Things to do while waiting...

No, I haven't heard anything new, but I have started trying to fit all the things I have been collecting to take to Kaz into my 2 check in bags. Traveling solo means that I have only 2 bags to take all the things I will need for the baby, gifts for all the people at the baby house, donations of clothes, socks and shoes, things for the apartment, medicine, and maybe even some clothes for me. So far, I haven't packed any clothes for me, but I have the rest of the items ready to go. Actually I have an Excel spreadsheet with multiple worksheets organized by catagory to help keep all of this straight.

Space bags are great. This suticase is already half full, but with the magic of space bags, all of this will also fit in. AND it reaches the magic weight of 48 lbs! Checked bags can only weigh 50 lbs on the flight to Kaz. The other suitcase weighs 38 lbs and is about 3/4 full so I can take up to 12 lbs of clothes for me. I am only packing 1 pair of pants(for official meetings), a court outfit and shoes(shoes are already packed), and 5 or 6 tops. So I should be ok. (Yes, I was able to fit all the stuff in the picture above in 2 suitcases and even have some room left)

I have been weighing everything on this baby scale. My brother and sister just turned 47 and this was the scale my mom used back then, so this scale is probably 47 years old and is still accurate! It is crazy when you are weighing out granola bars to determine how many you can pack, but I now know exactly how many granola bars it takes to reach 2 lbs.

All of this weight checking will not do me any good once I get to kaz and have to take the flight from Almaty to Shymkent. They weigh all luggage including your carryon bags and the weight limit is 44 lbs TOTAL! So I will be essentially buying my luggage their own seat on that flight. My carryon bag with my computer and other electronics in it weighs 28 lbs. I can't imagine ever meeting this 44 lb weight limit. The only good thing is that they charge a lot less for overweight than the US airlines do.

Packing and repacking and trying to decide what to take and what to leave has at least kept me busy. I will probably be doing this several more times as each day I think of something else that I just have to take. Hopefully, I will be able to pack these for the last time very soon.