The trip

We're still having a lot of fun in Eugene. We've almost seen everything we came here to see, but there's still a few people to visit.

It's been a little complicated because both of the kids got really sick. Freya actually had to go to the hospital twice. Nothing extremely serious, just bad enough that she needed help from the doctors. We've spent the last couple days staying with a friend, and then we're going back to Paula's for two nights and then staying in Portland for a few nights. We've actually changed our plans a bit because, so now we'll leave earlier. Alyssa is actually going to go up a few days before me to get the house ready and prepare for the upcoming term.

The kids already got to open some holiday presents, and we're opening yet more on Wednesday when more family come to visit.

Back in the US...

We made it down here last Thursday and we've been having some vacation and visiting! We got in to Eugene Thursday night and we're staying with Paula. We've already seen a few friends and a bit of Eugene, but there's still a lot more to do and we're also going to be staying over in Salem and Portland.

Odin is really have a great time because he gets to go to Unity School again. He was set to spend the night at Armstrong's house tonight but he ended up coughing a lot and just seemed really sick so we're giving him a day or two to recover. He was really beat up about it, and just cried himself to sleep, but he needs the rest and he'll understand tomorrow. Freya hasn't really gotten to go do anything yet, but she has fun with Grandma anyway, doing lots of shopping and such.

We're just trying to relax and enjoy ourselves, while getting to see some of the people we miss and enjoy the holidays.

Teaching!

Alyssa had her last day of school on Friday, and now she's just wrapping up projects by deadlines to finish out her first term. We're all glad it's over, we can finally explore this city and get in some vacation time!

Oh! More great news! Alyssa applied to teach a class at UO this summer and she was approved! So long as she gets enough students enrolled, they are going to pay her to teach a class for four weeks over the summer! It's really exciting, and she's so happy to get a fun teaching opportunity/experience.

Freya is still trying to get her molars through. It's been almost a month now, and it is making sleep hard to come by. She's starting to get a lot better with her potty training though, so that's good news.

Odin keeps going to skate lessons, but he's still a little timid. Now that Alyssa is off and we have some free time, we were thinking of taking him to some free skate hours to get a little extra practice in.

Alyssa and I have finally found some like-minded individuals close to our age who seem eager to hang out. It's nice to know some people in this city; we haven't really had anyone to socialize with.

Update!

I know, I know, I haven't posted in a while. Not a whole lot new has happened, so we've mostly just been chugging along.

Odin's hockey lessons are going well, though he always feigns being tired and doesn't get really in to it. Part of that is because Freya does have a habit of waking him up earlier in the morning than he wants to be up, but I think some of it is also that he's timid. We're probably going to take him to a free-skate time at the rink this weekend to get some extra practice in. One night I was wandering around with the kids and we walked in to the rink (they keep it open to everyone unless there's a for-paying-ticketholders-only game going on) and there happened to be some kind of free or exhibition game so we got to watch that. It was fun, and I think it'll make Odin want to practice a little more.

It snowed here a couple days ago! It stuck around for a day or so and then started to melt. Pretty cool. It's actually been really cold here. And the days are almost nights. I mean, the Sun does come up, but it's always behind a gray wall of clouds and it sets again around 4 or 5pm. It's a little depressing, actually, but there is a blue-sky day here and there.

(I'm pretty sure this is the first time Freya has seen snow....)

We're really excited for vacation. Alyssa's last week starts on Monday, and after that we're in the clear (except for a few projects she'll have to finish). We're going to spend a couple weeks hanging out and exploring the city we live in (now that we'll have the time) and traveling around to see what there is here. We're thinking about joining a car co-op so we can have some wheels.

In the middle of December and through the end of the year, we'll be heading down to Oregon! This trip will be fun because of the length. Normally, we're only visiting for a few days so it's hard to do all the things we want to do and see all the people. This time, we'll have as much leisure as we want, and even a little kid-free time thanks to Grandma and Zaideh! We miss all our old stomping grounds a lot, and we're excited to do some tax-free shopping and bring back some favourite products to the land of the CND (ie: there is a serious lack of Trader Joe's here).

Skating!!

Odin on ice!!!

Ice skating today!

Odin's first ice skating lesson is today. It's a class that builds kids up to the hockey lessons if they haven't ever been on the ice before. I'm really excited. Alyssa will be going out on the ice with him, and Freya and I will watch and take pictures.

We had a pretty fun Halloween. Odin ran in to some of his friends from school so we got to walk around with them. Trick-or-treating in a family housing neighbourhood is really fun because there's just so many kids out, and all the townhouses and apartments around here are designed like little villages with brick/cobble roads, so it's all nice and enclosed and you can just let the kids run around and look at all the decorations.

We've all been passing an illness around. Odin and Alyssa had it, with a fever and sore throat, and now Freya's got it. She can barely swallow and there are little white sores in her mouth. She's really suffering. So far I've just gotten a light cough, lucky there. Freya keeps crying and saying "I want my owie to go away!" She says she has marbles in her mouth, which is cute, but it means she's in pain....

Fun day, but Odin is sick

Today started pretty fun. We headed out to Broadway (which is a lot like Hawthorne in Portland) to do some exploring and a little shopping, and we started with a hair cut for Odin. It was at this great place called Melonheads where they work with children only, and the kids get to sit in cool chairs that are race cars and air planes and motorcycles. Odin chose Thomas the Tank Engine. They even gave Freya a French braid for free...

We walked around a bit, bought some new clothes for the kids and used some of Freya's birthday money to get her a few things, then walked around some more and headed home for snacks.

When we got home, we all had a couch party to watch some movies, and we noticed that Odin felt really warm. He had a pretty high temperature. He basically crashed around 4 or so and we let him sleep until about 6. We woke him up again for a couple hours and put him to bed at 8, he's just so tired. You know Odin is sick when he sits still and is quiet.

I think he'll be fine by the middle of the day tomorrow, but he was feeling really bad tonight. Poor guy. We're all getting it though; Alyssa and I are coughing pretty bad, and we've all had runny noses.

Freya is fine, I think because she's the one who brought it home. Here's a picture of her video-chatting with Grandma:

Kerplunk!

Freya finally went #2 in the toilet! Earlier today she had to go, and she was standing in a room by herself like she always does, but she had underwear on. I convinced her (finally) that if she sat on the toilet like Odin, it wouldn't mess up her undies, so she did it. Nothing happened (Freya usually has several false alarms before she's finally ready, even stretching over a couple days), but later today she really had to go, and I caught her just as she was really pushing and put her on the toilet. She didn't like it at first, but when she got off and saw it in there, just like when Odin does it, she really thought that was cool. Then she started to go a little more and asked if she could sit back down on it, so I helped her and she finished.

She was really excited about it, and thought it was so cool to flush the toilet on her own. We're finally getin there!

Yay! Pictures

Real quick; I've uploaded the pictures I've taken so far with my new phone. There's some new ones in the old Jul - Sep '11 album, and a new Oct - Dec '11 album. Enjoy!

Oct - Dec '11

From Oct - Dec '11

From Jul - Sep '11

Happy Birthday to Freya!

Freya is 2 years old today!!!!!

Not a baby anymore. Oh man, I can't believe she's two!! I remember feeling similar when Odin turned two.... She's so big now, and she talks so much that she hasn't seemed much like a baby anyway. But she's still the baby of the family, so....

It's been a fun birthday for Freya. Grandma is in town so she got to be here for the festivities. We took the kids out for some fun in the Kitsilano neighbourhood, which feels a lot like Hawthorne in SE Portland. There's a lot of shops and eateries, tons of fun places to look in to and buy stuff. We went to a huge costume shop, a toy store, a great Thai food cafe, clothing stores, all kinds of stuff. We just spent a few hours walkin' up and down the street.

