October 23, 2012 · 12:03 pm

Life Lately (According to My iPhone)

(For those of you who follow me on instagram, most of this won’t be news to you – sorry!)

At the end of August we bought a car! It’s a Mazda 3 and we love it!

I experienced my first Blue Jay’s game (from a private box, no less).

We’ve been enjoying a BEAUTIFUL fall. The colors here are some of the most gorgeous I’ve ever seen!

We celebrated Brian’s birthday with his family! (And LOTS of chocolate cake. Seriously, lots!)

We have settled into our new apartment and have enjoyed seeing it change from this…

… to this…

… and this…

We had our first American visitor… Hannah! She was here for less than 24 hours but it was WONDERFUL!

We celebrated my first Canadian Thanksgiving with Brian’s parents (we’re planning on celebrating American Thanksgiving, too!)

And finally, I’ve been enjoying my new little friend Keaton, and his sweet mom, Kimberly,  who happens to be a fellow American!

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Filed under Canada, Family, Friends, Home

September 11, 2012 · 2:18 pm

Just Checking In

I am writing this post from the living room of our new apartment! That’s right, 2 months and 13 days after arriving in Canada we have a permanent place of our own! Back in July, we decided to definitely rent (as opposed to buying) and embarked upon a very diligent search to find just the right place. We knew that we would most likely end up in a basement apartment because that is pretty much the ONLY thing for rent in this area (no Walnut St. here!). Initially, I had a pretty hard time embracing the idea of living in someone’s basement (I still think it’s weird) and our seemingly futile search only confirmed every negative impression I had of basements – they are dark, smelly, dirty places!! A couple weeks ago we found a place online that seemed different than all the other apartments we had looked into and we made an appointment to go see it that night. I immediately fell in love with it!! Brand spanking new (e.g. sparkling clean), lots of natural light, two bedrooms, big kitchen, private laundry room, and gorgeous light gray walls (my fav!). We put in an application for it, along with about a dozen other people, and prepared ourselves to never hear back from the landlords. However, two days later, they contacted us to let us know that it was ours! Now here we are, one week later, settling into our new home! We are so thankful that in His perfect time, the Lord provided a place far better than we ever could have hoped!

I’ll try to post some pictures once we’ve found a place for everything and everything is in its place!

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Filed under Canada, Home, Moving

August 15, 2012 · 11:12 am

+2

Our family recently grew by two! My brother Andrew, and his wife Diana, welcomed Audrey Noel on July 28th and on August 6th, my sister Noelle, and her husband Todd, welcomed Max Henry! Both babies are so, so precious and loved by all – they have brought us such immeasurable joy! Audrey is absolutely gorgeous with lots of dark hair and eyelashes (she looks like a china doll!) and Max is a handsome little man with the most kissable face you’ve ever seen (I think he looks like his brother Will, but the jury’s still out).

I was able to be in Colorado for the birth of Max (barely because my plane was stuck in New York for HOURS and HOURS!), and due to a little miscommunication in a group text between Todd, Brian, and myself, I actually found myself standing right outside the delivery room door when Max was born. I have a pretty precious memory of hearing him take his first breath and let out a loud cry – I never though a baby’s cry could sound so good! (Side note, if any of you have the baby bug, just stand outside the door of someone going through natural labor/delivery and it will cure you!!).

I got to spend almost a whole week with my family which entailed lots of baby cuddling, superhero playing and Target shopping – I loved every minute of it, but I missed Brian TERRIBLY! I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be taking a trip without him again anytime soon (if ever)!

Family of Three

Beautiful Audrey Noel

Family of six

Max Henry

The mommas and their babies

(All photos courtsey of Todd & Noelle and Andrew & Diana)

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Filed under Humor

July 27, 2012 · 6:39 am

No Crazy Adventures for Us

I purposed weeks ago that when we moved to Canada I would return to regular blogging and entertain you all with our crazy adventures in this new place. Well, crazy adventures we have not had, but random updates I have in abundance:

This week has been muggy and rainy. This kind of weather that leaves me wanting to stay inside and eat Kraft mac n’ cheese while I whip up some friendship bracelets, Sculpey clay beads, and play Clue Jr. I mean seriously, how cool would that be?!?!

I have a new food kick. Special K Red Berries is out and Honey Nut Cheerios is so, so in! I eat it every day for breakfast and sometimes for lunch too. When I don’t eat Cheerios for lunch, I make a ham salad sandwich (sounds so gross, I know!). It’s made with ham, apples, dijon mustard, and cranberry sauce. One part weird, two parts delicious.

