When our kids were toddlers, Dani and I would take turns reading to them each night. Both loved to hear the adventures of Toot & Puddle, two endearing pigs from Woodcock Pocket.

These two best friends couldn’t be more different. Toot is an adventurer, longing to see the world.  Puddle is a homebody, most content when enjoying familiar rhythms and routines.

One day, Toot takes off to see the world. He invites Puddle to come too, but being the home-pig that he is, he decides to stay in Woodcock Pocket.

Throughout his year of travel Toot sends postcards from exotic destinations, sharing his adventures with his friend at home. Toot scales cliffs in the Alps, visits an Italian pastry shop, swims with hippos in Africa, takes a camel ride through Egypt and more.

Puddle, meanwhile, enjoys life at home, celebrating everyday moments in familiar surroundings. He spends his days gathering maple sap for syrup, playing in spring mud, painting a self-portrait, or trying out a Halloween mask.

At the end of a year, Toot and Puddle reunite and share their experiences.

As we make our final preparations to leave, each of us seems to be alternating between the sentiments of Toot and Puddle: Eager for new experiences on the one hand; deeply wistful for our everyday life on the other.

Emotions are running high around our house. We are looking forward to our once in a lifetime journey.  At the same time, we are looking forward to our return, and will be eager to hear from family and friends about life at home.

For now, we are content to enjoy a few final hometown adventures until this time next year.

I have a feeling that if Toot traveled today, there’d be no more postcards.  He’d be blogging his way around the world. And Puddle would enjoy it all the more.

[Note: Thanks to John Whealan for the wonderful pictures of Caroline, Dani and Craig.]