Bloom where your Planted

Well, it is done!!  We are now officially living in Canada.  We have the keys to our house and there is food in the fridge (not tons, but it is there).  The weather is nice right now, and that is a really good thing.  

I have never had such a hard time saying goodbye before.  I have made the best friends in Florida, they have become our family.  I will forever miss "The city of trees".  Being surrounded by the foliage was so wonderful!  I was lucky to be able to have some good "last" moments. Saying goodbye to everyone at church was really hard, saying goodbye to the rest of my really close knit friends the morning I left was even harder.  When I said goodbye to Irene and Lacy at the airport (they drove me) I felt a part of me died.  The fact that I had actually left my home was my new reality.  I was crying so hard, but the people around me in the airport were so good to me and very helpful.  I had people offer to hold Evan while I got bags off of the security line, I had an agent bring me a wad of paper towel for me to wipe my nose and cry into.  I had people offer to lift my bags into the overhead compartment etc.  I cried almost the whole flight to Calgary.  I finally got through customs and my sweet husband had 2 dozen roses for me.  He welcomed me to Calgary, and I started to cry again.  Needless to say I woke up with puffy eyes the next morning.

We spent the day starting to look for and get the essentials for our house so that we can move in.  This is going to be a big job, seeing as we have nothing!  

I heard a quote about three weeks ago that I am going to display somewhere in my home.  It is the title of this post "Bloom where you are Planted".  I keep telling myself this, and I am trying to focus on the positive.  One positive that I have found about Calgary.  There is a large palm tree at Home Depot that I am going to put in my living room.  It's a start for me.   

My days are numbered

What a whirlwind our life has been the last several days. Thursday was spent packing our house. This is a task that you always underestimate the magnitude of the job. It took ALL day, and we stopped at 2:30am. Thank you to our friends who helped pack, load, and babysit. We went back to the house on Friday at 6:00 and finished everything by 7:00. We were so proud of ourselves, because we were able to get everything into 9ft. of a semi-trailer. This is Justin and Walmir putting in the very last item, before the wall goes up.

After closing the trailer door (and taking a VERY needed shower) we went to breakfast with our second family. The Lowry's adopted us when we moved to Gainesville four years ago. Justin and Joe were best friends and roommates in their undergrad, and that relationship extended to me and the rest of his family. Some of the best times we have had here has been with this family. We always looked forward to Sundays because we knew that we would get to go and have family dinner with them. We shared holidays with them as well. It has been one of the best blessings to have family here to share everything with. We love the Lowry's so much and will not feel complete withouth them near by.

Joe, Millie, Lacy, Me, Evan. Justin, Joseph, Mima, Papa, and Chris

After we said goodbye to Justin, Joe, and our cats (Buddy and Jasmine) we prepared for our good friend, Semra's, graduation from Dental assisting school. We are so proud of her accomplishments and love her to death. I am so glad that I was able to be there to share in her special moment.

Irene, Semra, Kira

One of my very favorite things to do here is float down the Itchetucknee river. I REALLY wanted to be able to do that again before we left for good. Saturday was the best day to do it, but there were storms all over Florida. We decided that it was worth the risk, and that the one pocket of "just rain" would be the one to go over the Itchetucknee. We were right. It rained the whole way down, but it was still soooo much fun! I am really glad that we all did it. It was cold, but it was managable, thank you Jon for lending me your shirt. Having the shirt cover my bare shoulders is what made it not as cold. Definitely a great experience though.

Here is a picture of one of the storms that came our way.

I discovered on the river that our waterproof camera has a video option. (Wish I'd known that a year ago!)

Freezing our butts off!!!

Sunday rolled around and we had another jam packed day. All of us friends went to the Grace Methodist church to be with the King family. They baptized their baby Alex. We are thrilled that we were able to be with you on your very special day. We love you guys and love your baby so much! Congratulations. We then headed over to our church and I had to say goodbye to everyone, as it was my last sunday. That SUCKED!!! I hate saying goodbye, especially to my Young Women. I have LOVED my calling in the Young Womens the last three years and am devastated to leave.
I am now on my last day in Gainesville and getting ready to fly out tomorrow. I don't know if I am ready for this . . . .

The Calm Before the Storm

First we have to give a HUGE congratulations to Jared and Amanda Palmer on the arrival of Carter William Palmer!  Mom and Baby are doing great and we cannot wait to see him next week.  

We knew that this week was going to be one that could potentially send our family to the nut house.  It is the week that we pack our house and move to another country.  We decided to be smart and treat ourselves to a mini-vacation before we had to come home and pack.  Justin had been in Toronto for 4 days taking his last set of dental Boards.  The Da Costa's and I drove to Orlando to pick him up at the airport.  From there we drove straight to Cocoa Beach.  The Da Costa family knew of this awesome place called Wakula Suites.  It was so wonderful, and not very expensive.  It is located on the beach, and has the best pool.  My favorite part of the place was all of the plants.  They have plants, and fruit trees from everywhere in the world.  We picked some mangos and starfruit.  We spent two wonderfully relaxing days on the  beach, and in the pool.  It was amazing!  (Oh and we went to THE Ron Jon's Surf Shop).  