We have introduced my in-laws to Psych and Ticket to Ride, meaning that many nights you can find us laughing over one or the other. In related news, Brian has handed his title of “Ticket to Ride’s Winningest Winner” over to me. 🙂

BRIAN SURPRISED ME WITH MY VERY OWN iPHONE!! When it comes to surprises he remains the “Winningest Winner”! This means that I can FaceTime and text up a storm with my iPhone carrying friends and family here in Canada as well as in the States! This also means that I have finally joined Instagram – I thought the day would never come! In case you were wondering, my Instagram name is pollyraby.

The buying vs. renting saga continues. Everyday it seems to change. One day we are looking at homes for sale and the next we are looking at apartments for rent. However, for the last 19 hours we have been fairly settled on renting and I’m pretty much a-ok with that.

Sometime in the next couple of weeks I will become an aunt again – TWICE! Both my sister and my sister-in-law are expecting babies any day and I am just beside my self with excitement. Everytime, we get a call or a text my heart starts racing as I think that maybe A BABY IS BEING BORN!!! I’m flying back to Colorado in early August to meet these little babies in person and can hardly wait! On the subject of babies, I’ve been somewhat sucked in by the show I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. One word: crazy!

Finally, here is a picture of us at Lake Ontario last week. We live like 10 minutes from the lake and sometimes I like to pretend that it is really the Pacific Ocean. 🙂

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Filed under Canada, Family

July 10, 2012 · 1:10 pm

Canadian Life

We are now in our second full week in Canada and I no longer have any any excuses for not blogging. We are settling into a new routine, a new city (well, not really for Brian), and meeting lots of new people. We are also enjoying being close to most of Brian’s family and seeing them frequently. Brian is loving his new job at Harvest Durham and is actually getting ready to preach this coming Sunday! I’m adjusting to being home and filling my days with things other than office work and meetings. I’m missing California and our friends and family in the states terribly, no really, TERRIBLY, but we are so thankful to the Lord for bringing us here and surrounding us with precious family and friends.

Since arriving, we’ve enjoyed celebrating Canada Day and the 4th of July (pretty sure there would have been a US flag shaped hole in my heart had we skipped this), jogging together several days each week, and exploring the possibility of buying our first home. I’ve also been making some observations about Canada:

  • Holy guacamole, dairy is EXPENSIVE here! Like, really expensive. Which is a little confusing to me considering that I’ve seen tons of cows since moving here!
  • Everything is built out of brick. Gray brick, red brick, orange brick. Bricks, bricks, and more bricks!
  • You take your shoes off at the door anytime you enter a home. Not just your home, everyone’s home.  Always. As you can imagine, given my love for shoes, I’m not crazy about this. At all.
  • The British influence is strong around here. There’s lots of tea, shepherd’s pie, fish n’ chips, and British names and terms. I actually really like this! But not really the part about tea.
  • Hockey, soccer, and golf are a big deal around here. Also big around here are black squirrels and flies.
  • There are fees connected to everything. A fee if you use your washing machine before 7 pm on weekdays. A fee if you throw away more than a certain number of trash bags each week. A fee for most bank transactions, etc. Seriously, people?!?!
  • Hulu is exclusive to the United States. WHAT? This changes everything!

So while Canada is certainly different from what I’m used to, the Lord is teaching me that those differences aren’t bad. And while it doesn’t yet feel like home, I know that it soon will. We are eager for visitors from the states (don’t come without provisions from Target and Trader Joe’s!) and hopefully soon, we will have a place of our own for our friends and family to stay!!

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Filed under Moving

June 7, 2012 · 4:10 pm

Brian’s New Hobby

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Filed under Humor

May 4, 2012 · 12:48 pm

May Letters

Dear Hot Bacon Grease, You nearly burned the palm of my hand off and now I have the blisters to prove it. As you can imagine, this, coming shortly on the heels of burning my leg while ironing my pants (yes, I was wearing them while I ironed them), was quite a blow. I guess this is why Brian has instituted a list of burn-prevention rules and is strictly enforcing them.

Dear Brian, I love celebrating anything and everything with you! This past Sunday we celebrated our 6th month anniversary. Not sure how it’s possible, but each month was somehow better than the one before. Thank you for the VERY. BEST. 6 months. of. my life!! To top it off, in 9 days we celebrate your seminary graduation. You’ve worked so hard and I’m so very proud of you!

