Good-bye Bumper

Our family is about to begin a wonderful adventure... we're moving to Switzerland!  Daron officially accepted a job offer with HP to transfer to Geneva.  He asked his current bosses and fellow co-workers to look for him to return to Houston in TWO YEARS, which is when he will begin looking for a job back HOME again. While missing all our family and friends will be the hardest part, we are all VERY EXCITED about going!  This possibility has been discussed for most of this year, but nothing has officially happened. But 2 weeks ago, Daron was offered a great package and we are now deep in the process of selling EVERYTHING we own except for our few treasured items (photo albums, the bosch we got for our wedding, etc.) which we’ll store in mom’s attic for 2 years, and we’ll take our clothes, bedding, tent, and a few toys – and that’s about it. We’ll be living in a small (about 1000 sq.ft) apt and have only 1 car, since public transportation is great there. After Daron learns the ropes of his new job (which is the same role as his current job, but just doing it in Europe) he'll be able to work from home 3-4 days per week.  HP is flying both of us to Geneva next week to house-hunt, look at schools, etc. So crazy, so fun, and so exciting. Our kids are at a great age for this kind of adventure: Stephen (10), Kassie (8) and Kenny (5). We’ll be gone every weekend seeing something wonderful – we don’t know if we’ll live in Geneva or across the border in France. But our kids will be speaking French in school, so we've already bought the Rosetta Stone software and we're already learning French!  We’ll be back here to visit at least once a year – probably come back from Thanksgiving til Christmas.

This morning was our first big garage sale - everything in the house goes! We weren't expecting for Bumper to go right now -- we figured we'd hang onto him til right before we moved. But a sweet man came and asked for him. I hadn't really spent the time thinking about how I would feel when it was time to part with him. But really, it felt like I was giving my child away. We've had him for a decade -- we have pictures of little newborn Kassie, napping laying across his back, holding his tail, and sucking her thumb. He's the sweetest dog we could ever hope to have. I just looked in this man's eyes this morning and asked if he would love Bumper. He said he would, and that he had a big yard and family that would take good care of him. Bumper just looked at Daron and me with his big eyes and then happily lumbered over to this man's car and hopped in. Oh my word - I just cried! I didn't expect that. But remembering how he just follows me from room to room and really just lives to have our company - to love and be loved - it's no wonder 'DOG' and 'GOD' are the same words spelled backwards.