Friday, August 29, 2008

Leaving Aber




Well, we are leaving Aber in two days and we are feeling bittersweet. We have really enjoyed our time here. It is beautiful and the town is great to walk around. I have loved being able to walk everywhere. We have made some lovely friends, here is a photo of Anya with a family from church


Many of the people we have met and befriended will be friends for a long time and we will miss them much. However we are really excited to be going home. It has been a year and a half since we have had our stuff, and as much as I try my hardest to not be attached to possessions, I love my furniture and kitchen ware. It has been difficult to live in two separate apartments that have been outfitted with the bare minimum of essentials, non of which have been quality. I cook a lot and we love to entertain but it is hard to prepare many dishes without proper kitchen essentials. I also have missed being in a ward. Our branch has been lovely, but it has many, many problems that wards do not, or maybe I just don't see the same problems because the group is so much larger. I will be glad to not have callings that needs my full attention during every hour of church, but our little girl will miss being so loved by the church members here.

Anyway, we are very busy cleaning out our apartment and giving away stuff. Sunday we will drive to Manchester and Monday we will be flying to Detroit and then drive up to Ottawa. We have found a great apartment there and then hopefully we will find jobs. Here are a couple of pictures of our girl for you to enjoy.



Saturday, August 9, 2008

Miss Getinski

Our small sized girl is a crazy getinski. Like most little ones, she loves to go all the places that we do not want her to. Lately she has taken to pulling everything, and I mean everything out of all the cupboards that she can reach. Since we have a small kitchen these cupboards have lots of stuff that she should not be playing with. Here she is getting into the flour.


That same cupboard actually has all of our food products, so it is very important to reach the very back and pull everything out.

In our living room is a sliding glass door that opens up onto a glass partition preventing you from falling the two stories down. Anya loves to sit with the door open up against the glass partition and look outside, especially when it is raining out. Quite often she takes random items and shoves them under the glass, to a dreadful demise on the rocks below. Anyway- the other day she climbed from the couch onto the end tables and then peaked over the banister. at one point she had pulled herself up in a pull up on the railing. Yea, fun!


These are just super cute, because we all know she is-




In other news, some folks have been asking what we are doing with ourselves next. This is a very interesting question. The current plan is that we are moving back to Ottawa September 1. Adam is currently finishing his masters degree here in Aber, and will be done at the end of this month. He applied to 3 Phd programs that he was interested in, here in Aber, McMaster in Hamilton, Ontario, and Arizona State in Phoenix. He was accepted here and in Arizona, but missed McMaster by one spot. So it all came down to money. They do things a little bit different here than they do in the UK. They do not have funding for all the people they accept to Phd programs. Some funding is available but thye pass it out really slowly as thye receive various grants and such come from the government. Arizona offered Adam funding but in order to go there Adam needs a visa and since the US visa department is backlogged forever we have to defer for a year. So we decided to move to Ottawa in order to live for a year until the US visa comes through. If Adam gets a good job that he likes than we might stay there. Yesterday Adam had a meeting with one of the professors at the school. The Prof basically told him that money was coming to Adam very soon and that they really want him to stay here. Although this is great news, there are many problems. The money that they can give him is not quite enough for us to live in this very expensive place. Also, we have all of our furniture and stuff in storage at home that we are paying for, and we miss North America. So, we might have some decisions to make soon. I was so excited about going home that it is hard to get excited about staying here for three more years, but at the same time the thought of doing a Phd for three years instead of five or six in the States would be great. Like everything in life, it all comes down to money I think, and really I should not be worrying about this since nothing is set.
So there you go, life is pretty up in the air right now. But for now, we will be moving to Ottawa in September and hopefully finding jobs and such there.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Peepo

My little girl loves to play peek-a-boo. She climbs under blankets, shirts, our fabric grocery bags and peeks out at us all the time. Her favorite book is a little Peepo book that she got from the doctors office here, it goes everywhere with us and is read at least 10 times a day. So, here are a couple of pictures of her playing peek-a-boo in our curtains.


Our friends Brooke and Darren are having a baby soon so I knitted this little jumper this week. I thought that it was super cute and I wanted to make one for Anya as well, but the pattern had a whole bunch of mistakes so I decided no. But this one turned out cute.