Monkey Wrenches and Ice Cream

What's new around here:

1) The house appraisal was yesterday. We still haven't heard anything about that. Pray that it will have gone well. As I mentioned last time, that's really that last thing standing between us and the house sale closing.

2) We found out last night that since we're moving to Canada, the day we get there is the day our home/auto insurance from here expires. Apparently, this is unusual and we have a crappy insurance company. Boo!

3) We found out just this afternoon that the closest Uhaul truck we need is THREE HOURS away so the last day of packing we had planned (tomorrow) is now all going to have to happen tonight so we can drive all the way down to Airport City and back to pick up this stupid truck. The silver lining - if this level of inconvenience can really be called that; they knew more than a week ago that we needed this particular truck and where we're located - is that they're not going to charge us any extra. So we'll get a free day, free mileage and they'll give us some sort of credit for gas. But still - boo! I am NOT up for driving six hours tomorrow and we had several other last-minute errands to run besides that. I guess the other silverish living is that we can have people over to pack the truck as early as we want on Saturday morning. And, uh, as early as they're willing to come over, right?

4) Packing is really coming along (you'd be proud, Shalee!). Upstairs we just have the clothes we're wearing on the trip to pack and a few toiletries and the laundry detergent. Everything else is in boxes and ready for the truck. Down here, we just have the last-minute essentials (like my third baby - my computer) and things in the kitchen to pack which we are planning to take care of tonight. Between fancy pizza we're getting for supper tonight and finger-type foods, we've got enough to tide us over between now and leaving.

5) Last Saturday, we ran errands and then met up with our pastor and his wife for ice cream. All four of their kids were away for the week last week so we were celebrating the last minutes of their 'honeymoon' and just spending time with friends. The LG had her very first ice cream cone. Yup, her first. She'd never had ice cream before (and great, now we can never go for ice cream in peace anymore either) and it was a hit! We weren't sure how it was going to go over since she doesn't have much milk otherwise (the results are, uh, not too pretty), but everything was fine so maybe we can get her back on milk again soon. (Which would be great because buying soy milk is fine when it's only me using it because I don't use much, but when she's having it all the time too, it can get pricey.) Anyway, here are some pictures from that momentous occasion. Oh! And she actually SAT on GRASS. She won't even walk on our lawn; she just doesn't like grass, but she sat on it, ran around on it, and yes, even wore her little sunglasses. (Don't worry, she only wore them for two days; she broke them on Sunday afternoon.) Oh yes, and after she was finished her ice cream, but before we could wipe off her bib and her face, the wind blew the bib up over her head and she got sprayed all down the back with ice cream. Oops.

2009 (so far) in Pictures

Being goofy in the hospital back in February.

Being goofy even while sleeping.
(Yes, I will make sure this makes it into any wedding photo-montage - har!)

Helping Dad lick the beaters.

Easter basket!

For your weekly update this week I think I might actually have found the Easter pictures of the LG that I couldn't find last week.

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The house inspection happened this past Tuesday and went quite well except for one thing that we already knew about from our own home inspection that doesn't really have to be fixed right this instant and well, we're not fixing it anyway. They'll get not a penny more out of us! The next step is the appraisal which will happen sometime in the next week. Pray that it will go well because that's really the last hurdle before the house closes on the 11th.

We've managed to sell both an old (though it was practically new in the box) air conditioner we had around but never used here and the lawn mower that we've been using that was in the shed when we got here, and we're really close to selling our entertainment unit which, while we really like it, is just too big and heavy to move one more time. Yesterday, LJ had a dentist appointment and when he came out of the office, there was a couple waiting by the car who offered him about 3/4 of our asking price. The only problem was how he would get home so they exchanged numbers. Sadly, they called back later that night and said they wouldn't be able to buy it after all. We're still hopeful though, that God will take it off our hands in the next week.

We're still planning on leaving on May 3rd. The packing (thanks for your encouragement, Shalee!) is going quite well and we should be finished packing up boxes and collecting them all in one room by the end of this weekend. Then we'll just have last-minute things and furniture to think about. It feels good to be this ready to go.

LJ has been fabulous about all this packing too. My ligament pain was replaced, overnight, by some horrid sciatic nerve and joint pain on my right side which has left me decidedly incapacitated. I have no choice but to waddle just to lessen the pain and moving around is generally excruciating. We were laughing last night about just how I plan to get into the U-Haul when we're on the road. LJ suggested rigging up some sort of hoist. Um, no thanks, Dear. I'll just grimace and bear it.

Oh, he did have one moment of cruelty this week though: when I got home on Tuesday after the inspection, there were four packages waiting for us. Two mundane packages with diapers for Sibling XX and some gifts I ordered for each of our midwives, and two mystery packages. As background, several years ago, a package arrived when I was at work one afternoon (our UPS guy delivered to my job too so he often left packages there for us). It was addressed to LJ but I didn't know of anything 'private' that he had ordered so I opened it right up. It was the latest edition of Pride & Prejudice (BBC) on DVD. Oops! It wasn't for any specific occasion so how was I to know? I shoved it back in the box and taped it back up. I did tell him later that I had actually opened it, after which I got quite the lecture.

