China!

It's official.  The destination for this year's Big Trip (Part 1) is China!  Amanda and I bought our plane tickets tonight for a weeklong trip in early June to Beijing, Shanghai and, well, wherever else we can get to before we have to fly home.  We have done exactly zero research; the only things we know are (1) we'll be able to visit QN and Niko before the German Embassy transfers them somewhere else; (2) Beijing is a Michelin city; and (3) apparently there's some toboggan on or near the Great Wall that Amanda wants to slide down.  Obviously this is going to be awesome.

Oh, and in case you missed the implication of "Part 1" above:  We decided to switch up our travel format this year.  Instead of doing a single big trip over two weeks in the summer, we decided to split it up into two biggish trips; one in the summer, the other in the winter.  That way we can visit places that don't make as much sense during North American summers (I'm voting for an island location in the southern hemisphere that has penguins but is not Antarctica) while also sticking around for the incredible Seattle summer.

Fun fun!