Friday, March 1, 2013

The End of the Adventure


I am behind, as always...there are never enough hours in the day, days in the week, weeks in the month and months in the year.  I apologize to all of you for being slow with this  entry.

So much has happened since I last left you at Thanksgiving.  In a few short months our lives have changed dramatically!  We discovered a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving that we are expecting our fourth and what Chris claims as the last, child!  We were overjoyed with the news and very excited about this new and unexpected blessing!  The tiniest of people can change your life the most and this pregnancy brought with it a lot of hard decisions.  Most of you know I don't have the easiest of pregnancies and given our remote location and the lack of availability of even a simple doctors appointment, it was decided after much discussion that the kids and I would return to Houston.  This decision was met with a myriad of emotions.  We were elated at the thought of returning home and resuming our life in the States.  The sadness came in leaving Chris behind and our much loved Canadian family, the Sabines.

Decision made, whirlwind begins...Christmas was spent in Connecticut at my parents and we had a wonderful time baking cookies, shopping and spending time together.  Chris' dad and Jill joined us for a few days around the New Year and it was wonderful to see them.  Much of our"vacation" was spent with Chris and I at various doctors appointments making sure that all was well with our new addition.


Of course, with the move coming fast and furious, we also spent a large amount of our time stateside planning the logistics of moving our family back home.  A key component to making the transition without Chris was my sister Kylee, who agreed to take a leap of faith and join the kids and I in Texas to help me through the pregnancy and life with three kids and no husband.  We are so grateful and excited that she chose to take this big step into life and it is our goal to help see her settled into a wonderful life and teaching position in the Lonestar State!

We returned to Canada and the moving plans were taken into high gear and the hunt for a rental in Texas was almost as stressful as our Canadian hunt.  We finally secured a house, sight unseen, two streets over from our old, beloved house barely a week before the movers were set to arrive.  The movers came the first week of February and packed and loaded our belongings and we set about the sad business of saying goodbye.  

There is much about our Canadian adventure that I could easily do without.  I hated the cold, the lack of amenities and the disadvantages I felt my children encountered due to the location, but there were experiences and people that we treasured and leaving those behind was hard.  Turning the reins to the Lacrosse association over was a sad moment for me.  I spent countless hours and vast amounts of energy trying to make something wonderful for the kids with amazing, dedicated people.  Letting that go was difficult for me.  But nothing was harder than saying goodbye to our much loved Sabine family.  It was they who made the days of our lives there not so lonely and hard to bear.  We had a wonderful last evening with them and Jody and I both made it to the very end of the night before the water works started.  I will treasure every moment we had together and will make the concentrated effort to make more memories with visits and constant calls and Facebook messages.  Some things are too precious to lose!



The kids and I boarded a plane and Chris and the dogs loaded up the car and our family began the journey back to Texas.  We landed at the airport to hugs and our Texas family waiting to take us home!   Chris arrived a few days later with the dogs and we camped out with the Sellers family until the new house was ready for us.  The craziness continued with the moving truck showing up late, mom and Kylee arriving with her stuff, school and activities in full swing and the overall chaos of family life.  

I am sitting here 3 weeks into this chapter of our lives and the boxes are still here and there, stacks of pictures need to be hung and the flotsam of life still needs to be found a home.  Chris returned to Canada a little over a week ago and we miss him everyday. I can't wait until October when he can come home permanently and complete our family again.   Strangely though, I am as close to peace as I can get with all these kids, the crazy schedule and the dogs...we are in the home of our hearts and I am anxious to see what this new/old adventure will bring.

My advice on expat life remains the same...take whatever you can from the experience, find someone to help you find your way and at the end of it, it will have been a success.