So when the packages were sitting there on Tuesday begging me to open them, I resisted. Good thing because they are, evidently, for my birthday (only 11 more days, Brenda - yikes!). There are TWO mystery packages floating around the house for ELEVEN more days! The suspense is NOT amusing.

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Next post, pictures.

Absenteeism

I've been absent this week, obviously.
We've been busy, mostly with procrastinating, but also with some appointments and packing and throwing away junk and trying to figure out what to pack now and what to leave out.

We leave here two weeks from tomorrow and every time I think about that I get a combination of butterflies and giddiness whirling in my stomach, in addition to the human being whirling in my belly.

Potty training has been irritating this week. It's one accident after another and the debate - which we thought we had solved - still rages over what to do in the process of moving.

Our Easter was fun. We had a breakfast at church, then home for a quick nap and then dinner with friends. The LG did great at hunting Easter eggs. After she had all her eggs in the basket, she sat down and methodically opened each one (after shaking it) and ate all her M&Ms.

We got three or four inches of snow between Sunday and Monday which was awful because, you know, it's SPRING and all, but by Tuesday evening, almost all of it was gone and today there are only remnants in a few places. LJ has taken the LG outside a few times to ride her tricycle which she LOVES even though she hasn't figured out how to actually peddle the thing yet. Coming back inside always involves a struggle because she's not ready to come in. Hopefully when we move the weather in Manitoba will be nice enough that they can get out and ride a little more often.

Here's a picture from Easter Sunday - pardon the shoes, we couldn't find any dress shoes we actually liked. Well, sorry. I can't find the pictures. It'll have to wait until later but trust me, she looked cute!

Our Weekend, by the Way, Was Great!

LJ called the immigration people at the Port-of-Entry and the lady he talked to said there was something medical showing up in the system but then her computer froze. So we spent Friday evening getting together all the documents we needed to file LJ's Canadian Work Permit application. Letters, passports, pictures, emails, and receipts. Saturday morning, he called the POE again and talked to the Immigration guy and the medical exam information had all gone through and was positive so were set to go.

The POE we had to go to is only about an hour away so we got there at around 1:30 and were there for about two hours. As it turns out, they only needed three things: LJ's passport, his letter of offer of employment, and the Labour Market Opinion letter. We had the first two but only the system number for the LMO so LJ called the guy that's in charge of hiring him and he emailed it to the immigration officer and about a half hour and $150 later, we were set to go! He didn't even look at the stupid passport pictures OR the receipt that my Dad took great pains to scan and email first thing on Saturday morning (thanks anyway, Dad!).*

So, it's Officially Official. We are MOVING! It's REAL. The plan is to leave here on May 2nd and be in MB hopefully by the 12th. If you're calculating, that means we have three Saturdays to pack before we spend the fourth Saturday packing the U-Haul. This Saturday we're having Chris & Holly over for one last Easter Hurrah (I just filled some plastic eggs about 10 minutes ago). That leaves us with two Saturdays and then the evenings in between. Yikes!

If you know us at all, you know that LJ and I are both very gifted procrastinators. Very. Gifted. We can come up with numerous excuses - both legitimate and ridiculous. But, I just finished packing up the first box of kitchen stuff. Conveniently, most of our breakables are still packed from our last move since my china cabinet was destroyed when it flew off the back of a truck just before we moved (*ahem, LJ* and *sigh*) and since our current kitchen is so small, I keep a lot of my lesser-used kitchen articles in big plastic storage bins in a back room. That's at least eight boxes already waiting for a moving truck. Last night, too, we went through the freezer and threw away old freezer-burned food that we didn't need (like popsicles from two summers ago!) and threw away a few things from the pantry that were seriously outdated.

That said, I think I'm going to go work on packing up some of the LG's toys in her playroom which has been off-limits for several weeks already because it's been cold out and we don't keep the heat on back there. We drastically streamlined her toys last week when we were cleaning for the house showing and she hasn't seemed to miss them yet so I can pack those all up too. Not to worry! She's not completely devoid of toys! We've been building forts to read and play in in the living room, looking at catalogues before we rip them up for packing material, and she's been spending evenings playing with the big box of dominoes with LJ or colouring or SAYING WORDS - at least as of last night.



*For anyone that found this via googling Canadian Work Permit Application - let us encourage you to apply at a POE. LJ got his medical done first and they submitted the paperwork for that. Less than three weeks later that info had all gone through Ottawa and was in the computer. Applying at a POE was so much easier than having to send all the paperwork in the mail and risk getting it sent back because the information wasn't complete. You should make sure to bring all documentation listed on the checklist though, just in case the Immigration officer you see decides s/he wants more info than the guy that we saw.

Whoa!

Get ready for it! We have WORDS!

REAL, RECOGNIZABLE WORDS!

"cat"

"cupcake"

"bob"

"duck"

FINALLY!

Now we just need to hear 'potty' and 'pee'.