the first week

Well, the move is complete.  Our little/big family is now settled into a beautiful home in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.  Where a foghorn can be heard and Seahawk helicopters fly overhead occasionally.  We have a much bigger space than the one we left in Spruce Grove, AB.  There are four bedrooms, hard floors, 2 3/4 bathrooms.  And an absolutely massive back yard!  We've been keeping the windows open alot and I just LOVE hearing the birds singing.  They go at it all the time.  Yesterday I sat on the deck in the sun, coffee cup in hand, the boys and the Girl playing catch on the grass, Girl2 being busy at my feet, and just sat and listened.  Soaked in some sunshine.

There is so much natural light, lots of windows.  It's a pretty quiet street too, as far as traffic goes.  There are a bunch of kids, though, both across the street and up a bit.  And pretty close in age with ours, so that is very nice.  It helps that these children get along with almost anyone!

We have had a couple of road bumps in the transition so far.  Everyone has shorter tempers, whining and poor diet from when we lived in a hotel for the week before our furniture arrived.  But the flight was uneventful, all on time and no incidents from the kids.

It's very neat seeing the fog coming off of the harbour.  We can't see it from the house, but driving up to and across the bridges, seeing white and then the tops of the bridge, the water disappeared until you get closer.  The shear size of the ships!  The kids and I drove to the Shearwater MFRC (Military Family Resource Centre) and saw an empty container ship making it's way into the harbour.  Very awesome!

The time difference has been a bit of an adjustment.  We are getting used to new sleeping patterns in our bigger space.  Today is the first day that Girl2 hasn't cried whenever I put her down!  I think the crying was because she isn't used to the bigger floor space.

It doesn't get as cold at night, so it doesn't take long to warm up during the day.  Last night as I was tidying up after the kids were down for the night, I noticed that it was getting darker earlier.  A lower latitude will do that.

But the kids are missing their friends already too.  They have written some letters that I have to send off.  And we will likely write more.  Trying to figure out Skype scheduling too, so we can chat with relatives and friends.  All in all, it's been a great first week.  I'm pretty excited to get to know some of these people through the MFRC and colleagues of Hubby's.  There are a bunch of resources in place for support for me while Hubby is away in St Jean for BMOQ (Basic Military Officer Qualifications) and then in Borden for the Chaplain training school.  He is enjoying his first few days, learning the lingo, getting kitted out, planning a baptism already.  As always, jumping in with both feet :)