Corvallis

 This week we moved to Corvallis. We are finally in our “for now” home, while we wait to find the right home to buy (and wait for our Saskatchewan house to sell).

We are hot, tired, trying to make our 2400 square feet of stuff fit into a 1600 square foot space, everything is a mess, and the amount of work left to do before life is semi-functional is overwhelming. Not to mention the wildfire smoke, which is intermittently trapping us indoors with no AC. 

But, we are glad to be here. Once all the hard stuff is done, I think we are going to be very happy. In fact, we have already had some pretty good times 😊

Coast day

 Today we visited the Oregon coast. It was Linden’s first time seeing the ocean, and Maren’s first time in five years. It started out cloudy, but turned out to be a beautiful sunny day, and everyone had a fabulous time. 

We are still in limbo, not at all settled, but it was absolutely the kind of day that makes me feel good about moving here. A reminder that it is worth it to have uprooted our family. 

Another reminder:

These lovely ladies are my two best friends from high school, who I have known since kindergarten and first grade. We stayed up late and had a sleepover last weekend, and it felt like coming home ❤️

Yes, we made it to Oregon ❤️

I apologize for the very long delay in posting, but man, moving is kind of exhausting. We did make it to Oregon, though Jeff was delayed by four days because of some issues at the border (a story for another day). But we haven’t exactly moved yet, because we still don’t have a place to live in Corvallis. We are renting for the time being, and it turns out that finding a place in Corvallis (not even a nice place, just any place) is actually really difficult. Hopefully that will be figured out soon 🤞

In the meantime we have been doing the many tasks associated with the process of moving to a new country like getting bank cards, moving money from our Canadian bank to an American one that it turns out doesn’t accept wire transfers (also a story for another day), getting cell phone service established, etc, etc, etc. 

We have also been enjoying what Oregon has to offer, like Fourth of July celebrations, beautiful nature and short hikes, teddy bears picnics, parks and playgrounds, deer in the backyard, county fairs, and of course friends and family. 

A very crazy, unsettled time, but also a memorable one.

Countdown

 It is one week until I fly with Maren and Linden to Oregon. It is starting to feel very real that we are leaving, which comes with lots of excitement and also sadness. I am starting to think about all of the things that I am going to miss here, and more than that all of the people that I am going to miss.

It is a little bit crazy to think that one week from now I will be leaving this house and will never see it again. We put so much into it, thinking of it as our forever home. Although there are many downsides to living in a house this old and many headaches we will be glad to leave behind, there are also many good memories, including memories of our kids’ first years. Leaving this house is definitely bittersweet. 

We have also said a lot of goodbyes to friends in the last week, and more are coming. Friends we have had for more than ten years now, who we have known since before any of us had kids, then watched each other’s kids grow up. And friends we have known for much less time but who have become important parts of our lives. We will miss them very much. 

At the same time, there is so much to look forward to! Family, friends. Mountains, rivers, trees, ocean. Bountiful farmer’s markets, real Christmas trees, much longer gardening season. Better local politics, and a healthcare system that (although quite flawed) is at least not on the verge of collapse. Less mosquitoes and ticks, and no canker worms or tent caterpillars falling out of the trees. And no more six months of ice and snow, winter tires, engine block heaters, roof raking, and -40°C days. Oh, and of course our jobs! Working on the beautiful campus of OSU in a growing and vibrant department, among some truly excellent people.

There is so much that we will appreciate once we are there, and I am taking this one last week to appreciate as much as I can about here ❤️

Happy Father’s Day!

We are very busy with preparations for moving, but not so busy that we couldn’t stop to celebrate today. Linden and I made a rhubarb crumb cake with rhubarb from our garden,

and we had a movie afternoon with Raiders of the Lost Ark. 

Happy Father’s Day!