We all came home and had cake and singing, followed by presents. Zaideh and Nana phoned in to sing with us, and we had a great time.

We've given up on potty training in favour of weening (bad to do both at the same time). Freya nurses like she's 3 months old (sometimes), so we're cutting back. Today she got to in the morning, once in the afternoon, and right before bed, and she did fine. We'll see how it goes, give her more food (maybe she'll eat more of it since she's nursing less) and gradually eliminate more of the nursings until she's gone. Not sure what the night-time plan is.

We found Odin some ice skates, too. We were ad a re-sale shop and they had one pair and they were Odin's exact size! We just need to find him some gear and he can start his hockey lessons. He also got some great new sneakers that look like Star Wars Stormtroopers and they light up in the visors.

I've been taking tons of pictures, and Grandma Paula has more, so I'll be uploading a ton of them soon. I've got thousands of pictures in our albums, and I've found even more that I haven't uploaded. All the originals are stored in tons of different locations on my computer, and I want to re-upload everything because I can keep the original sizes and tag all the people in them. It's a huge project, but this weekend is Thanksgiving so we have extra time off, and I might try to tackle at least part of it....

I know, I know

... it's been a while since my last post. I have no excuses.

We did end up going to Eugene last weekend. It was fun; we got to see some people, do a few fun Eugene-only stuff, get some tax/free shopping in, etc. We had to help Dad pack, and we ended up getting a lot done, so that was good.

We've seen a little bit of regression of behaviour since the trip. With Odin, I suspect it is because he had the chance to see how much he is now missing from the only life he knew before. With Freya, it's probably because she had a bad cold for a while. Both of them are acting out and being disobedient (Odin more) and Freya is having lots of trouble getting through the night without waking up to eat a lot.

Odin did get the chance to stay overnight at Armstrongs house in Eugene, though. That was good for him. He had a lot of fun. Freya stayed every night at Grandma's house, which was great for her because she got to have fun and hang out (and great for us because we got to sleep!).

Alyssa's classes have been going well. Keeps her busy. She's now marking assignments from the class she assists. She's discovering that the opportunities for work and performance here are abundant, so she is (of course) signing up for every project that calls for works. It's a typical Alyssa thing, but she somehow manages to pull it all off. I helped her edit her Masters' Thesis research proposal today, and let me tell you, it's a good one!

I've slacked off in my own studies quite a bit, so this week I'm kicking my butt back in to shape and getting back to it. I'll also be in a German class every Thursday starting this week. What happened to the French lessons? Linda and I found it hard to find reliable times to meet, and we sort of lost contact with each other, so that just kinda dropped off.

All in all, we're having a great time. We definitely miss some things we were reminded of in Eugene, but it's going well here. :)

It begins!

A lot has been going on around here. Freya just a day or two ago finished getting her 2-year molars, or at least I think so since she isn't complaining as much. They aren't all the way through, but they must be about done. Odin has been sounding out letters to read words, and he's actually pretty good at it! He also can't wait to start his hockey and French lessons.

Alyssa spent most of today in an orientation for her teaching duties. She is apparently part of a union, with benefits and such, and she is really excited to begin.

The weather has been very warm around here, and we're enjoying as much of the sun as we can before the season changes. I spend most of my time just hanging out with the kids, so we hit a lot of parks and forest trails and such.

We'll be taking a trip down to Eugene next week. Mostly we'll be helping Dad pack up his things for his move to Salem, but we'll also see some of our favourite people and places. Should be fun.

Training

Freya is almost ready to get out of diapers! Ok, that may be jumping the gun a little bit, but she's getting there. We've done the same thing we did with Odin; no pants or diaper when in the house, so she knows what happens when she pees. Now she's getting to the point of being able to know when she's about to, and she'll run to the bathroom. She's peed all over herself while standing at the toilet a few times (trying to mimic Odin), but today she finally sat on her own little potty and did it because she had gone in there to keep Odin company while we went #2. She doesn't like to get underwear wet (she's been insisting on wearing Odin's all the time) so we're going to take her underwear shopping when we get our money to help finish training her (also what we did for Odin).

Alyssa's been preparing to start school on Monday. I'm really excited to see how it turns out, and what her teaching gig is like.

We continue to work with Odin on spelling and reading. He can read a few simple words (some from memory, sure, but some new ones he figures out on his own), and he'll follow along with spelling something if it's not too long and he doesn't have something else to do. He's also taken to playing Super Mario, the first one on the NES. He's not bad at it; he can almost beat the first level.

I've been taking the French lessons with a tutor, but I'm not really enthusiastic about it, so I'm going to stop. We've found a community-ed class for German that I'm going to enroll in instead. I really can't wait for that. I've been a little hard on myself lately for not studying or translating or doing any work, but Alyssa convinced me that I should just take a damned vacation already, so I am.

Almost ready!

Alyssa's first year of Grad school starts in about a fortnight. She'll go to some orientation for her teaching assistantship, take her entrance exams, and begin in the first week of September! She's been studying her butt of since we got up here, and I know she'll do great.

Odin's school will also be starting. We have an appointment on the 7th to meet his teachers, and then we spend the first week going to school with him based on their adjustment schedule, to help ease kids in to their new school. (Odin will just jump right in and never look back, but not every kid is like that.) We're also going to sign him up for hockey lessons, and a French class. I'm learning French with a woman from Paris whom I'm helping with her English, so hopefully I'll be able to keep up with Odin and we can try to talk to each other en Français.

Freya is getting more and more talkative. She can form sentences, and understands a few tenses and even participles. We're trying to potty-train her right now, with slow but reasonable success. We're also trying to get her to eat more solid food and nurse less. It's slow, but we'll get there.

I've been subjecting the kids to music whenever I hang out with them (cleaning the house together, playing in a room while Mommy studies, etc.) and it is interesting to see what they like. They love The Beatles and a lot of Elton John. The like most rock like AC/DC, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and heavy metal like The Black Mages and Metallica.

Oh, almost forgot! We have internet at home now! That's how I'm posting this. It's somewhat limited compared to the US, but still more than enough for us. So we can make internet calls now (voice or video) and check our email for messages and such.

We've found a pretty cool way to get groceries. They deliver them to your house, either as you order them, or on a weekly/bi-weekly/monthly schedule. You can tell them what things you want in your Standing Order (some items are discounted when added to a standing order), and which ones you want to come each week, or each month, or what have you, based on how fast you think you'll use it up and how often you'll need more. Our favourite thing about it, though, is the Harvest Box. The harvest box is a selection of produce that they make for you. They give you a long list (really long, it's got produce on it I've never heard of) and you select on there which ones you like or don't like, how often you'd like to see them when they're available, and what priority you want them in (in case there's something you want more than another thing even when they're both available). Then you just set a price limit (they help you estimate how much you need to spend to feed your family size 5 servings of fruit and vegetables per week), and they bring you one with each delivery. They let you see it first so you can make adjustments, but basically it makes a selection for you and just gets delivered.

As soon as we get our money, we're going to try it out. It's a lot easier to sit together on the computer and carefully select what we want (or need for the meal plans) based on our funds than it is to try and figure it out in the middle of the grocery store with two kids who really don't want to sit in the stroller.

