Goodbye Canada

After only about 3 hours of sleep, we got up, loaded our bags into the car, and said some goodbyes.  It was pretty hard to say goodbye to Brit, but she was too sleepy to care too much at the time.

We drove to the airport, and said goodbye to Mom and Dad.  I think we were also too sleepy to be too sad.   We got on the plane almost smoothly…. T.J. forgot about with multi-tool in his carry-on and had to run down to lost and found to mail it to himself.  

Both flights were good, despite not being able to sit together on the second flight.  We both had Spanish speaking seat mates, which made for a pretty quiet ride, and a confusing discussing of how to fill out entrance documents.  Martha (our principal) and Bessy (on the human resources staff) both picked us up at the airport and drove us to our new home.  It was pretty seamless, and we were definitely grateful for the help.  We spent the rest of the day unpacking and went to bed around 7:00PM (which actually felt like 9:00 with the time change, so it's not that bad!)

Finally at our new home!

T-minus One Day

The day before we left, the packing frenzy began.  Trying to fit so many clothes in three suitcases was a challenge.  We were committed to making sure that our suitcases weren't overweight, so we packed and repacked about 20 times to redistribute everything.  Finally, we got all our our bags to 49.8 or 49.9 lbs (out of the passible 50 lbs).  Our flight was at 6:00AM the next morning, so we tried to get some sleep before leaving at 3:00AM.

Tornado vs. Norway Lake

We were looking forward to a relaxing final week in the country, unfortunately, the tornado that hit Norway Lake on Monday changed these plans.  Instead of boating and lounging of the dock we were cleaning, chainsawing and woodchipping.  Not to mention that the boat was underwater.  Thanks Marc and Zach for your help that week!  Lots of work, and still lots of packing to do made the week fly by with not much time to visit.  We were really thankful that everyone came out to see us the weekend before.

Summer Fun

As we headed into our last week at home, it finally began to sink in - we are leaving home, our family and friends for two years.  We had a great day with friends on Saturday (one day you'll jump off that bridge Ash!), and were actually surprised when we returned home to find over 40 friends and family waiting for us.  Thanks to everyone who came out to help send us on our way, it meant a lot that you were there.  It was a bit surreal to describe our upcoming adventure to everyone; it almost seemed as though we were describing someone else's life, someone else's plans.  We feel so lucky to be able to go on this adventure together!  By the end of the night we were tired, but we both agreed that it was an evening that we will remember forever.  A great way to spend one of our last few days in Canada. Here are a few photos that sum up our epic summer at home. 

Norway Lake...A new view after the Storm

Erica actually caught this fish.

and these

While fishing like this...

Kenny lending a helping hand. 

Thanks to mom and everyone else who made our going away party amazing!!

Ready for our tour. 

The road was dusty.

Me and my bro. 

Erica, Grandma, Kenny, me, nanny and...Whyte.

Hope keeping and eye on Kenny. 

Getting some. 

At the beach.

vodka mellon 

Pierce will never be the same, but it was a good attempt. 

Looking good Rika. 

I'm so cool. 

This is a result of being awesome. 

cute

Awww.

Pierce and Ashley.

add a caption

Nice  

Our poor boat :(

My mom's new bionic foot. 

Erica finds her zen moment. 

Wow you photograph so well when you are wasted. 

We love Erica.

The boys. 

Mom and her Bffs

The guides

Our only trip of the summer…but a good one. 

That was TJ before...

OMG

another classic Erica fishing pic... 

Kenny teaching TJ how to clean a fish.