This evening, my sister Jo will board a plane and tomorrow she’ll arrive here, to stay with us for a while. She’ll be here to enjoy and experience Vienna, hang out with us, join us on our adventures, and help out with the kids and around the house. If all goes well, she may be with us for nearly the entire rest of our time here in Austria.

We are very, very excited to have her. I will enjoy her company, as well as the help she’ll give us and the unprecedented freedom that Dan and I will hopefully have to go out as a couple (as she and the kids get used to each other and we’re able to leave her with them from time to time). I really do think that there will be a lot of benefit in it for everyone.

But I also feel nervous, because we’re embarking on something entirely new. It’s taken a while, but we do have a routine worked our here (albeit a pretty demanding one). Things are going to change. Jo and I have never lived together, and now she’ll be sharing an apartment (with a single bathroom!) with the entire family. This is going to be entirely new territory, for all of us.

Regardless of what happens as we go forward, we’re all starting a new chapter tomorrow. Whether things go great or horribly, it will change the texture of our interaction, and the tenor of our shared history. This is something we’ll laugh or cringe about, reminisce or bicker over, forever. She will know me, Dan, and our boys better than she ever would have otherwise, and we will know her better, too. Hopefully, we will be closer, and the adventures we share in the coming months will be full of joy. I am excited. I think this is going to be great.