Visits and milestones

Paula and Kellie came up for a few days! We had a lot of fun taking them around to enjoy our new area. We didn't actually see much of Vancouver (mostly we stayed in the college area, since transportation was a little bit of an issue), but the point was that we all got to see each other. They were very helpful in getting us food; they brought tons of groceries from Eugene with the money we'd left them, and lots more when they got up here, plus they took us out to eat a lot. We saw the sights and walked around quite a bit. We took them to our favourite areas near by and even marched them down to the clothing optional beach. The weather is perfect on the beach every day we go and the water is warm enough to swim in. I've never swam in an ocean (too cold in Oregon) so that was pretty fun. The kids were born to be at the beach, they had a great time. I have a lot of pictures to upload, but haven't yet, so hopefully those will be up soon. (Maybe after I complete this post.)

Freya has been really in to drawing lately; it's all she ever wants to do. Her and Odin draw together in their room a lot, it's really cute. She's started walking up to me, blinking cutely, and then saying "Daddy, can I? Please?" whenever she wants something. The first time she did it I almost died, and I looked over at Alyssa and told her I'd need to start saving up now for a pony and a car if I wanted to stay ahead of the game.

Odin has always been really kinetic, so with all the free time and play space, he's taken to riding his bike, going to the park a lot, and endlessly building structures with his toys. He's also started to learn how to write a few letters (just "A" and "B" so far), and I think he can read a few words he knows.

We're looking in to how we can make trips to Eugene and Portland for visits. We've found out that we can rent a car for just about the same price as the train, or maybe a little more, but the benefit is that we can leave at our convenience and the trip would be much shorter, plus we'd have a car to drive around whenever we visit.

We'll probably get an internet connection in the house soon, right after we work out all the details. It will have limited bandwidth, but we can still communicate at least.

I'll work on getting those photos uploaded. If you still don't have the link, here it is: http://picasaweb.google.com/spunkytofu

Community

We're still having a ball up here. Last Saturday we went with a bunch of other families in our community to the Nitobe Memorial Gardens. Its a Japanese garden which is just beautiful, and we get in for free! I have pictures but I can't upload them yet. We had a blast, the place is amazing. I'm going to make trips back there to meditate. Later that day I took the kids to some robot racing, which was really fun. There's just tons of stuff to do here, and most of it is free and the kids love it!

The whole week has mostly been about hanging out and enjoying ourselves. We've been trying to stretch our groceries out a bit, and cook in some new ways. We've walked around to see more of the area. We've decided on some favourite places to frequent. Its really nice here.

Alyssa is still hard at studying, trying to get ready for her coming year of being a grad student and a teacher (and her entrance exams, to boot). I've started a language exchange with someone from Paris. She is teaching me French while I help her with her English. We've met once, and I think we're meeting again today.

The kids are just great. They love to play; its so easy to take them to a park for for a hike in the woods. We live a stone's throw from Pacific Spirit Regional Park, which is a forest 3 or 4 times the size of UBC campus (for those of you who don't know, UBC is about 3 or 4 times the size of UO campus). We've barely scratched the surface of its trails. (And we expect to find several Stargate SG-1 shooting locations!)

Wednesday night Alyssa went to the Distant Worlds concert that I got her tickets for. It was a stroke of luck that they were coming to Vancouver when we'd be here, and we payed extra for her ticket so she could actually meet Nobuo Uematsu and Arnie Roth! We have a picture of that as well, but I didn't bring the right computer with me to upload the photos, so another time. She said it was the opportunity of a lifetime, so I'm glad we were able to send her.

Tomorrow night, Paula and Kellie get in to town to visit us! They'll stay with us that night since they get in so late, and be here for 4 or 5 days. It'll be really fun to hang out with them and show them the area. And the kids can't wait to see Grandma. :)

We finally got doctors up here. See them in the second week of August, which is not too long a wait for first appointments. The insurance pays for everything, so we can get dental, massages, acupuncture, I can get my foot looked at, and we can come in as often as we need. Plus, the hospital where all these doctors are is a half-kilometer walk up the road from us.

Well, I took advantage of Freya falling asleep on our walk to sit and write this. Better get back home. :)

Fun in the sun!

I suspect that my updates will be farther between but greater in length, owing to the lack of internet in our home.

We are having a great time here. There's been a few bumps as we get used to what things cost, but it'll work out. The weather has been a little strange; rainy but warm for a few days, and now plenty of sun, but I hear that is happening elsewhere as well so I don't chalk it up to the region just yet. We do get some nice hot, sunny days, and we've taken to adventures outside to enjoy them.

There's so many free community events going on in our neighborhood to take the kids to go play. It's really amazing what there is. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we take Freya (and sometimes Odin) to a massive play date in a multipurpose room about twice the size of a basketball court. There's toys everywhere, play houses, cars to ride in, and they do a snack, book reading, singing, and other such things. We signed Odin up for a free class every Tuesday in the same room where he does guided arts and crafts. Last week (the first week) he came home with a fridge magnet of him and one of Freya, plus a 5x7 wooden photo frame which he had painted himself. This week he made masks for himself and Freya. (We got some pictures of that, but I haven't uploaded them yet.) Today Alyssa is taking Odin for some quality time to a Biodiversity museum since she gets in free as a student and he does as a child. (There's actually a ton of museums and attractions to within walking distance which are free for all of us except me until I become a student as well, so entertainment is really easy.) He's been excited about it all week, I gave Alyssa the camera.

We've found a lot of our favourite little places to hang out or go eat, such as forest trails, parks, walks in gardens, and the like. One of the kids' favourite treats is Tim Bits, which are small boxes of a few donut-holes from Vancouver's version of a Dutch Bros, called Tim Horton's. There's a lot of really cool looking restaurants around here for any kind of food we could want at any meal, so it's going to take us a long time to try them all.

Lately Freya loves to draw. She gets paper and a pen whenever she can and draws all over it, then comes to us and says "Look what I draw!" or some other proud exclamation. We're working on her table manners and trying to start the potty training.

Odin also likes to draw, but he's been focusing on building and imaginary play with all his toys now that he has plenty of room to play in the house. It's actually surprising how much space we have, when you stop to look around at it all.

Alyssa and I have been experimenting with new ways to cook on a smaller budget. We're making a lot of raw recipes, because it's easy to get cheap produce here and it tends to make a lot, plus there's no part of anything that goes to waste; excess or un-used parts of food can be used in another recipe. In fact, last night we made our own almond milk (way cheaper to make it with almonds than to buy it) and today we are using the leftover pulp to make an almond bread, so we spent way less on something that made tons more food, twice.

Alyssa's been hard at the studying for her first year. I'm really excited for her; she gets to teach a class and work in a really nice, new lab. One thing that killed us about her old lab was that she only had it at certain times so she had to go no matter what was going on at home, and it was really far away. Her new lab is a 5 minute walk from here, and it's open 24 hours without scheduling, so she can go one night she feels like it, and the next night she doesn't have to if the kids are staying up late, or something. It's going to be really different.

I'm trying to use my year off to catch up on some studies. I promised myself I wouldn't worry about it until we were all settled (which would give me a few weeks to relax), but we are now and I'm trying to motivate myself to get back in the saddle. So far with no success, but I'll get my act together. :)

We still have to find doctors for all four of us, but it looks like our insurance is going to come in in a day or so, so we can get whatever treatment we need. We still need to get Alyssa's Social Insurance Number so she can get paid for working, but after that, there's no red-tape to take care of, so we can just relax and enjoy ourselves.

It's so nice here being able to live in a nice area, with lots of community around, and plenty of fun and free things within walking distance for us all to have a fun day. Just a couple days ago we found the beach. It was about a 10 story hike down some wooden stairs (which was murder coming back up) through a beautiful forest, and the beach was perfect. There's hardly any wind (because it's in a bay, though still ocean water), and the water is about as warm as a public pool so swimming is super easy. I swam in the Umpqua and it was colder.

