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...

August 2009 Disney Trip

We went back to Mickey's house to celebrate Allison's birthday at the end of August. Allison's parents also joined us for part of the week which we very much enjoyed. Yeah, it was pretty hot. :) A lot of schools around the country started school this week, so the parks were actually pretty empty, which translated into very short lines for pretty much everything during our entire visit!

So here we are getting ready to leave Harrisburg. Molly thankfully behaved on the plane ride down and back.

Not sure who is having more fun here.


We had breakfast on Allison's birthday at Chef Mickey's in the contemporary resort. Funny story about this picture though. Molly was throwing a little bit of a fit when Mickey stopped by and he was really trying his best to entertain her. So after he left we figured out why. See that brown spot soaking up her outfit above her right leg? Massive blowout which I had a great time cleaning up. ie; how to use a half a pack of wipes for one occasion.

Birthday cupcakes at one of her most favorite places in the world.

Owen riding the carousel with Grandpa!

And Grandma was brave enough to ride on Goofy's Barnstormer! Kudos to Grandma for doing this again in the rain later in the week!

We hit Hollywood Studios early one morning and found a few character locations that were pretty much empty.... no lines.

And the UP crew! Owen loves this movie and I think Doug is hilarious.

Ahh yes, a boy and his machine.

We spent a lot of time at the sea walking around the aquariums and various exhibits. Owen was just enthralled with the rays and fish. We ended up with a new stuffed friend "mr ray".

Here's Owen talking with Crush at the turtle talk. However they do this, it's pretty far out dudes!!
Molly assuming her traditional relaxing pose. Foot up... smile and Minnie.
Riding the ferry boat back to the hotel with Grandpa was always a treatAnd here we all are with Minnie and Mickey.

On the last day, we stopped by to see the princesses and I think Owen fell in love with Belle.

We really love Disney world and I've lost count now how many times we have visited. Knowing our way around and how to make best use of reservations and timing around the parks certainly makes it a lot of fun too. Allison puts a lot of work into preparation and I'm sure we'll be headed back when Molly is ready to remember it!

catchup

I've been really bad about updating this Blog for the past few months.... conflicted about using facebook vs this, but I think I'm going to default back to this blog because anyone can view it.

So we left off in summer 2009, so following will be some catchup posts, then I'll get back into the habit of posting on a more regular basis.

Butterflies

When Owen was visiting with Mom & Dad back in September, he and Mom discovered some Monarch butterfly worms which Owen brought home and lovingly watched over. This was the first time he had seen metamorphosis in action... it was funny just hearing him try to pronounce it. :)

Nearing the time they would emerge, we kept a close eye on them as the cocoon's became clear and he could start to see the wing patterns. Right on time, the butterflies emerged. He was so excited to see them and help them get ready to fly!

Discovering the first one...

Owen reached in and the butterfly crawled right onto his hand.

He sat for several minutes watching the new creature dry out it's wings and get ready to fly.


Shortly after we took this picture, the butterfly took off and flew across the lawn. I thought he might be sad, but he was actually happy to see it fly away.

I think it was 2 days later that the second one emerged.... It was later in the evening, so here's the boy in his pajamas, enjoying the process. After awhile, he let the butterfly crawl onto one of the shrubs to get ready to fly.

Praying Mantis

Owen and I were playing on the swings a few weeks ago when we discovered a friend had joined us... Owen spent several minutes watching her move and walk around.

New Car!

Well, it's been 3 months now, but we traded Allison's Volvo on a slightly larger ride with seating for 6 back in July. We had the Volvo for almost 5 years having purchased it just before Owen was born. It was a great car that served us well, with the most comfortable seats... But alas, two little ones, the dog and luggage were getting to be a bit much for her to cart around for weekend trips. Also we thought it would be nice to have seats for at least 6 so friends/family could ride with us when we had the kids.


So we looked at some crossovers, SUV's... all the while dancing around the minivan idea. We drove a Mazda CX-9, and a Toyota Highlander Hybrid, both of which were nice vehicles... The Highlander 3rd row seats are made for midgets and it was just a little too small overall. The Mazda was nice, but the one we looked at just didn't suit our needs. After driving a 2007 Pacifica at a local dealer we were sold on the interior room, usable 3rd row seats, features and finally overall value.... it was significantly less $$ than anything else we looked at it. So here's the new addition...

Food...

Food from the garden and our local farm market Weaver's Orchard just can't be beat. We froze a lot of fresh white corn this year...


Allison's parents have a freakishly good producing apple tree that makes fantastic sauce. Can you smell it? mmmmmhhhmmm


Batch ready to freeze..


We used all the Roma tomatoes from the garden + some from Weavers for making sauce this year. Allison has a fantastic "un recipe" that is awesome.

Owen is the King of the food mill and loves mushing everything up.