And then our world was turned upside down!
To be honest, my initial reaction wasn't great! All of you know I'm a planner and Canada was no where in my plan! But, God knows better than I do, and oh boy did He have a plan for us! After I had time to let the reality of the situation set in, I had no doubts that He was putting us where we needed to be, but this has been a practice of faith. Between Jacob and me, the oil and gas industry has taken us from Mississippi to Louisiana, Georgia, Arkansas, and Texas. But, this would be our first time out of the Southeast United States and the culture that we knew.
When we moved to Houston, Brenna wasn't even 2 years old and still very much a baby. That move had no impact on her. We've always been very honest with her about the fact that one day we would have to move. With Jacob's job, movement is inevitable and while its not the kind of life he or I knew as children, it's the life we have. When we broke the news to Brenna, of course her initial reaction was no better than mine! LOL! Can't really blame her for that! But after talking things through she quickly picked up a positive attitude about the change. Her biggest concern was leaving behind her friends. We've grown so close to our "extended" family in Houston and I knew saying goodbye would be hard for both her and us. But, we tried our best to look ahead to the new exciting changes that were coming. Brenna has never seen snow and her favorite place is the beach. Sarnia provides the best of both worlds for her. Sarnia is located on one of the Great Lakes, Lake Huron. So summers will be spent at the beach and obviously our winters will provide plenty of snow! We even stopped in for a hockey game at Memorial City so Brenna could see the new (to us) sport of hockey.
Initially, there wasn't much we could do until Jacob's Visa was approved, so the first few weeks after we found out were spent preparing for the move. It was a crazy race to purge the house of all unnecessary things. The old saying is true, everything is bigger in Texas, especially the houses! I knew that a portion of our stuff would have to be stored while we were away in Canada and that we would likely be downsizing. After giving away, donating, and selling a ton of stuff, it was all to make room for a new bulky winter wardrobe! My shopping suddenly included snow boots, snow pants, parkas, and insulating base layers! Most of our winter clothes are now rated for 40 below! And its a good thing too, because when the Visa was finally approved Jacob and I paid our first visit to Canada. It was very cold and snowy! It was a hectic week, but we manage to find a house and a school and get the basics set up for our permanent return in a few weeks.
Beautiful frozen Lake Huron
Jacob ventured out somewhere over the shoreline of Lake Huron.
After we returned home from our trip, everything moved very quickly. We listed the house for sale the following Tuesday and sold it in 3 days! God is good! And this was such a blessing, not just because we wanted to sell the house, but to sell it so quickly eliminated some stress. The expatriate process itself was stressful enough. Just managing all the paperwork associated with work visas, exporting vehicles, the cats health certifications, home, health, and auto insurance, expat taxation, storage and freight valuations and shipments, and school registration was nearly all we could handle. Couple that with the many goodbyes and by the final week, I was quickly reaching the end of my sanity! There were lots of "lasts!" Last group date night, last family movie night in the CineMc, last visit to the Palladium, and so many last get togethers with friends. That last week was tough!
The actual move stretched out over 6 days! The moving truck packed up and loaded for storage on a Tuesday and Wednesday. The next truck packed up and loaded for Canada on Thursday and Friday. Four straight days with total strangers in your house, asking a million questions and rummaging through your stuff can become very uncomfortable. Thank heavens for some fantastic family and friends who took us in that final week! Lunch found its was to my house when there was no pantry and I couldn't leave, Brenna got picked up from school everyday, and she was always entertained with friends in the afternoons! Jacob left Thursday morning with the cats headed to his brothers house near Memphis. The cats are old and Pickles has a heart problem, so flying with them wasn't possible. Therefore, the only option was to drive them there! The other McAlister's took care of Jacob and the cats, while Brenna and I stayed behind to oversee the rest of the packing. By Friday Jacob was gone, the house was empty, and our car was loaded on a trailer for transport to Canada. Our sweet friends, the Sanford's and the Hlavaty's took me and Brenna in for the weekend while Jacob continued his road trip north. Our last Saturday was beautiful with warm weather and perfect skies. We cooked out with friends and ate on the patio while the kids played outside. We couldn't have asked for a better ending! Sunday morning Brenna and I hopped on a one-way flight from Houston to Detroit with hopes that Jacob would be at the other end to pick us up!
Jacob drove more than 1500 miles, over three days, with two cats! So comparatively, Brenna's and my trip was pretty easy and uneventful! She mostly played on the iPad for the 3.5 hour flight and Jacob picked us up at the Detroit airport with Krispy Kreme donuts! The drive from Detroit to Sarnia was quick and easy until we got to the border. After passing through customs and getting Brenna a visitor's pass on Jacob work visa, we were on our way to home sweet home, the Canadian version! While most of the snow had melted, we still had snow drifts in the shady areas along the sides of the house and fence. Even this was more snow than Brenna had seen before and it was plenty to keep her entertained our first few days at the new house.
It turned out that our first day here was my birthday! What did I do for my birthday? I moved to Canada! That's a surprise I never would have thought of! We weren't here long before we got our first visitor. The wife of a coworker from our ExxonMobil family stopped in with cupcakes to celebrate my birthday! It as a very sweet gesture and helped me to realize that we aren't here all alone! Right now there are three families that are here on assignment that we've worked with previously in Beaumont. So there are some Texans in Canada!