Well, that will do for now. Alyssa is at the museum with Odin and I'm out for a walk with Freya, so I think we'll go. I thought it would be a long post.

Eh?

In short, all is well in the land of the CND.

In long;

We got in on the train at about 11:30 - 40 minutes late thanks to some errant freight trains. Customs took a while because we had so much luggage (we were moving, after all). They didn't really search us at all, but we had to go to immigration to get documents for the kids, which took until about 1am or so. We got a taxi home and put the kids in bed. Unfortunately, poor Odin woke up in the middle of the night in his new bed and had no idea what had happened (he had fallen asleep in the taxi) and I found him clawing at the front door and screaming for Mommy and Daddy in the middle of the night. (He's was fine the next night.)

We love our new apartment. The kids have a huge room with plenty of floor space to play, and we bought them some great furniture which is working out great. Our room is pretty small, but very simple (all we need is a bed and a dresser, we have nothing else in it) so it's nice. The kitchen is good, we have lots of closet space and a huge laundry room for storage. The dining room has a linoleum floor - thank Zeus! We don't have to worry about spills! It's quite big and fits our bookcases in it with plenty of room to walk around the table (the kids even drive around it in cars they can sit on and push around). The living room is absolutely huge, and we have more windows than walls. There's room for all our furniture (which looks stylish and is amazing, thanks to Mom's generosity and Ikea) and still plenty of floor space and room to stretch or dance around the apartment. We also have a nice deck which views one of the many parks/playgrounds around here, though right now it's filled with cardboard boxes that need to be torn down. (See also the short video tour I shot of our place.)

We've spent most of our first few days getting acclimated to the new surroundings. We've found all the local spots we love. There's a giant grocery store a little under a kilometer walk south of us, along with a sushi place, a coffee house, and all kinds of other stuff like a mini metropolis. A little while further is the UBC farm which has a Farmer's market every Saturday (did that today). Just north of us a few blocks is another grocery store. Add that to the main grocery store we bus to down the road, and we have three of them. It works out well because each one is good for different products and seasonal items, so we can always get things at the cheapest price around by going to the right one at the right time. There are also numerous convenient stores, restaurants and eateries, and attractions within blocks of us. (Yesterday alone on one walk, we passed by a pizza place, sushi shop, Indian curry house, bubble tea house, and four others, all in the same general area.)

Right now we're trying to work out some of the more important details, like where to take the kids for a pediatrician, which bank we should sign up with, and how to get on the Canadian tax system (apparently we're entitled to an annual check just for living here, even though we've only been here a few days, because we pay sales tax like everybody else).

There are tons of parks near by for the kids, lots of fun to be had walking around campus, the UBC Hockey Rink (for the Thunderbirds) is across the street from us (I promised Odin I'd take him to a game), and we even have a forest a block away with hiking trails:

From Jul - Sep '11

The air is great here, the people are so nice, the buses work great, there's lots to see, it's amazing. Prices are a bit high depending on what you're buying, but you get used to it, and there are other trade-offs to make it worth it. We're discovering just how much we love it here, and we're all really happy about it.

I put a ton of new pictures in the Apr - Jun '11 album, as well as a lot in the new Jul - Sep '11 album, including some videos. Enjoy!

Go Canucks Go!

Well we did it; we moved up to Canada. Mostly. Right now I'm writing this blog while riding the train back to Eugene to get the kids, and we'll all head back up there on the 6th.

It was an eventful trip. We got the moving truck with no problem, and loaded it up Tuesday night. Getting on the road Wednesday morning was easy, and we headed to Portland to meet Mom at Ikea. Unfortunately, the GPS we were using couldn't keep up with how weird Portland's streets are and we got lost for almost half an hour. We spent more time in Ikea than we thought, but it was a truly magical place and we ended up with a lot of nice stuff. Thank you Mom very much for buying half the stuff, we had expected to do it all on our own.

The Ikea stuff went right in to the back of the truck and we rushed off. Traffic around Tacoma, Seattle, and Everett was just plain stupid. How can that many people need to be going somewhere at the same time? But we made it through. No problems at the border, except that the Canadian officer was surprised when we answered the "Do you have any guns?" question with a "No."

We got to our apartment complex a little later than planned, so we didn't have time to unload much of anything (they ask you not to do any moving after 10pm for the quiet hours). We brought up most of the Ikea furniture because we figured we could stay up late putting it together but instead passed out on the floor for the night. Thursday morning I found my new favourite breakfast place (a restaurant called The Pendulum in the SUB - student union building - which serves delicious food and plays blues and jazz all day) and we went back home to bring up as many loads of boxes as we could.

Moving all that in was hard. We have to pull the truck in the Don't Park Here zone temporarily, unload enough stuff to fit the elevator, unlock the building door and move it all to the elevator, call it to the lobby and lock in (the management gave us the key), load it up, bring it to the third floor, lock it again, move it to the 3rd floor lobby, then go prop open another door down an impossibly long hallway and bring stuff from the 3rd floor lobby to our front door, than prop open our front door and bring it all in the apartment. It worked a lot faster and easier than it sounds, but it was a lot of work. We also took a quick trip to our grocery store for food and to get acclimated to the trip and the metric system with shopping for food (also the price differences).

Most of Thursday and all of Friday were spent setting the house in order since we were leaving Saturday at the butt-crack of dawn (not really) and wanted to have it all done before the, kids got there. I'm really happy to say that we got it all finished and I'm really amazed at our apartment. Everything in it is stuff we picked ourselves to be just the way we want, right down to the silverware, dishes, towels, everything. That's never happened to us before; we've usually had to accept what donations friends and family gave us as we went along and never had too much surplus income to get new, nice things. This time our family was overly generous and we sold more than half of what we previously owned so now we have a wonderful apartment that looks like it's from one of the Ikea showrooms.

It's a great apartment; lots of space, more windows than walls, very nice construction and design, just charming. I'll be doing a little video tour of it later for the family that wants to see who might not be visiting too soon.

Today was a little less lucky. We've spent a lot more money than we meant to trying to overcome the various obstacles. We started out a tiny bit later than planned, but ended up with no trouble getting through the border. The USA border officer broke my luggage, but I managed to fix it. Still, he could have just asked me to open it rather than break it open. We ran in to a huge traffic stop due to construction that seemed rather pointless as we passed by, so we ended up so late that we had to spend extra money to change our train tickets. We got to Seattle and had to make a stop at that Ikea because we'd bought lamps we didn't need (how could we know without first seeing the apartment?) and pick up a few pieces to furniture we'd already started but missed one or two items for. That didn't really set us back, but getting the truck back before the train was so close that we had to pay extra and get a taxi instead of walking from the truck drop-off to the train station. Also, gassing the damned thing cost almost as much as renting it. Sheesh.

So now we're on the train, about 40 minutes from Eugene (even though we should have been here 2 hours ago) and hopefully we can get some rest and finally see our kids! It was interesting not having them around, and really helpful for getting the apartment done (I don't think we would have been able to do it at all if we'd had them up there with us), but we really missed them and can't wait to see them.

Now we just hang out in Eugene for a few days seeing friends and family, and then it's the train ride back home for us.

On our way

I'm sitting in a mostly empty room. Outside is a moving truck packed and ready to go. Our kids are safely and happily tucked away at Grandma's house. We need only wake up, get dressed, grab our backpacks and get in the truck, and it's off we go (after a brief stop for Dutch Bros one last time).

