I'm sitting in Northwest flight 29, seat 6C on the last leg of our move to Beijing; we had a short stop in Tokyo and now have about two hours left before we land. According to the in-flight map, we're somewhere over South Korea.

In many ways this flight has felt pretty normal (aside from the twelve bags we checked in). Both Michelle and I have flown the Seattle to Tokyo Northwest flight a lot this year (some of the flight attendants recognized me today), and the boys are both professional flyers. It wasn't until a few minutes ago when I filled out the immigration paperwork and checked "Settle Down" as the reason for our trip where things really started to sink in – we're moving to China.

There are a few very memorable moments in my life when I've realized I was starting a new chapter – arriving at Stanford for freshman year, flying to Seattle to work at Microsoft, standing on the altar watching Michelle walk up the aisle, meeting my sons for the first time in the delivery room. I have that feeling again now. It's thrilling and terrifying all at once.

[Postscript: Obviously, we're on the ground now, so I can post this. We're in our temp housing getting settled. The adventure begins...]