Ruby slippers: check. Now we can return to Kansas

Of course when people hear Kansas, they think of The Wizard of Oz. So now that it's time for us to return to Kansas, I was quite pleasantly surprised that my workmates gave me my very own ruby slippers.

Aren't they beautiful? They added the glitter themselves. I was wondering why I saw red glitter all over the office in the last couple of weeks.

To be clear, I should say that I'm not really from Kansas. I grew up mostly in Missouri and lived on the Kansas side of Kansas City for a few years before moving here. But Jake is from Kansas, and so it's easier for us to offer a quick and simple answer when folks ask us where we come from.

Several people in the office signed the card, including my closest colleagues and some folks I don't know that well. I loved reading all the comments, but my favourite comes from someone in the latter category: "It was great to meet you, even for a short time. Take care and don't forget NZ when you're back in Wisconsin."

I don't mean to make fun because I certainly no expert with NZ geography, but it made me smile and think about how big our world feels sometimes.

Our world tour kicks off in 2 weeks

You've probably heard me mention that our time in New Zealand is coming to an end and we're preparing for a bit of travel before moving back to Kansas City.

It's been lots of fun planning our upcoming trip. It began with us asking ourselves "where in the world do we want to go?" which is quite a daunting question. So we created a giant wishlist that we had to narrow down according to our schedule and budget. (Sorry Palau -- I'll have to swim in your magical jellyfish lake another time.) After much brainstorming, negotiation and organising, our itinerary now looks like this:

• Leave NZ on 2 April
• Singapore
• Malaysian Borneo
• Beijing
• Switzerland
• Greek Islands
• Italy
• Germany
• Arrive in Kansas City on 3 June

I'm pretty excited about what's coming up. So excited in fact that I made a logo for our trip. My graphic design friends will undoubtedly be impressed by my expert use of WordArt. In my defense though, I've been busy selling our household goods on trademe.co.nz and prepping our other stuff for shipping to KC. We've gotten our visas and our shots (more on that later) and our flights. Now just wrapping things up, getting ready to say our goodbyes and preparing for our next adventure.