The plan is still to head to Ikea in Portland first. Mom is going to show us around while we snack on waffles, and we'll load what we buy into the truck and head home. We're going to set up, see the sights, and come back for the kids and be in town for a few days.

Here we go!

T minus 1 week

A week from right now Alyssa and I will be going through Portland on our way to our new place in Vancouver, BC! It's crazy to think about, but, as one of Alyssa's favourite professors would say; "This is really happening!"

It's funny that I tend to have sparse posts during the school term because I am so busy with work, and sparser without school because I am even busier being lazy. I figured it was about time, so here goes. In no particular chronological order:

We did end up getting new shots for Odin. He needs do re-do his MMR, Pertussis, and Pneumococcal, but we opted to skip the last one and first one and just get the pertussis in the 5-year booster he would have gotten anyway, which was just one shot and included a re-vac for Polio since they weren't sure if he needed that again. It had tetanus in it so it hurt him a lot more than usual, but he took it like a champ.

Freya has been exploding with language. She understands all kinds of idioms and she's stringing together longer sentences. She recently expressed an interest in colors so we're teaching those to her right now, and she's getting them really fast. Everybody we meet asks us how old she is and is surprised when we tell them, they always say that she seems a lot older than she is. (Go us for advanced kids!)

Odin has been into Optimus Prime lately. We bought him a transforming action figure that he can almost get on his own (just needs my help with the last step). He's really liking riding his bike, which is good because that's how we'll be getting him to his school. Odin is going to have hockey lessons at the UBC arena (the same ice the T-birds play on!) and he's really excited aboot that. I've been wanting to get back in to hockey for years so I may join him (there's even parent-child hockey time on the rink). Speaking of which, right now the kids are obsessed with this video.

We got the kids a bunk bed that they are really excited about. Whenever we see it in the store, they both crawl in (Odin on the top, Freya in the bottom) and they said they really want to sleep that way. We've had them both sleeping in our room the past few nights (since the kids room is mostly packed-up) and they see to do well together.

Most of our place is packed up. There's just about an hour or two of work left, and then we're ready to go except for the stuff we need out until the last second. Its exciting and scary being this close to going. We look at expire dates on food and think that we wont be here, and we can see weather projections out 10 days and know what the weather will be like where we're going. We discovered that Alyssa gets a discount as a TA on one of the better phone plans up there, so we can get our phones for a little cheaper. Alyssa and I are going to spend our 2 or 3 days up there trying to wrap up loose ends like that before we go back for the kids. Have to get a bank account, find a cell phone plan, learn the neighborhood, stuff like that.

We sold our car to our friends Brandy and Jon. We needed the rent money and they needed to transport their two kids from where they live now. We were sad to see it go, but we started out living together without a car, and we knew we wouldn't be able to have on in Vancouver, so we're adjusting. We've been walking and bussing around this week without problems, it's just like old times.

Oh yeah, Alyssa and I had a good graduation. Mine was a little more pleasant owing to the venue, but both were fun and exciting. My professor said some very nice things about me, and Alyssa graduated cum laude which is nice for her. We both still forget some times that we have college degrees. Alyssa gets to register for her classes today, and she's scheduling an orientation with her professors for instructions on the class she'll be teaching. All so exciting!

I should get going and make breakfast for the kids. Our plans today are to finish packing our stuff so there's nothing left to do, run an errand or two, and enjoy the rest of the week with catching up on some favorite hobbies before we stir up a bunch of dust with moving. I've been taking lots of pictures with our new camera and I'll upload them soon. I also plan to take pictures of our new apartment (possibly a video tour so our parents and kids can see it), and some of the neighborhood, so look for that.

Breather

Well, I have just a moment right now, so here's a nice little update.

In the middle of finals week right now, and all has gone well. I had Greek at 10:15 and Latin at 3:15 on Monday, but my Greek professor allowed us to take the final Friday at 10:15 since he had another one then for his other class. That really saved me; I was able to study Latin over the weekend without having to cram in a bunch of Greek as well. Pretty sure I aced the Latin final, and I spent the last few nights typing away with bloodshot eyes to get the essays done for History today. Now I just have Greek but it's not 'til Friday so I have plenty of time to study with nothing else to prepare for.

That will be my last final for a little over a year until grad school. It's strange walking away from this without signing up for classes in the next term. We've always been in classes, even summer, so there's been no break. Now there's a nice breather moment.

Speaking of grad school, we got an email just today that Alyssa was chosen for a Graduate Teaching Assistant-ship! She'll make about $255 per week for 16 weeks when the term starts, only working 9 hours each week! It's really going to help our financial situation up there. I'm sure it will be hard, but she's really excited. She has orientation classes for how to be a TA and Grad student at the same time in September, just as the term is starting.

We took the kids to the pediatrician for one final check-up before we leave the country. In short, everything is amazing, as always. Dr. Dzubay is always impressed with how healthy and advanced our kids are. They're both growing great, developing well, and are really healthy. We have to take Odin to get his blood drawn to find out which vaccinations they screwed up so they can give him new ones, but that's all.

That's all for now. Time to study some Greek....

We don't feed our kids

Or at least that's how they act lately. They never stop asking for more food, and when we leave them with our parents they tell us "all they did the whole time was eat!" Maybe they're both about to hit a growth spurt or something. Odin does look a little taller, and Freya has just exploded with her verbal skills lately....

Yesterday Alyssa had a piece premiered at the OCF, and it was her last one state-side until a choral work in November (for which we will come down to visit and view). The school year is basically over for her, since she now has no deadlines or assignments to speak of. For me, it's about to get interesting, as I have several finals, some of them on the same day as others.

The next few weeks will be interesting. There will be the flurry of finishing the school term, then there will be no obligations on our time other than getting the house cleaned and packed up, and then Alyssa's dad will finally be coming to visit just before we leave.

The Move

We've figured out how it's all going to go down.

We reserved a Penske truck for the 29th of June. This was the cheapest option. Most rental trucks would cost $600 or more, and most freight or shipping options at least twice that. Taking "luggage" on the train was extremely limited due to the border crossing. We called Penske on a suggestion and we were able to get a 16ft truck for only $250, so we can move more of our stuff. We'll also save money on re-furnishing the new place since we'll be able to take some of the bigger items, like beds and the dining room table.

So the plan right now is to leave the kids with Paula and Zaideh for a couple days. We'll grab the truck the morning of Wednesday the 29th and load it up super fast. On our way up we'll make a quick stop in Portland at IKEA since their stuff is cheaper than the IKEA in Vancouver (and tax free!). The drive to Vancouver will take about 8 hours with the border check, or maybe as much as 10 depending on traffic and how much we stop. We'll unload everything and completely set-up the apartment (so there's nothing left to do) the next day and the following day (after one more night's rest) we'll drive back to Seattle and return the truck. Then we'll take the train down (this will probably be Friday or Saturday) to Eugene to hang out a bit before heading back to Portland to see some family for a day or two. Then it's just the final one-way strait-shot train to Vancouver, and a taxi to our new home!

Garage Sale

We've been going through all the stuff we plan on not taking with us when we move, and oh man is it a lot of stuff. We've laid out half the furniture, all the clothes, toys, electronics, books, etc. It more than fills the garage. I don't know how we accumulated so much crap! Either way, it's a ton of stuff, and it's all really nice, not just your standard "I-want-to-get-rid-of-this-crap" garage sale stuff but actual good stuff people would want. We're gonna try to have it tomorrow and through the weekend, but it looks like there's going to be rain. There's still a lot to get together before tomorrow, so we'll see how it goes.

