Europe bound!

Since our dating years Jeff and I have always dreamed about going to Europe together.  Our dreams ranged from the unattainable: me studying abroad while  he worked in a pub :) to the possible had we done it before growing up: us spending a few months wandering around the continent, to something that is actually about to be a reality! On August 26th we will fly out to spend 19 days in Europe... :) woohoo!
I don't think there is even space here to tell you how many times we have dreamed and planned for this trip, and life circumstances have intervened making it impossible to even hope for.  I know that sounds dramatic, but it is really true.  We even named our first dog Lisbon (Libby for short) because we thought that our hasty decision to get her meant we wouldn't be able to do our Europe trip after all.  Now here we are, married almost four years, done with grad school, owning a home and now two dogs, about to go on our long awaited European adventure!
As you can imagine- we have had a lot of preparing for this real trip.  We have gone down to our fav REI multiple times, and in a few states :) to look at their gear.  We have read countless blogs, travel books and watched Anthony Bourdain, Rudy Maxa and Samantha Brown for hours, getting information about the places we should visit.  We have packed and unpacked our backpacks dozens of times.  We have gotten in touch with long lost friends to coordinate visiting them in their new foreign lands.  Bought tons of wrinkle free quick dry clothing and returned just as many- trying to get the perfect combination of pieces to make multiple outfits with only a few things.  Possibly all of this wasn't totally necessary- but it was all really fun!
So here we are- Tuesday, August 24th.  We leave in less than 48 hours and I am finishing my fifth load of laundry, trying to cook and freeze everything in the fridge, running last minute errands, gathering up all the things to do the final pack with, and tying up loose ends and getting our home ready to vacate for 2 1/2 weeks.   I am also catching up the blog (notice the tons of new posts?) in preparation for the new posts we hope to do while on the road- um, train... :)
We plan to visit France, Spain and Portugal.  For those of that do not know- I lived in Portugal the summer after my freshman year of college.  I worked with some missionaries there who used art as their ministry.  It was an amazing experience.  When we were selecting places to go, we both agreed we had to go to Portugal- I can't wait to remember my experiences there and share it all with Jeff!  Because Portugal is isolated in far western Europe, we determined that we would like to spend more time in locations than see one city per country.  As a result we've "limited" ourselves to these three.  I say it that way because we fast discovered that we would still have to be selective what to see and what to skip in these three places. 
On top of those plans we are fans of "slow travel".  We prefer to hang around and get the feel of a new place, meeting the people there, eating the food etc.  We are still definitely tourists- (We WILL see the Eiffel tower!) There is no getting around that... But we hope that we will have the opportunity to step out of the droves of people with cameras and tourist maps and really experience the places we are visiting.
Because of all these lofty goals- we have a very loose itinerary for the trip.  We are flying into France and spending a few nights there.  Beyond that it is very loose where we will go and where we will stay.  That's (hopefully) the adventure of it! 
So, our hope is that the next post will be from Paris- we would love for you all to follow us on our journey.  And pray for us too :)
Love to all!