New Beginnings

It has been wonderful to finally be in our own home, with our own things around us! Even though our household belongings were delivered on February 1st on a freezing -27 degree day!

we didn't move until the 18th Feb... The removalists were great and they had everything in and unpacked by 3pm... they didn't put anything away though, so over the next few days we visited and started to sort things out, and then gradually over the next 2 weeks we moved the items we brought with us in our 12 bags, and the things we have bought since arriving... skis, snowboards, loads of coats, many warm clothes and so on.

Our house has the feel of a "beach house" with the open plan design, light blue walls and light-blue and white kitchen.

Just one thing though... there's no beach, just a back yard still full of snow!

On the day we moved it was so cold outside that the plastic cubes for the esky (you know... the pre-filled ones) were frozen solid! The china was so cold it hurt to touch it and they warned us quite sternly... "DO NOT PLAY THE PIANO UNTIL IT HAS WARMED UP... THE SOUNDBOARD WILL CRACK!" Welcome to Edmonton!

So, the greatest thing about moving into our own place is having our own familiar things around us. Just as the Colletts had said before we left... it finally makes you feel more at home!

Samantha's room is again using the red "hand" chair as the source of inspiration... so off to Ikea we went! Her walls need repainting, but she's happy with the carpet colour... So are we! The blue looks great with red and white.

Will's room is of course, teenage mayhem with a dash of football passion! He has not had time, nor parental input to get sorted out... off to Ikea with him too! He doesn't mind the silver-grey carpet he has, and hey... would we ever see it? So he's going to save us some money too by leaving it down!

Will's Shrine to the Cats

The basement has loads of potential and room! So we're taking time to think about how we might improve that room.

Visitors from OZ

We've finally had some visitors from home! Bringing gifts of Tim Tams, Vegemite and Twisties! It was lovely having friends to stay... even if one person's arrival was delayed two days because he 1. forgot his passport and the 2. Air Canada cancelled the flight on the following day!!!!! Poor Craig!!!

Craig and Paul making dinner

We managed to take our visitors around Edmonton to see the beautiful old architecture of the Glenora neighbourhood...

...watch ice skating on Hawrelak Park

...and a walk over a bridge over the frozen North Saskatchewan River.

They headed off to Banff to ski and attend "a conference" and we fell back into the usual routine...

Life is becoming "routine" as we go to work and school each day, drive the kids to their extra-curricular activities and dig snow from the paths.

Alec is really enjoying working in the Ed Psych department in the Faulty of Education and just loves teaching his students (3rd years, 4th years and Masters students)
... he's been trying lots of new approaches to engaging the students and is getting fabulous results. Alec has also just applied to commence a PhD at the UofA.

Anita is also loving teaching the Masters Level occupational therapy students and has recently applied for a teaching and learning grant at the UofA to look at the use of Wikis in teaching and learning with OT, PT and Speech Path students. Fingers crossed the project is approved.

Sam is enjoying gymnastics and waxes and wanes around being in cheer-leading.

Will recently had braces put on his teeth and was rewarded by his braces-wearing-friends (as they sympathised with his aching jaw and teeth) with a "join-the-club" milkshake. Sam gets 6 baby teeth out soon to prepare her mouth for braces too! Lucky we have a great dental plan through work!!!

So, the weather improved this week and we had bright sunny days and top temperatures ranging from -18 to -6. Truly heaven after last week's cold snap... even the hardened Albertans were complaining last week!

We'll be moving to our own home in the next few weeks and look forward to seeing our things again. We'll update again after that :-)