We got a call yesterday from Peacehealth to tell us about the vaccines that Odin had. Apparently there was a possibility that they were not properly refrigerated and therefore ineffective. They offered to take a blood test to see what he still needed and give him what else he needed, and then tried to push some new ones on us. They also accidentally admitted that they had given him a shot we refused, which was really upsetting. With all the side effects of vaccines, we were careful to pick only the ones he really needed, and it's possible that some of his current health issues (like some mild behavior stuff or his food allergies) started with that vaccine we didn't want.

We've all been sharing a cold and now I finally have it. Caused a few small set-backs in the homework department, but otherwise okay so far.

A Place to Live!

Well, it worked. On Friday we got an email offering us a place and we said we'd take it! It's student housing that has been "converted" from the faculty housing so it's in a nice location and it's a little bigger. It also has a washer and dryer in the unit (which only that building has) so we don't have to worry about that. It's on the third floor with huge windows and a big balcony. It comes to about $1350/month (which is really good for that area), but what's really awesome is that that amount also covers our heat, electricity, water, etc., so everything is in that one price! It means we have to move a month ahead of schedule, and pay for a month of the apartment that we wont fully be there, but it's better than waiting and probably not getting a place at all.

We've been going over our resources and figured that we actually will have enough money for three months of living until Alyssa gets her first cheque from school. We need to pay the deposit and first month up-front, which we will have, just not yet, so we've been scrambling to get it together by the due date on Monday. Luckily, our parents have voiced their willingness to contribute.

It was a nice wrap-up to an odd day. Murphy's law seemed to be in effect. Keys were lost, food forgotten, phone dead, meeting times not remembered properly. Nothing serious, and it all came together in the end, but it was just rattling for a little while.

Anyway, we're really excited to have a nice place in an area we like for a really good price. We can't wait to get back up there (and neither can the kids!).

We spent yesterday just enjoying a little bit of free time (Dad is out of town so we have the run of the place). The rest of today will be about buckling down on some homework and studying for tests and performances.

Middle of the term

Well I suppose I've been neglecting my blogging duties, but I've been busy. We all have.

The piece which Alyssa was commissioned to write for the former Dean of the Music Department was premiered at this seasons' FMO concert this last weekend. It was really nice, and well received.

I've been storming through the schoolwork, mostly. With Alyssa's commission out of the way, and her Gamelan concert soon to be over (in a week or so, I think) her work level has been lowered a bit. Mine has only gone up lately, so she's been able to help out with that a lot.

We've been trying to put some time into getting our stuff ready to move. Lots of stuff is being sold or put into storage. All of our furniture is going to be sold and we'll just make an IKEA run once we're in Vancouver. I've already listed our car for sale, and we're trying to thin-out what we own so there's less to bring with. We decided on moving with Amtrak, so the less, the better. We can pay just slightly extra on our tickets to have up to 16 checked bags, so we'll just manage as many of our boxes as possible. Paula (and Kellie, I think) are coming with, so they'll rent a truck while we're up there and just help us bring it home from the train station. If we catch the strait-shot from Portland it should be pretty easy, we just have to get all our stuff to Portland, and then get it all on the train fast enough at 8am when the train is ready to leave. Still, it'll all cost way less than any of our other options.

So things are starting to wrap up. Odin had his last gymnastics class at Bounce today, he's in his last month of school, I'm in my last term, Alyssa just did her last FMO concert.... We're going to try to hit all our favorite places in town one last time. And we're taking pictures and video's of everything so our kids can see the place they grew up and all the hang-outs they crawled around as babies.

We emailed the housing department and had them change our availability from July to June. This means we'll have to pay another month of rent, and go up early, but it also puts us way higher on the list since most people check August or September. We're checking voicemail regularly, hoping to have gotten that call that says we got a place to live.

I should get back to the translating. More on this story as it develops.

Trip to Vancouver!

Well, we're back from our journey to Vancouver, BC. We sure had a great time.

It was an early call; 5:30am train ride up to Seattle. The kids behaved so well, you wouldn't believe me if I described it. We had a peaceful journey up there, though (as expected) we had a little bit of an issue with food. In Seattle, we had to run to our bus because the train was a little late, but we got on. That ride was pretty difficult. Odin passed out for the first half of it, so that made things easier, but Freya was really loud and active. Not in a bad way, just a bit to handle is such a small space. At least on the train we were able to walk around a lot. The bus was delayed a bit for an accident, but we got there okay. Crossing the border was no big deal, either. They stopped us to ask a bunch of questions because there were 5 of us traveling together, reminded us to sign our passports next time, and sent us on our way.

Figuring out the busses in the city to get to the hotel was interesting. It's a really busy and complicated place, like Portland, but was no trouble. It was hard getting all our luggage to the hotel, but we made it eventually. Everybody relaxed for a bit and Alyssa and I walked around to check out the campus as everything was closing. The air in Vancouver is so nice (it's not in the Valley of Sickness, like Eugene), it's like breathing at the beach. And the water is so much nicer to drink.

The next day we took off to check out Odin's new school. We met the teachers and toured the place and learned that he's going to have a great time. We also looked around the neighborhood we'll likely be living (same one the school is in) and decided we really like it (though, sadly, I didn't get a lot of shots of that neighborhood). Spent some more time wandering around campus. The campus is really set off to the west a ways from the main part of the city, but there's so much development around it that it's almost like a separate city to itself. We'll have everything close to us except the grocery store, which we discovered is only one bus away.

The grocery store was pretty amazing. It's just like Market of Choice, so we'll be able to find everything we need. It's got a gluten-free bakery, and the deli has so many vegetarian/vegan stuff it's incredible. Also, almost none of the alternative diet stuff (like gluten/dairy free) has soy in it (unlike here) so we don't have to check labels nearly as much. (I guess Canadians wouldn't tolerate something like Monsanto.) There are some price discrepancies, but we'll manage.

The next day we walked around campus forever, it seemed, looking at all the nice gardens and great views. There were two places on campus we wanted to see; the Japanese Gardens and the Museum of Anthropology. We ran into the MoA so we did that, and boy was it a good idea. There's a ton of pictures in the new album online, but it wasn't even half of the stuff there. I was in historian/archaeologist bliss. I highly recommend it to anyone coming to Vancouver, BC, and if you visit us we'd be happy to take you because it never gets old (pun intended).

The last day was mostly about exploring a bit more, and getting to know the place. We really didn't want to leave. The bus ride down wasn't really a problem, and customs was just as easy (though you do notice how much more paranoid the US is when you go through), and the train ride was uneventful. We got in to Eugene at about 11:30pm and went home and to bed. First thing I did this morning was get up and upload the pictures (linked below) and write this post.

Vancouver is so nice. The people are really kind (they get up off the bus and move out of the way if you have kids, rather than just sitting in place and waiting for the bus driver to yell at them) and they just want to help you and make you feel welcome. The whole place is nice, actually; they don't have things like "Don't do this!" and "Stop doing that!" but they have things like "Remember to be courteous" and "Don't act like you're the only one on the bus" (rather than "No loud music! Sit quietly! No feet on the seat!"). Everything is in English and French, and there are more than 70 languages spoken there so you hear a lot of accents and funny conversations. Everybody has a relaxed attitude (even the college students); nobody is rushing anywhere, nobody gets mad at bus delays or bad traffic, shops open late and close early (which is sometimes annoying, but not too bad), nobody cares if you're taking a long time in line, nobody yells at us for having loud kids or letting them play to happily in public. We really liked it there, and, sad to say, as soon as we got to Eugene all we could talk about was how much we couldn't wait to get back to Vancouver, BC.