Dear The Hook, Thank you for a most delicious 6 month anniversary lunch! I’ve eaten a lot of burgers in my life, but yours was one my favorites! Even though we haven’t known each other long, I can already tell you that I’m going to miss you when we move to Canada.

Dear Master’s College, This morning I attended my 10th and last Year End Show. As per usual, I cried. It ended with this little gem that I will watch every time I start to miss you real bad. Which will probably be real often.

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Filed under Letters, Marriage, Work

April 27, 2012 · 10:02 am

The Announcement: Canada

After months of having virtually NOTHING to blog about, I’ve finally got something… and it’s a doosey!

At some point early this summer we will be moving to Canada. Yes, Canada! Brian has been offered a position at a wonderful church about 40 minutes east of Toronto in the same area where he grew up. God is so good to direct us to this church and we look forward to serving Him as we serve this precious body of believers. A lot of Brian’s family is in the area, and several dear friends from the College and Seminary are already a part of the church making it practically perfect in every way.

Most of the time I’m very excited about this new chapter, but sometimes I’m very, very sad. Like, cry my eyes out sad. Thankfully, we have a couple of months before we leave and we plan to make the most of it! We have an ever-growing list of all the things we need to do before we go (e.g. the beach, Umami Burger, Magic Mountain, The Yardhouse, Boccali’s, TARGET!, etc.) and an even longer list of the people we need to spend time with before we go.

I am currently in the process of applying for a permanent resident visa which has turned into no small feat. In addition to endless – ENDLESS – paperwork, I’ve had to get a FBI background check, an “Immigration Physical” and have about a bazillion passport-type photos taken. Every day I’m asking Brian questions like, “Do they have GAP in Canada?” “Do they sell Special K Red Berries in Canada?” “Do they celebrate Valentines Day in Canada?” “Will I have to get new measuring cups & spoons in the metric system?” “Do they have Pottery Barn in Canada?” “Do they have drive-up ATMs in Canada?” “Do they eat frozen yogurt in Canada?” “Do they watch ‘The Amazing Race’ in Canada?” “Do they have Mexican food in Canada?” “Can we drive over the border into NY for all the important American holidays?” There are SO. MANY. THINGS. I. NEED. TO. KNOW.

Anyways… all that to say, I imagine that my blogging will continue to be inconsistent at best as we wrap up things here in California and make our way to our new home!

 

 

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Filed under Marriage, Travel

April 18, 2012 · 2:57 pm

Stalling…

If it seems to you like I might have forgotten that I have a blog… well… I kinda did.

I have a couple posts rolling around in my head that I may try to post soon, but in the meantime, I thought you might enjoy listing to what I’ve been listening to. Over and over and over and over.

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Filed under Random

March 7, 2012 · 10:01 am

Update… finally!

Since my last post…

1. We celebrated my 28th birthday in a big way. Brian got me tickets to see Celine Dion in concert in Las Vegas at the end of February. I cried many tears of joy and happiness.

2. Todd and Noelle and the kids came to California for a brief Disneyland vacation. We were able to spend not one, but two days at Disneyland with them where we had an absolute ball!!

3. We both became horribly sick with bad colds and spent lots of time at Wal-Mart picking up all manner of cold remedies.

4. In the midst of our sickness we drove to Las Vegas to see Celine Dion, stopping at the Mad Greek Cafe along the way. Unfortunately, they took the shawarma off the menu and their gyros were just ok. But that was just the beginning of the disappointment…

5. Once in Vegas, we found out about an hour before the concert  was supposed to start that Celine had just CANCELED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cried. Then Brian took me shopping. Then I cried some more. Then Brian got me chocolate cake. Then I cried some more. Then we went back to our hotel and watched  Mudcats and Wipeout. Turns out, it’s pretty hard to be sad while watching Mudcats and Wipeout. I guess my heart will go on after all.

6. Hannah came to visit!! Boy, oh boy, do I love having her around! We had a few friends over for dinner while she was here on the one condition that she would cook her famous risotto for all of us. Delish!

7. Brian is currently in the midst of his busiest work week of the year. We see each other from 5:30 to 6 in the morning and again from about 11 to 11:30 every night. It’s no fun I tell you!

Other than that, I have nothing else to report!

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Filed under Birthday, Family, Friends, Humor, Random