By Oscar

There are only 3 sleeps left before we leave. I am feeling happy. I will miss you all so much, but this is a great adventure that I'm so excited for. I will have fun in Regina, Calgary, Vancouver, & the Island. But I hope you have fun here too!

Oz

By Callym.

There are 3 more sleeps before we leave. I am starting to get excited & sad. I'm sad because you are all my favourite friends, and I will miss you all so much. I'll never forget you. But I'm also excited for our trip & the adventure. I am excited to go to Regina because of the 240 foot water slide, Calgary because of trick or treating & the Lego store, Nelson because of Hot Springs,  Vancouver because of the Aquarium & the Island because it's our new home. In the next 3 days I hope I get to spend some time doing Halloween stuff with you guys. I will try to play with all of you before I leave. And in the next 3 days I will want to do everything I can with you. I'm staying for lunch so we have extra time together.

Thanks, Callym

Our Last Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday in Winnipeg

First the time was crawling by & now (it seems out of no~where) it's flown by & it's mid week! Not many things have happened since Sunday night, the POD was dropped off on Monday

 

 the boys, Chris & I recieved a really cool card from the neighbourhood!

& Chris had his last day of work today. You would think that they house would be at least mostly packed..... but it's not. I keep telling myself that I work better under pressure & that it will all get done in time, But I'm starting to doubt even myself when I take a good look around the house....

 

Photos still hanging on the walls....

 A mess of boxes yet to be put in the POD

Toys laying around & half empty boxes everywhere.....

Photos on the wall still, boxes laying around waiting for stuff. (and these are the presentable rooms!)

Well, at least I've started on our Car Boxes, one full of books, games, knitting, etc.

 And the other one is full of healthy snacks for the long ride. I'm hoping the kids understand the time it will take in the car just to get to Calgary! (7 hours to Regina & 9 to Calgary after that, we're gonna need a lot of snacks!!)

Last Sunday in Winnipeg

Today was the last Sunday for us in Winnipeg. Chris had to work some overtime for Harvest, so it was just me and the boys. We hung out for a bit, and spent a bunch of time at the park with some friends. (thanks Jack, Gavin, Nate, Marcus & Simon!)

Afterwards I made one of our most fav dinners, but this time it was vegetarian! YUM, we all enjoyed it so much.
All in all it was a pretty great day (besides not having Chris to enjoy it with us). The weather was phenominal!
Tamara

Oscar here, just wanted to tell you that after supper I tied a string to my loose tooth and tied the other end of it to our cat Twinkle. We wanted to see if she would pull my tooth out, and well, take a look at the video for a fun laugh!

The Lukies Surprise Party

Last night mine and Oscar's friends rented out the Bronx Community Centre for a Surprise party for us. So many of our friends were there. They wrote nice cards for us, and it was a lot of fun playing with them. We played floor hockey in the gym, & some of the dad's played with us too. We ate a lot of good food (like cupcakes, cookies, carrots, oranges, chips, nachos, candy, & drank pop, & the popcorn was so yummy!). And I played football with Owen, Marcus, Wylan, Ashton & Andrew, & it was a lot of fun. Andrews dad played football with us. Oscar was also playing some toys like little scooters with his friends, and lifting weights from the weight room. We also played air-hockey with Colin, Max & Jordan. We stayed until almost 9pm, it was hard to leave because we were having so much fun. Thank you everyone for coming and making it so special last night. You are the best friends ever!
From Callym

Here are a few pictures my mom took of the night.

October 13, 2011

how funny that this blog is now up again. It's been a long time, but it seems as tho we are in a very similar spot. This time we are NOT selling it all, but we are packing it all in. Again we are going where we've never been before, one big difference is that we are staying in Canada.
Oh boy, where do I start.....

First off, we have been planning this new adventure for a while now, maybe ever since we landed here nearly 4 years ago. WoW, 4 years Winnipeg ~ that's a record!!! Back in January Chris & I sat down & talked about staying for one more year, or selling in that spring. It was a much harder decision then I would have ever imagined. We went back and forth with strong feelings for a long time, and although we decided to stay, that was very VERY short lived. It turned out that we put the house up for sale July 17th, and like the optomistic gypsies that we are, we left on vacations (work & pleasure) and figured the house would sell before we got back.
WRONG
What happened to the housing market over the summer is anyones guess, and after waiting nearly 3 months & having only 1 offer (and a horrible one at that), we figured that the best decision was to wait out the winter & start again in the Spring. (our initial decision) So I got a job, we started unpacking, and had fully resigned to staying the winter.
WRONG (again).
What happened now? Quick showing & a quick offer! And now, like 5 years ago, I am packing up a big house to fit into a small storage locker & looking for the best deal for our trip. Admittedly I'm not totally unprepared. But I think the biggest thing is that we don't have a home town destination. A bit scary yes, but if I don't think about it too much, it's not so bad.
I wanted to add the photos of our house before I forget and we lose them somewhere. I don't think we have any of the Edmonton house, and that makes me sad. so here you go!