We had a really great time, and I'm sure we're going to have a great time living there (lonely as it may start out.)

Here's the link to the album of the pictures from the trip: Vancouver, BC. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of them with us actually in them (I got a little crazy with the camera and never posed for any). There's some of our room, some of the landscape and buildings on campus, and some of the attractions. There's some good ones of the MoA. Paula took a lot with her iPhone and when I get those from her, I'll add more to the album.

In other news, I uploaded a few more shots and vids to new Apr - Jun '11 album (and moved a few mis-placed ones there as well) so enjoy.

Epic Birthday!

Odin turned 4 today! Holy crap! We sure did have a blast today. The party was at Bounce Gymnastics and Odin and all his friends just ran the place down! Even Freya had her share of fun (see video at end). There were gluten-dairy-soy-sugar free cupcakes, and tons of presents. All the photos are up in the Jan - Mar '11 album, but here are some of my favorites:

From Jan - Mar '11

From Jan - Mar '11

From Jan - Mar '11

From Jan - Mar '11

Pictures!!!11!!!

Hey, look at that. I finally uploaded some new pictures to the web albums. The new Jan - Mar '11 album has some photos I took in the last few days with the camera my grandfather sent me. I used to put videos on our YouTube channel, but the Picasa web albums that I like to use now supports video so they're all in there now.

Freya's hair (as you might be able to tell from the pictures) has gotten really long, and almost completely blocks her vision, so we've been trying to get her to wear hair-ties of some kind or another. She's gotten really verbose, and she always wants privacy when she's going to the bathroom.

Odin's birthday is tomorrow! 4 years old, and still nothing can stop him. Right now, since the weather is getting a little better, we're trying to convince him to be okay with short-sleeved shirts (which he's barely worn since he was old enough to decide on his own).

We finally got our passports in the mail, so we're heading up to Canada for a few days in the middle of April. We're gonna check out the city and look into what life will be like up there.

The first week of Spring term is over. It's presenting some challenges and some pleasures, but it's working. Technically I finished my degree last term, but I'm still in classes this term. My degree audit says "completed" but I'm still around. I apparently made the Dean's List last term (4.0 GPA and 15+ credits) which is interesting, but not exciting since I don't know the significance.

Alyssa has been commissioned for a work by the former Dean of the Music School for her class on music in culture. She's says she's going to have a lot of fun with it, and she's even getting paid! It's a rush job, but it will be fun.

A Camera!

My grandfather has sent me a very nice digital camera. It is 14.1 megapixels, has a 3.5 inch touchscreen, films in HD (even video), and came with a 4gb sd card. Very nice.

We'll take some shots and upload them soon.

The return of photo uploads to our web albums!

Ta-dah!

I've been on break all week and I haven't written a blog post! Can you really blame me? It's break, and it's only a week.

Well we've tried to have as much fun as we could, but there's also been a lot of work. Alyssa has been composing continually as she would for school, or (for that matter) her career. I tried to study but I just couldn't bring myself to do it, and Alyssa encouraged me to just relax and take a break for once, so this was unproductive. I'll try to study a little this weekend to prep for classes on Monday.

Freya is just a complete blabbermouth. She never stops talking, especially in the car when she can see herself in the mirror. We took her off the antibiotics she was on for her ear infection and she seems to be much better now.

Odin's birthday party is coming up. Most of his friends have RSVP'd and we're really excited. He likes to talk to us about what life will be like up in Vancouver. (Side note; he's got a little crush on Amanda Tapping and he got really excited when he heard that she lives there.)

Alyssa and I just finished defeating 3 thai coconuts! It was an arduous task, wrought with peril and uncertainty. In the end, the first 2 proved valiant and worthy foes, but the third (after a quick look on YouTube for assistance) fell down before our mighty might. We took the water for some nice recipes later and all the meat went into a mixture to make wraps in our dehydrator.

Which reminds me. We broke down and bought an expensive dehydrator. (Like my use of "broke" and "expensive" in the same sentence? Eh?) We've been trying some Raw food ideas in an effort to change our diet and cooking style around a bit, and it's working. We'd dabbled before, but this time it's serious. Already on the menu have been sprouted legumes in salads with marinated vegetables, cheeses made out of ground macadamia nuts, and wraps made of flax and zucchini. We even made an awesome hummus out of sprouted garbanzo beans so that was raw as well. I made a marinade out of tamari, agave syrup, liquid hickory smoke, ginger, and garlic, and after some salmon strips had sat in that for 12 hours I dehydrated them into jerky. It's really good, can't stop eating it.

Other than that, we've been occupying ourselves with cleaning up a lot, trying to pack out a little, and thinning out what we own. We don't plan on taking much with us when we move, so a lot of our stuff has ended up in the garage for storage or sale. After looking at everything we're taking, it's all gonna fit in 1 truck, so that will make it a little easier.

We've looked at the wait lists and we've been told that we have an extremely high chance of getting into the student housing, which would be great. We'd live right on campus, and literally across the street from Odin's pre-school. We have to go up there by April 15th to sign the documents in person, so we had a scramble for our passports to get them rushed in time to go up. Ended up costing us an arm and a leg, but we had to do it so we could go up in time. So we'll be making a trip up to Vancouver around the middle of April.

Oh, and Alyssa keeps nudging me to say that I got a 4.0 (GPA) this Winter term, and I should be very proud of that. (I probably am.)

blogging!

I really think I need to write here more often. Also, a camera is forthcoming, so there will be more pictures. We had tons of pictures and videos of Odin when he was young, and not as many as Freya because our camera broke. There's a pretty good amount of them uploaded from our phones and in Facebook, but not so many videos and not as often.

I watched Freya open a door this morning for the first time. She figured out the knob and just went right through. All kinds of new trouble now. She's also got a double ear infection, apparently. She never complained about it at all! But now we're taking care of it, and she should be fine pretty soon.

Preparations are underway for our road trip to Vancouver next week. It's going to be really fun. We've got a list of all the places to see (to prep for moving, and to explore all the fun spots) and we're really excited to go.

We've also got Odin's birthday party coming up. Going to be your standard party at Bounce, which every kid in this town seems to do, but it'll be really fun.

Alyssa's been dealing with a slight health thing I wont go into, but we're seeing a doctor today and we think we might have already figured it out.

I have just one more essay to write by tomorrow morning, and then I'm in the clear for break. Time to get back to it I suppose.....

Words and babies

I'm sitting at the breakfast table with Freya while Odin and Alyssa sleep in a bit and I finally got Freya to say "orange" really well. I share oranges with her a lot, its a favorite snack of ours, and she always says apple so I never give it to her until she says orange. (I usually have to remind her what it is). Today she said it so clearly I just thought it was amazing. Her verbal skills have grown so quickly. For her age, it's really incredible that she can pronounce consonants at the ends of words, diphthongs, and string more than four words together in a sentence.

Yesterday evening we went to see Brandy and her new baby Marion in the hospital. It was okay for me to hold her, but Freya got way too jealous if Alyssa held her. It was really cute to watch.

Today is Sunday of Finals week. Last Friday my professor in Latin decided to do the final during the normal class time so we wouldn't have a final during finals week. It was a mixed blessing because we got to get it over with early, but it came early so there was way less time to study for a bigger test. I think I aced it, though. I have a Greek final on Tuesday and my take-home History final is due Friday morning. I haven't worked on the History final at all, even though he gave it to us more than a week ago to get started on, because I've been focusing on Latin and Greek. Apparently I had nothing to worry about; I aced the Latin final, and yesterday I started reviewing for Greek and found that I really just know all of it, so I can just focus on History. I have all week, so I'm sure I'll get it done in time.