The only hiccup about the house was that our stuff wasn't getting there for another week! So Brenna and I stayed in a hotel while Jacob toughed it out in a sleeping bag at the house with cats. Brenna didn't complain too much, because the hotel had an indoor pool. Jacob had brought over the computer and a small TV with him, so we could at least stay connected with the world when we were at the house. He picked up a rental car, since his car was 2 weeks from arriving in Canada. Things weren't exactly comfortable, but we were managing. Jacob started work immediately and Brenna went for her first "visiting day" at school on Thursday. She liked it so much that she asked to go back on Friday, even though we weren't scheduled to enroll until the following Monday. She's enrolled at a very small private Christian academy here in Sarnia. This is our first private school experience, but so far we've all been very pleased. From Brenna's stand point, what's not to like! They play on the playground before school, they get two recesses and two lunches during school, and the 1-hour after school homework sessions got left behind in Texas! Overall all it seems Brenna is ahead of the game on curriculum in everything except French! The whole school routine and procedures have been totally different from what we're accustomed to, but its been a nice change so far.
There's also the adjustment to the metric system. Gas is in $/liter. I have no idea what the temperature is in Celsius and I find it difficult to drive 60 km/h. I'm sure this is all things that I will learn to convert easily, but for now it's just annoying.
First day of 1st Grade, again!
When the truck finally showed up I became very away of just how small this house was. Boxes covered the floor of the upstairs, furniture was randomly put into any place it would fit, and I began to get very concerned that we would fit everything in! This is what happens when you nearly cut the size of your house in half, but only send a third of your stuff to storage! Lucky for us we have a large garage and rough room in the basement. A rough room is the equivalent to an attic.
I began working away at the boxes one room at a time, getting our room and Brenna's room first so everyone could start settling in. Brenna enjoyed the hot tub and the cats easily made the adjustment. For those that know our cats, it's not like they stress themselves out over anything. Moose was content once our bed was up and Pickles enjoyed exploring the new house, popping up in crazy places like behind the microwave, in the shower, and under piles of packing papers. We also restocked the kitchen and discovered that things are crazy expensive here. Expect to pay $2.80 for a 2-liter and over $5/gallon for gas! I laughed my way through my first grocery shopping experience because it was very apparent that we were no longer in the South. Don't expect to find things like hot'n spicy mayo or seasoned chili beans here. In general the food is bland and without seasoning compared to the southern and southwest flavors that we love. They think if you add a few slivers of red pepper to something, it's called chipotle! They don't have any of the brands that I use, so I've had to switch all of my most basic stuff. And even if they did have our brand you had to pay close attention because all the labels here are different since everything is in English and French. This causes a problem when you're trying to convince your 6-year old that it is indeed the exact same mac-n-cheese as back home in the US! They don't have biscuits or sharp cheddar cheese. They have breakfast sausage links but no sausage patties or season ground sausage. These things are a major issue for a sausage and biscuit lovin' southern family. Also, they have no brewed ice tea, Dr. Pepper, Popeyes, Chick-fil-A, or Mexican restaurants! Since all of these are staples in my diet, I expected to lose 5 pounds in my first 2 weeks here. Turns out, I just replaced those calories with Tim Horton's hot chocolate. Hot chocolate was something I enjoyed maybe twice a year back in Texas. Here's its almost turned into a necessary part of warming up! Tim Horton's is like the Canadian version of Starbucks, in that there's one on every corner! I have been able to find most of my usually brands across the border in Port Huron, but crossing the border has proved to be a problem. When a Korean man with a US passport claims to live in Canada, but drives a car with Texas tags, needless to say they don't just wave you through. You get "randomly" selected for an inspection. Likewise, on the way back instead of getting waved through as all others do, you get stopped to pay duty on the goods you're bringing across. Since Ontario tax is 13% that kinda negates any savings you may have had from shopping on the US side. We've applied for Nexus cards which should help at border crossings, but we haven't received them yet.
After things at the house started to find its place, we ventured out for a visit to Lake Huron so Brenna could see the beach. We went back to the same spot Jacob and I visited earlier. Of course, things looked completely different. There was still some snow of the ground, but the lake was no longer frozen. Brenna loved it! According to her, the only thing more fun than building a sand castle on the beach is building a snowman. She walked out on some of the snow at the shoreline. I followed beside her, only to break through the ice and end up knee deep in Lake Huron!
We didn't have to wait long for our first snow! Even I was excited at the forecast. We had talked so much about it with Brenna ahead of the move that I really wanted her to get to experience snow falling from the sky at least once before having to wait until next winter. It was only about 2 inches of snow, but it was a perfect first experience! She tasted her first snowflake, had a snowball fight, and built her first snowman. And, I was very happy with our new winter wardrobe, because despite the fact that is was 24 degrees outside, we never felt a thing! However, I nearly passed out from over heating before I could get all my garb off once we got back inside! We were very well insulated! While Moose wasn't at all interested, Pickles wanted to check out the snow. It only took about 5 minutes before he decided snow wasn't his thing and wanted to go back inside. The snow was fun while we were playing in it, but driving in it was a different story. My first experience was a little nerve racking since visibility was so low. This is definitely something I'm not looking forward to next winter!
At this posting, all the boxes are unpacked, the house is in order, Jacob is getting along with the new job, and Brenna loves her new school. I'm hoping to start volunteering at her school this week and we've been visiting the churches in the area looking for a new church home. We've met all the neighbors on the street and they've all been very friendly and welcoming. There's 14 kids on our street, most are girls. Brenna's already made lots of new friends and its a daily occurrence to have a knock on the door with some kid asking if Brenna can come out and play. Sarnia is small but it has everything we need for the day-to-day stuff. Brenna is registered for soccer, which starts in May and I'm looking into some summer camps for her. We're quickly finding our new normal, or the Canadian version of it at least! We wanted to thank everyone for all the calls, messages, thoughts, and prayers during our transition. They were all appreciated and greatly felt!
So, who's coming to visit?
No comments:
Post a Comment