life is a narrative. a story with a beginning that began before any of us existed, but with a chapter that belongs to each of us. only this story is one of those choose-your-own adventures, and there are good paths to follow and wrong paths to follow, and sometimes, no matter what path you choose, crap happens anyway. but if we do our best not to go too far from the good path, this amazing thing happens, that doesn't happen in any other kind of story -- the individual chapters begin to weave themselves together in strange and wonderful ways, and suddenly you find that your little piece of the story has helped, or has been helped by, someone elses. and you realise that there's this incredible over-arching story line that's been plotted out since before the first word was written on the first page, and in your brief chapter, you fit into it in a marvelous and unpredictable way.
and the author of that story? He loves you more than you can image.
and the best, most amazing path in your choose-your-own chapter? that's the one He wants you to find.
Y’know, in case the Chinese take over the world some day soon, I figured it’d be a good second language to have :-p
Actually, this will be my third or fourth second language. I never really did learn French that well, despite 9 years of having it pounded into my head. There was a time when I was relatively proficient at German, but that’s caught back in the cob-webby attic of my brain. And to be fair, I do still remember about 11 words in Bengali…
But this time is for real! We’re trying out this highly recommended software, which is supposed to work really well. Our goal is a half an hour a night, 3 days a week, after the kids go to bed. It gives us something to do together other than watch TV and clean up after the kids, and maybe by the time we get back over to Asia to visit my parents, we’ll have a local language we can use…
We’re often teased about all the snow we get in Canada, but Friday when we left there wasn’t a single flake falling. Somewhere between New York and Pennsylvania, however, the highway looked like this:
I’m pretty sure it was the worst weather I’d ever driven in — and I’ve driven through some crazy stuff! The scariest part might have been the SUV directly in front of us that lost control and fish-tailed back and forth across three lanes of highway for a good minute and a half before he managed to wrestle his vehicle back into a straight line…
However, we made it to Ohio safely, and had a wonderfully nice, relaxing, and thought-provoking stay with some old friends. Benjamin met his new hero, Caleb. Here’s a video of them working out on a treadmill together:
The deal is closed! Nic’s picking up the key right now, and we are home owners!!
Tonite is part 1 of the move — moving our meager temporary possession into our house. A big thanks to Brad, John, Danielle, and Jen for helping with part 1! We’re camping out in the new place tonite, not because its ready, but because we are!
Part 2 is tomorrow morning — when we’re finally reunited with our stuff, and will no longer have to sit on lawn chairs in our living room. We’ll have our own appliances, some nice new “grown up” dishes, and a real bed to sleep on. Thanks to Nic’s parent’s for storing almost all our earthly possessions for the summer, and for helping us get moved in. I’d thank the movers too, but the butt load of money we have to pay them is thanks enough.
Pictures to follow, and then, with Phase 3 over, life begins again! The new website theme is live — refresh if you can’t see it… I like to think of it as a monument to the miracle of having survived the summer. The finger print will be replaced by a handprint from one of the kids — just as soon as I unpack the scanner!
I’m sure you’ve read my lengthy and oft-blogged complaints about our temporary home for the summer. Maybe you’ve read them, and wondered what the big deal is? Or why I’ve been whining so much. Allow me to take you on a tour of our “home” and illustrate for you some of the finer features of our life in transition…
Above is our bedroom. We sleep on a mattress on the floor, use a cardboard box as a night stand, and share, between the four of us, one dresser — two of the drawers no longer close, and one doesn’t have a handle. We also have a selection of 12 hangers in the closet that I bought at a dollar store… for our “good” clothes.
In the corner of our room is Nic’s “desk.” From here she manages our finances and deals with the various immigration tasks necessary for our children to become Canadian citizens. Note the spacious keyboard area — if you hit the space bar too hard, the whole thing will launch onto the floor.
Next door, just the other side of a paper-thin wall, is Ben’s room. He’s afforded two suitcases for his clothes, and a tub full of toys. He enjoys throwing all of these things around the room.
Abi has no bedroom. She takes her morning nap in Ben’s room, her afternoon nap on our bed, and sleeps at night in the living room.
Here is our fine dining room, where the whole family gathers around the fold-up card table. Except we only have one pot and one pan, so we haven’t really dined on anything too fine — although Nic did pull off a roast beef one night.
And finally, my respite from the world. My little carved-out fortress of solitude, where I spend 8-10 hours a day working: the office. One of the girls from whom we’re subletting needed to leave her stuff here for the summer, so aside from the fold-up table I use for a desk, there’s a bed where we store the things that don’t fit anywhere else, and the boxes for the things we are using.