Growth and movement

Alyssa and I have been pretty busy taking care of finals and other things for the end of the term, and we've also been looking at stuff in Vancouver. We've found a rice-based bakery (so we can eat gluten-free) near a grocery store that we think will suit our needs quite well. We're also looking around for places to live and what kinds of things there are to do in the city. We're actually going to drive up with Paula over spring break to scope the place out and explore for a couple of days.

We got word from a childcare facility on the campus up there that Odin can go Monday-Thursday from 1-3:30pm, so at least he'll have a good learning experience up there.

Freya is just non-stop talk lately. She has been able to end words in consonants and form 4-5 word sentences for a while now. She's getting really good at asking for what she wants, and is already really adept at saying No to things. She's also expressed some interest in potty training but we're not sure if we're ready to try yet, still a little too complex....

Oh Canada! (yep!)

Alyssa emailed the director to accept the program and inform them of her intent to attend, meanwhile I sent off the applications for housing and child care. So we're going to Vancouver, BC for school for 2-3 years.

There's so much to figure out. The housing isn't too bad; we just wait to hear from them and in the meantime look in to other apartments around the city. Childcare is the same, either we get it through the school or another private place. But there's tons of other stuff. Do we need our car and should we bother bringing it? Where will the grocery stores be? How do we get medical care? Will we be able to work or will there be a student visa issue? How are we going to afford moving all our stuff up there? Will our phones work or do we need new wireless carriers for Canada? What are the laws/rights like up there? It's a lot to figure out. We're taking it one step at a time, but there's a lot to do.

Odin and Freya have both had some kind of eye thing going on. They got really red and a little pussy but the doctors didn't think it was pink-eye, just some kind of infection or irritation. Gone now, but weird.

We've all been sharing illness, and now I've finally got it (though nowhere near as bad as they all had it). This term of school is starting to wrap up so we're focusing on studies.

Speaking of which, time to get back to it....

(Seems like all I ever do, doesn't it?)

Oh Canada! (eh?)

A few days ago (I think) the Director of the Music Department at UBC called Alyssa to say they'd love to have her! It's really exciting news because that is the school she wanted to go to the most, and it is in a place we'd love to live (Vancouver, BC). We've been talking about it all week and we're 95% decided to go! They're also giving Alyssa a scholarship so our expenses will be way down, and she might be making some extra money being a teaching assistant for some of their classes. The plan is for her to go for three years (normally it'd be two but she might extend that by adding an additional area of interest, necessitating more classes), I wont be in classes the first year (didn't apply on time) but the last two years I'd like to be in their Mediterranean Archaeology program, so we'd both finish at the same time. We'll see how it all works out! Still have to apply for housing, child care, etc. Lots to take care of first.

Freya's favorite word is "No" right now. She learned how to use it and now uses it so often she sometimes says No when she means Yes. She's also finally over her cold, and back to her old self again.

Odin woke up this morning and started throwing up. No idea why, he's just been lying in bed all morning, which is very unlike him. I feel bad for the guy. He still seems to be suffering.

Alyssa is at a birthday party with Freya right now, and I'm taking care of Odin. I should start studying for some tests I have on Monday....

Sick

Posts are pretty far apart lately, aren't they?

An illness has been going around the house. Right now Odin seems to be over it, and Alyssa has finally hit the downhill slope, but Freya is warm enough to heat a room. Miraculously, I still haven't caught anything, despite everyone else being sick twice, but maybe I just jinxed myself....

It dawned on me that we have way more pictures and videos of Odin when he was a baby than Freya. This is mostly because we've not had a camera in ages. So I'm finally gonna get ours fixed or just buy a new one this week.

We're still waiting to hear about all the Grad schools Alyssa applied to, but it will probably be quite a bit longer. I've been working on one of my mid-term assignments most of the weekend, and I'm a little behind in my other classes as a result, but I have the rest of the night to pick it up, right? I may have found a couple of grad programs I'm interested in, so I'll have to look into those.

Right now, we're feeling the pain of having to drive to school a lot, especially now that next term's schedule has been released and it's really not being nice to us. Will have to do something about that. When we move for grad school, we're only willing to live less than a mile from the campus so we can just walk everywhere....

Look! An update!

That's right, I have a second to sit down and type something up. Well, really, I don't, but Alyssa asked me to and I figured why not.

Freya's vocabulary has been rising off the charts lately. A lot of the time there are discernable english words, but sometimes it's still just Freya-speak. She's been taking a dance class which has been enjoyable. I haven't been to it, but Alyssa takes her while I'm in class and she likes to do some of the dance moves at home. She's been having some trouble with her teeth lately, it seems like a new one comes in every time a painful one is just about done. Hopefully they'll all be in soon.

Odin is still in swim lessons and having a fun time. We haven't been in a while because he missed a week when he was sick, but his instructor says he'll be swimming on his own soon. We took his crib down because he decided he didn't like it after all and changed back to his big bed. He seems to be liking it a lot more (he slept on it for months before, but we had to move him to the crib for some reason this last few months). He's been having some behavioral issues, but we've pinned it down to structure and diet, so we think we'll have it under control in a matter of days.

Alyssa's been more prolific than ever lately (regarding compositions) and her professors seem very impressed. I'm sure she'll put some of them up on her website soon enough, they need some final polishing. She got an email from the director of the music department at one of the grad schools she applied to saying that they were very impressed with her application and just needed a little more information to be considered for scholarship. We're trying to take care of the paperwork, and we'll see what they finally say. Other than that, she's been pretty busy watching the kids while I'm in class, and taking classes of her own. We recently switched which days Odin is in class to balance things out a little better.

Right now I'm looking around at post-bacc programs and grad options. I may just end up taking some classes at the school Alyssa picks, and maybe they'll let me in to the post-bacc. I have extra classes keeping me busy this term, and next term wont be a cake-walk either, but it's good for me. I should probably get a little work done right now.

Oh, and we got a bike trailer and took it for a test-run yesterday. We did about 10 miles (I pulled 80lbs of kid and trailer, I'm tired) and discovered that the only difficulty was the kids needing entertainment (like books and such in the trailer with them). The weather is only going to get better, so this is our new fitness activity. We've even planned out the route to school and we're going to spend the next few weeks building up the endurance for that distance, which will also cut out some car use.

That's all for now, I should get to some homework or something.

*crickets*

A testament to how busy we are; I've not posted in almost a month.

Don't worry, we're all still here. Normal programming to resume shortly (I think).

What a week

Our schedule feels really hectic, but at the same time pretty relaxed. My classes aren't too bad to manage, and I even added an extra class beyond normal full-time credits, but one of them wasn't scheduled until the email our professor sent this evening so the dust still hasn't settled! We've also signed Freya up for dance classes, and Odin has gymnastics and swimming, so we keep pretty busy around here.

Alyssa is enjoying her classes. She frequently mentions that she feels strange having homework but not being required do finish all of it on time. The extra class I added has me translating Latin, Greek, and Old Norse this term - still waiting to see if I can keep up....

Been in a lot of dental pain lately. It's a long story, but the short version is the crappy state-provided dental messed something up, I ended up in pain forever, they couldn't help me, and I paid a buttload of money to another, reputable dentist to fix me, which he could only do half of today because of how messed up it was and half will have to wait for later. I hope the pain is manageable until I see him in a week and a half.

Now it is time for homework. This weekend promises to be fun, with family visiting and visiting family.