Living room

Living Room

Kitchen

Kitchen

Master Bedroom

Office

Hallway

Dinning Room

Callym's BedRoom

Oscar's Bedroom

Upstairs Bathroom

TV Room

Beer Room

Game Room

Back yard

Next Post.... where are we going?????

:)

testing testing 1, 2, 3

Testing

Testing

One

Two

Three


is this thing on?

Normalisation

I have now been at work for two weeks plus a day. It feels good to work again. I have banker's hours, I'm told by a friend, and they suit me just fine. I love my job. I am working in research again and product development. My Weston's job but with vastly improved salary and less moving around. Since that worked out, it now seems that everything has worked out. We have bought a home, which is absolutely wonderful. We move in within three weeks, and I tell you, I am so excited to do so. Strange enough, one of the parts that makes me the most excited is having Twinkle Twinkle back with us. Tamara is bringing her home from Edmonton when she returns after organising the move there, oh an visiting IKEA. Wow. If you ever want to learn if you are dealing with a guy or a girl, go shopping. I do not have the stamina that my beautiful better half has nor do I think it will ever come to me. In fact, I am a little bit in awe of the way both Mom and Tamara are talking about visiting the States. Seems to me that mom may have found a kindred spirit, but with less experience,... an apprentice possibly. Yeah I cannot count the ways in which Winnipeg has already made me welcome and kept me calm and happy. It has been so busy and exciting that, unfortunately I have not been able to report on the goings ons. I shold tell you a little more about my job though.

It started in Belize. When we made that decision- well, to be honest, Tamara said to me Let's go to Winnipeg... let's try it, just a little before I finally put thoughts to words after that morning swim of turmoil, and we both agreed- I began making a list of people I need to speak to. They included people I worked with in the past, people I thought might be able to guide me, and people or companies I would like to try out or hear more about. So I started ona letter to send to these people, and tabled it for when we returned to Canada. I figured that i would wait until January. So in Edmonton, where we went after Xmas, I sent the campaign letter out. I had a few people I know say yes they remember and would like to meet as well. SO I did and met and it went well. One person, Linda-my new boss, also said she would like to see me. When I got there and walked into her office, it basically wasn't even a job interview. She asked a couple questions about where I worked and then went straight into the project that she wanted me to work on! How wonderful I thought! So she got me to think about it, and the next morning, I couldn't wait, I called her and she said "So what's up?" and I said I want this job. I want to meet whoever you think I need to meet. And she said," Great! That's great. Okay. I'm going to set tghis up here and I'll get you a date to meet the heads next week." So I met them, and although it did not go as well as I thought, I ended up getting the nod from them, by the fact that Linda's phone was not ringing off the hook in warning. So after a few more days waiting for a job offer, very stressful I might add, it took days to do it and a weekend, so I thought that I was on the way out or something, and there was another job I should apply for, and I wasn't talking to anyone about work for four days, and we missed a chance at a house cause no salary, and more stress, and people I wanted to meet I was putting off cause I figured I had a job... well it finally came on Thursday or soemthing. It looked great! And so I am now the Technical Specialist-Barley at CIGI. Good for the next two years, and if I can prove that I am not an untrainable slouch, I may get longer employ after these two years. So everything looked great. In fact, two days later, Sunday the family and I went to Open Houses and found our home! That was something too.

Tamara and I went and saw about 6 homes the day before with Steve, none were overly great, although one was possible, but with a June possession. Not what we wanted at all. Then about 5 more on Sunday at Open houses with the boys this time. Again a poor showing. And then there was one more that we weren't sure of seeing cause it was more pricey than we would have liked, but since we saw nothing worth it that day, we figured, let's go look at a home that is nice- it must have been since it was so pricey. That turned out to be our new home. We loved it from the time we drove up. We then saw it again Monday with dad and Pete W. who both gave their approval and then the next day we had the stress of the offer. We were the only ones and we got it for asking price. Still more than I wanted to spend, but this house will be a winner for us for a long time. Yep, they were motivated sellers from what we gathered although we still don't know why. They were asking 255k then a week later 235, then a week later 220 and that's when we bit. One more day and then the price would have been 199 and then there would have been a bidding war. So it's perfect. The neighbourhood has two schools in walking distance, a grocery store, a vendor, a park. There's a wide open basement, a great backyard, so much and it makes us happy. I tell you. Seven years ago I left this town and thought to myself Thankk goodness I am finally gone... and here I am. Tamara and I have been following our hearts since we met and they have never let us down. And here we are. Both of us never thoguht it would be this way, but here we are. Just follow your heart and see where it leads.