventeen-year-old high school junior, and my daughter, Deveny, is a fourteen-year-old high school freshman.

We plan to visit twenty to twenty-five countries while home-schooling the children along the way—surely the most ambitious event Deena and I have taken on in our almost twenty-three years of marriage.  Why are we doing it?  First, we enjoy traveling together very much.  Deena and I have great kids, and we want to show them and teach them everything we can while we're all together.  Children grow up quickly, and they'll be out of the house before we know it—we want to take this opportunity while we can.  We want to show our children the family of God outside our little corner of southeast Charlotte.  I could got on, but not now.

We would love for you to follow us on our journey so we can stay connected to those we love back home—it'll be a great encouragement for us while we're on the road.  I'm new to blogging, so I'm sure there will be kinks to work out along the way, but I'm looking forward to writing about our adventures and sharing our experience.

Thanks for tagging along with us—the next post will be from Ireland!