Rest of February

After we got back from Florida, we decided to have a small get-together at the house for the kid's birthdays. It was more to have a chance to see friends and family again before moving plans really got into motion. We always have so much fun when everyone is in the house.... grandparents, great-grandma, aunts, uncles, friends... lots of laughing and always good food! Rather than making cakes we served up donuts for a treat. They have always been a favorite of the kids and we had fun picking them out!

Here we are before the donut feast started!

Owen enjoying a cream filled... his favorite.

Molly usually goes with the brute force method. Jam as much in as possible and chew... sometimes laughing and once in a while sneezing if she get's a powdered one, which is usually quite funny until we have to clean up all the bits of sneezed donut.

And we collected a few pictures of our little Molly over the month... She's taking on such a bigger than life personality. Constantly telling us stories and making sure we know how she's feeling and what she thinks should be going on around her.

The classic morning outfit of pink piggie jammies, Minnie ears and sunglasses. "Did I do that?"

Probably a year ago now, we gave Owen some goggles to wear in the bathtub because he was freaking out about getting soap & water in his eyes when he was washing his hair. Well, Molly of course, needed to have some also after seeing brother wear these super cool things... she calls them her "goggies" and they are too big of course, but I have to laugh out loud every time she wears them...

Allison picked up a pair of big-girl sunglasses a few months back and Molly has become obsessed with them also. She has been known to nap with them on, and there doesn't need to be sun out for her to insist on wearing them. Try to not smile and say hi to this little diva when she greets you on one of her shopping trips. :)

Disney Trip 2011

Both the kids birthdays are in the first week of February.. Owen on 2/6 and Molly on 2/5. Yeah it's fun remembering that when we're filling out forms! Before we were considering this assignment, we had already made plans to take them to Disney World for a few days as a birthday present for them both. After we had decided to move, it was even more perfect an opportunity because we probably wouldn't get back down to Disney World for a few years.

To make it even better, my brother Seth, his wife Mary and their girls also planned to come down and join us.... then as a final surprise, Allison's parents happened to be in Florida on the same week, so they stopped in for 2 days to join us in the parks with the kids.

The trip was so much fun. Molly was the perfect age to be excited about everything and Owen was now big enough to ride some of the rides "that he's wanted to for his whole life!". We had a rental car to drive to the parks and stayed at the Disney property Port Orleans. The room was basic, but nice. We've stayed at many of the local hotels, on and off the Disney property, and we still prefer being on site as it makes everything so easy. So here's some pictures from the week.

Our little travelers at Philadelphia airport, ready to go! The flights were great and we had no issues with the kids. They have flown several times with us now, so we're prepared with stuff to keep them occupied... and they know all the rules. NO kicking the seat in front of you! :)


Owen is obsessed with trains... here he is showing little sister the ropes on the shuttle tram at Orlando Airport.


Our little man.

Seth and Mary drove down with their family, and met us at Epcot on the first day. Seth gritted his teeth and did not vomit after riding Space with Alyssa. The first characters we saw were Chip & Dale. Dale has a red nose for those of you that are wondering.

On to the sea where Molly just loved the aquarium. I think the kids would have spent most of the afternoon there if we let them. As usual, Turtle Talk with Crush was a huge hit.

Still in Epcot for dinner and we ran into the Chipmunks again.

First Mickey sighting of the trip!

Making memories.

Magic Kingdom on day 2. Molly on the ever-favorite carousel.

And brother right behind her.

Molly was so silly with her 3D glasses. Here she is laughing it up with Aunt Mary.

Two peas in a pod. Owen and Riley in Tomorrow Land.

I can say enough how happy we were with how the kids played and occupied themselves during meals. This was a pretty typical picture of the gang as we waited for food. Busy coloring, filling in mazes, playing tic-tac-toe. It was great to see.

Molly's birthday was a rough day... for Owen. Unfortunately he came down with a 12 hour bug that we discovered as he bolted to the bathroom at 7am in the morning and threw up. Then again... and again.. and again. My poor little guy must have thrown up at least 10 times or more every half hour or so during the morning and early afternoon. Finally during the middle of the afternoon I packed him up and we drove to the resort store and picked up some ginger ale... after some sips the sugar and hydration kicked in and he was able to sleep for a few hours. When he got up, we hydrated some more, no more puking and we were on the mend. We met the family for dinner at downtown disney, where Grandma and Grandpa joined us as well. Allison, Molly and the rest of everyone enjoyed Animal Kingdom during the day.

Molly and her cousin "mommies" Ellie and Alyssa.

Dinner with the family... Molly's birthday cookie and scoop of icecream!

The next day, Owen was back in shape and ready to take on the world. For his birthday we took him to the new RC car shop at Downtown disney, Ridemakerz. Here, the kids can pick out the type of car they want, wheels, stickers, build the car and test it out. Owen was in his glory.


Chef Mikey's

Riding the teacups with crazy Uncle Seth!

My princess.
Owen with Mr. and Mrs. Incredible.

At Hollywood Studios on our last day... waiting in line at the Toy Story ride. Molly was watching Mr. Potato head. :)

After we made it home to Philadelphia, we told Owen about our decision to move to Canada. He took it reasonably well initially, then as he started thinking about it more, he really took it pretty hard and cried about moving away from our house, his school, his grandparents and all his friends. Allison is in the back-seat crying with him and I'm trying to hold it together piloting the car down the turnpike. After talking things through with him for 20 minutes or so, he fell asleep and we had an awful quiet ride home. The next morning, he was like a different kid... we looked at pictures of Vancouver, and he started getting excited.

Where are we?

So much has happened in the past year, I've given up on making an effort to post major milestones and I'm just going to fast forward to our life as it's happening.

In late 2010 I was approached to take a 3 year international assignment with my company in the position of development manager for our site in Vancouver, BC. After many long discussions and several trips to Vancouver to evaluate and decide if this was right for us, we accepted the opportunity in early 2011.


This meant big changes for us. Allison had to quit her job, we had to put our house on the market, sell a car, organize packing all of our stuff up for a move, find housing in Canada, get drivers licenses, buy a car in Canada, organize renters insurance, car insurance, sort out medical benefits, apply for work permits, get passports for the kids, get utilities closed off in PA and started in Canada, change mailing addresses, setup new emails, phones, visit with family, attend going away parties, get Owen out of school in the US, and then registered and setup in a school in Canada, establish bank accounts, ... oh and all this with me traveling every other week back and forth between Vancouver and Lancaster during February and March..... and it was time to complete all performance reviews at the office.

In the middle of it all, we're both on this emotional roller-coaster.. for Allison it's a huge life change... saying goodbye for a time to family, co-workers and friends that she was very close with... for me, also leaving family and a fantastic team of engineers that I help to build and develop over the past 4 years in Lancaster. I was gone over Valentines day, and our anniversary.... making it more difficult yet. We laughed, we cried, we fought about details, we lost a lot of sleep, ate a lot of ice cream and in the end, made it through.

Allison was the glue through this process. I tried to manage all the details getting setup in Canada, and she did everything back in PA, all while taking care of our wonderful kids, who seem to have been able to magically adapt and take on this new life without a second look back.

So we committed in late January, and kicked it all into motion.... I'll pick up the blog from this point...