I’m sure you can see why we’re so reluctant to move… unsure if any residence could beat this one in terms of space or luxories. Why just the other day, as we moved a pack and play into the office so that we could enjoy a few quiet moments alone, I was commenting on how much fun its been to live here…
Yup, its going to be hard to drag ourselves away from here to a place with 3 useable floors, 3 bedrooms, a garage, a backyard and a hot tub. I’m sure we’ll shed a tear or two as we walk, one last time, down the 42 stairs leading up to our little apartment.
- That return air fare to Paris is only $249?
- That flying to Europe is cheaper than flying to Vancouver?
- That you can stay in a hostel outside Paris for $25 a night?
I just found all this out, and I’ll tell you what: if we weren’t buying a house and breast-feeding a baby, we’d be blogging from Europe by the end of next week!
Tonight is Nicole’s last night in New York.
To pull off this move, we’re doing it in 3 phases.
Phase 1 kicks off tomorrow. We’ll move Nicole, Ben, Abi, my computer, clothes and bedding, toys and entertainment enough for all of them for a month. They’ll be moving into Nicole’s parents place for that month, where Nicole will start the leg work to set us up in Canada. I’ll do my best to give her a head start while I’m there with her this weekend.
Our combined task list includes: setting up the computer and the bed’s for both our children, obtaining a cell phone with a Canadian phone number, meeting the real estate agent, meeting the mortgage broker, and making sure there’s working capital in the Canadian bank account.
As soon as I leave her jobs are to: submit the paperwork for our kid’s Canadian citizenship (kicking off the 3 month wait before they’re eligible for Ontario healthcare), finding a storage facility to move our furniture into, arranging the details for the apartment we’re moving into for the summer, then starting the house hunt for a more permanent place to live.
Phase 2 starts May 19 when the movers come. My job is to get us ready for that. Our remaining possessions need to be boxed, indexed and inventoried, our heavy furniture needs to be sold and moved out, the rooms we painted need to be painted over in “apartment white,” and the carpets need to be steam cleaned (two babies and a cat practically guarantees there’s a poop stain hidden somewhere!) I’ll over-see the loading up of our possessions, and the closing up of our US bills and accounts, then get in the car and drive back to Ontario, carrying enough of our stuff to get us through another 2 months of squatting in a temporary residence. We’ll move into that place as soon as we can, so I can resume work.
Phase 3… well we don’t have a date for Phase 3 yet — or even a destination. This phase comes when we’ve found and purchased a house, had the services turned on, and can get our stuff out of storage and do our final move into our new Canadian home. Our drop-dead date is mid-August, when the students from whom we’re renting our temporary apartment will likely want to be moving in. That leaves us a little over 3 months to finish this move.
In short, this is going to be a challenging summer — especially with two babies in tow. May will probably be the hardest, because we won’t have each other for encouragement (and/or bickering). Fortunately, God has quite literally gone ahead of us…
Our dear friends, Mark and Elisabeth, are moving their own family into the same town on May 2nd. God’s set them up with a new ministry, and a beautiful new home (with a pool!) They recently adopted a two year-old boy, and we’re looking forward to spending some time with them again, helping out their ministry, and watching our kids grow up together.
Also in town is my mom, followed not long after by my dad. They’ve both been in Asia for over a year now, having a blast over there, and we wouldn’t wish for them to move back to boring, bland North America. But we are glad that they’re going to be around over the summer to help out, and to see their grandkids (and babysit them for us.)
And of course, Nic’s family is there, and I’ll finally be out of hot water for moving Nicole to another country. When Nic’s parents were here visiting after Abi was born, it was amazing to be able to leave the kids with them and go out to a movie. We have wonderful friends here who have been very supportive and helpful — Ben has a great babysitter that he’s in love with (and we like her a fair bit too :o), Jason and Brooke have gone above and beyond to help us adjust to Abi’s arrival, the Matula clan has literally showered us with love as we’ve prepared to leave, and of course there were all the friends bringing meals for nearly 2 weeks straight — but nothing beats having grandparents and aunts and uncles around.
We even have a new home church to crash land at — where we already know people!
It’s going to be a grueling couple months that will test our stamina and our relationship and probably our faith. But its going to be worth it when its all over. In fact, we’re kind of looking forward to it.
As I mentioned, I will not have a computer once Nic is gone. I’ll have my iPhone for Facebook/e-mail/Digg and the XBox for MSN, and there’s the ridiculously slow and filtered Internet at work. But my connectivity, and thus posting, will obviously be limited. We’ll do our best to keep you updated, and we’ll look forward to seeing our Canadian friends in person really soon!
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This is a journal about life, travel, faith and family -- with the occasional geek-out. Share these things with us through our thoughts, pictures and videos, and be a part of our lives through your comments and replies...
Y’know, in case the Chinese take over the world some day soon, I figured it’d be a good second language to have :-p
