Almost there!  In 52 days Duane graduates as a Dr. of Chiropractic.  "And there was much rejoicing....YAAAAY!!!"  It has been a longer than expected road but we have finally made it to the end.  Jill and the kids have been oh so very patient with Duane and it has paid off.
Can't say that it has always been the most enjoyable but on the other hand it hasn't been the worst either.  We have all learned a great deal.  It is hard to believe that we have been here for almost five years.  We left our wonderful family and friends back in WA and started this adventure in August of 2007.
We are so excited to finally be able to head back to the North West and enjoy time with extended family and get to know, again, the friends we left behind.  We are planning on leaving the state of Misery at the end of May and taking about a week to travel to Duane's parents in Weiser ID for a week.  While we are there Duane plans on helping the old people out by re-roofing his Papa's garage.  We will hopefully have the opportunity to visit some of Duane's cousins while we are there as well.  After that we will be headed to the Lacey WA area to spend most of the summer at Jill's parents house.  Jill's parents were gracious enough to offer up their home to us, for a while that is, until Duane is able to find a job or they get sick of us and boot  us out.  I know, it is hard to imagine anybody getting sick of us but hey, Obama became president so anything is possible!
Duane will be looking for a temp Chiropractic Assistant job to help with cash flow while we are staying with the Bowles.  He will also be fully enrolled in the Masters of Sports Science at Logan so he will still be a bit busy.  The Masters program is all online which allows for us to move away from MO.  He will have to fly back about three times to take the lab portions.  They are held on certain weekends throughout the tri. 
We look forward to lots of camping and hiking while in WA.  That is one thing that we have all missed while we have been here.  The weather here goes from winter to summer in a week, and with the hot summers here, gives little time for quality camping.  Though Duane and a couple of the kids have acclimatized, Jill and DJ still have a hard time in the heat.  Duane and the boys have attended the father son camp outs when Duane's schedule has allowed, and Duane has tried to go on all of DJ's camp outs that he could, but as a family we have only gone camping once since we've been here.  Not good for a family that enjoys camping.
Jill is starting to purge the house of anything and everything that is not going to make the trip back to the west with us.  It is amazing how much it is going to cost to move back.  We spent around $4000 to move here with a full trailer and it is going to cost about the same for a 1/4 trailer.  Something isn't right with this picture!  Anyway, that's the story for now.  We'll keep everyone posted on any changes, cause we all know there haven't been any changes to our plans in the past.  Until then....