I wonder why they call it star fruit???

So we get home on Tuesday evening and sit down to watch Cloverfield, a scary loud explosion everywhere kind of movie.  During the movie one of our neighbor's knocks on our door and informs us that someone had just smashed into our car and took off.  They pushed our car 10 feet, and up onto the curb.  It was enough damage that the insurance company wrote it off, and now we are down a car.  I guess Justin will not be towing our beloved Honda to Canada now (RIP). Our only consolation is that the car that hit us has to be even more messed up.  There was radiator fluid all over the road, and we know it did not come from our car.  

We have already started to load the truck, and the house is in utter chaos, but we are getting there.  I sure am looking forward to my hair cut today!  

Happy Anniversary!!!!

Husband and Wife

The "Love Tree".  It is a palm tree growing through an oak tree.  Unbelievable?  Believe it! (It is one of the wonders on Ripley's list.    

Evan pulled out my extension!  :-) 

The best thing to happen in the last 5 years ... Evan!!!!

The girls at the beach.  Lacy, Kira, Irene, Semra, and Natasha.  It was so much fun!!!!!

Happy 5 Years to us!!!!  Saturday June 7 was our 5 year anniversary.  This is a rather monumental anniversary and it is great to say that we have been married that long.  It has been a great time and we love each other more than the day we got married.  Justin is such a wonderful man.  Any one who knows him can attest to that.  I am a lucky woman.  :-) 

To celebrate we went to St. Augustine and took some nice portraits of us as a couple to mark the occasion.  We don't have any super nice couple pictures since our engagement and wedding pictures, so we thought that would be nice.  It was so much fun.  We went with our friends the Da Costa's.  We took their pictures, and they took ours.  After that, we met up with the rest of our friends at the beach.  We had a great time and the weather was PERFECT beach weather.  The water was even the perfect temperature.  We could have stayed out there all day!      

San Diego Day 1-2

This is how close we were, dolphins are big, and pilot whales are even bigger (and distribute more water, directly in front of us).

Amazing!

I love these boys ... um ... men :-) 

Day 1- This day was fairly uneventful.  We woke up at 4:15 in the morning and drove to the Gainesville airport, where I medicated myself (I hate to fly) and we spent the next 5 hours in the air on our way to San Diego to be at my brothers wedding.  We got home, unloaded our things, and figured out the plans for the rest of the week.  As it turns out, we were able to go to dinner with one of my girlfriends, Claudia and my cousin, Peter.  I knew this would be one of my only opportunities of spending time with either one, so we combined it and all went out together.  It was such a fun dinner!   

Day 2- Of the five years that we have been married Justin has never been to Sea World, and REALLY wanted to go.  It was great for me too, because I haven't been since high school.  We, especially me, really enjoyed our family day at the park.  The park has changed a ton since I had been last.  I loved the Shamu show, Believe, and our seats for the Dolphin show could not have been better.  We sat in the second row (soak zone), but just off the center.  We did indeed get splashed, but it was totally worth it for the view that we had.  At least we weren't in the center section, they truly got SOAKED!  We were just really wet :-) 

         That night I met up with one of my best friends Mandy, and all of us sisters headed to Sharley's bridal shower (Sharley is my new sister-in-law).  The highlight of the party was when my husband and brothers showed up for a surprise show.  It was HILARIOUS!!!!!  I wonder if she questioned her decision to join our family after that.   

San Diego Day 3

Day 3- I was able to spend the day with my mom, Grandma Shaw, and Nana, Sydney, and Evan shopping.  Justin went and did “boy stuff”,  I’m still not sure what they did.  It was a wonderful “girl”day, that I think Evan enjoyed as much as I did.  Who wouldn’t adore getting so much special attention from a Grandma, and two Great Grandma’s?  After we were done shopping we went to a place called Cheeburger Cheeburger (yes I spelled it correctly).  This place was very cool.  They had a gazillion toppings for your burger, no limitations, and over 3,000 shake possibilities (up to 5 flavors).  I got a burger with two onion rings, honey mustard, tomato, mayonnaise, and peanut butter.  It was on the menu options so I had to try it.  It was actually pretty good!  I also got a birthday cake, toffee, toffee shake.  Mine was excellent, and then I tasted my moms.  I thought I was going to die, her shake was so good.  She got a chocolate peanut butter shake.                             We got home and got ready for the temple.  Sharley went through the temple for the first time.  It was a beautiful session, and sitting behind Sharley the whole time just reminded me of my first time through.  It is such a special experience that I will carry with me forever.