Not cold enough for us....:)

As if the cold, arctic like days we've been having in Iowa weren't enough for us, we've decided to move to Canada! Yep...you read that right. Canada. Chris accepted a job with John Deere in Edmonton, Alberta. We're not exactly sure all of the dates on when this will take place, but most likely Chris will go in March and I will stay with the kids until school is over.

I've had some time to process this so if it seems like it's not a huge deal right now..it's because I found out it was a possibility the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Chris knew he had a meeting that morning that he thought seemed a little weird. All morning I was e-mailing him to see how the meeting was and he wouldn't email me back so I knew something was up. He got Hy-vee Chinese for us to eat quick before we hit the road to Minnesota for Thanksgiving and I barely let him in the door before I made him tell me what was up. Obviously I was shocked and completely overwhelmed instantly. An expat assignment was not something we had ever talked about. We talked about it the whole way to Minnesota, the entire Thanksgiving weekend and eventually with both of our families. It was not an easy decision at all, but we decided it was a good opportunity and to just go for it while the kids were young and flexible.

I'm a huge believer in that there is a plan for us and that we just have to figure out the signs along the way to help us get to that plan. When Chris brought home that Chinese food and we were in a hurry, we didn't get a chance to eat the fortune cookies right away. When we got home from the weekend I opened one up and here's what the fortune read. "Now is a good time to explore." It was before we told John Deere our final decision and it just was the sign I was looking for. There were others, but this was one of the big ones.



We told the kids a few weeks after Thanksgiving. At first Max laid down on the floor and started whining about missing his friends for about 10 seconds. Then he got up and said, "I'm going to go pack!" Mya and Max had tons of questions. Mya's were mostly about her stuff...could she bring this or that, etc. They asked lots of questions about whether or not it was closer to various people...Grandpas and Grandmas, Tate and Adria, Santa, etc. The only one I could answer yes to was Santa! They also asked about Chloe and we're not sure yet what we're going to do with her so that was a hard one to answer. Max asked about whether or not we have to learn a new language (answer is no...Alberta is not a French speaking province) Other things they did/said. Max asked to be home-schooled, requested a 3 story house (pretty sure he means a 2 story with a basement) and they had lots of questions about their new school which I couldn't answer yet. Mya wanted to be driven to her new school instead of taking the bus and of course I obliged. They were excited about the fact that to come back to visit, we have to take an airplane!

Now you're probably wondering...where in the heck is Edmonton??? Here you go. Western Canada...capital of Alberta.


Some other fun facts....

--Edmonton is the northernmost North American city with a population over one million.
--Edmonton is home to North America’s largest mall – the West Edmonton Mall, spanning the equivalent of 48 city blocks. It was the world’s largest mall until 2004.
--On the first day of summer Edmonton enjoys 17 hours and three minutes of daylight. --The sun rises at 5:04 and sets at 10:07. You can head out to golf 18 holes at 8pm.
--Winter is another story. The sun rises at 8:49 and sets at 4:16, providing only seven hours and 27 minutes of daylight.
--It's in the mountain time zone so one hour behind us here.
--4 hour drive to Banff National Park (in case any of you have been planning a trip there!:) Get your passports ready:)
--There are two direct flights to Minneapolis every day
--School does not get out until June 26th so that is one of the reasons I'm not going to pull the kids out mid-year. They started the middle of August so they don't need to be going until the end of June!
--They use the metric system so it will be quite a change to get used to measuring everything differently.

Dubuque has been absolutely the best place for us these past 5 years. A few people told us that Dubuque was a hard town to crack if you were not from here and we had the opposite feeling while we were here. It was the most welcoming city and we made some lifelong friends here that will be very very hard to say good-bye to. I know we were put here for a reason...to be surrounded by some of the best people for 5 years while we were going through the craziness of parenting 3 little ones. I love love living here and sincerely hope our paths cross again someday. Thank goodness for social media and free phone calls/text messages to Canada:) We are so thankful for the support of our families as well. We are less than 2 hours away from my parents here and about 5 from Chris's parents. It will take significant more time/money to come and see us now, but they have been awesome about this and I know we will make it work.

(it's a bit of a drive...and yes I did this at 5:15 am...jet lag at its best!)


For now....we still have 5 months here and lots and lots (and lots) of unanswered questions. Chris and I will go on a house-hunting trip and to look at schools sometime in the next couple of months and we'll go from there. I'm trying hard to be patient and to not be sad. There are good days, and there are some harder days too. And btw...this was my 500th post. Didn't do it on purpose, but I guess I saved a big one for #500!