If you were a Canadian (like me) living in the United States (like me) (or even, gasp! vice versa) you might have to deal with the small unpleasantness of having to sort out the issue of immunizations and school and the territory in between. You might have to show your child’s school evidence of said shots and this may have involved all sorts of trips to and from the doctor and phone calls to and from doctor’s offices, public health offices and hospitals all over civilization and harried conversations regarding records, faxes and PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HURRY. And after these many phone calls without any resulting yelling or expulsion of your child from her (or his) school you might relax and choose to believe that all required faxes have been sent and received and that these things will sort themselves out.
You would be wrong.
Because after three full months of school your child’s school might finally get around to checking out the forms submitted when she enrolled in school and they might call you and leave a message on your phone in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS telling you it’s Very Important that they get your child’s Immunization Records because she May Not Attend School without Proper Documentation of her Vaccinations.
So you, being a responsible parents, would speak with the school nurses and discuss the reasons for the delinquent information (our records are in Canada and apparently faxing documents across the border is Very Hard). The nurses would probably be calmed by your Responsible Parent Voice and give you permission to bring in your personal documentation of your child’s frequent puncturage the following Monday. Which you would go ahead and do because you care about following rules.
When you bring the school nurse the information she requires she would reward your conscientiousness with a damning proclamation; your child is not fully vaccinated! UNCLEAN!!! The USA requires Hepatitis B vaccinations and Canada does not. Your child must not be allowed to pollute the school air with her dirty, unvaccinated little self one second longer (nevermind that she has already attended school for three months)!
And so you might be told to take your child home so as not to defile the purity of the school atmosphere. And your child might be brought from her classroom in tears, not wanting to leave school and you might feel ashamed, as though you had done something wrong, even though you know you haven’t.
If you were like me you might start playing phone tag (once again) with two different Canadian offices to try and get your child’s immunization records faxed to your new doctor’s office so that your doctor can sign a form for the school so they can untie the giant knot their panties are in. But both offices say they faxed those forms back in September like you asked them to. When you ask them to do it again you would probably discover that the number they originally faxed to was incorrect. So you would get them to do it again.
You would make phone calls to the doctor’s office to see if your leperous child can be immunized today so that she can return to school tomorrow. The child would weep because she fears shots like little else in this world. I mean *if* you had that kind of a kid.
And after your child is punctured you would probably ask them to confirm that they received the faxes from Canada. But they would dismiss you disdainfully, saying they had received no such fax. Because that’s the kind of day it is, and apparently fax machines in Canada are made from twigs and leaves and therefore take much longer to cross the border to America, the blessed land of technological ingenuity.
So you would go home and although you should be making more calls to verbally kick some ass you might be feeling a tad discouraged and you might need to break down and cry for a while. Especially after your husband does some searching online and discovers that the first fax number, given to you in September was actually the right one and not the one given to you today. Then you might just want to lock yourself in the closet for a few years. I mean, that’s how I would feel if it were me.
But it’s so totally not me.
Well so much has happened in the past few weeks and I have thought about blogging every day but there always seemed to be too much to sum up in the time that I had so I put it off. Of course the next day there was even more. So now I’ve decided to give you the brief update with the pictures below. Stop laughing. Yes, I realize there are like 187 pictures here. I promise I’ll try not to be too long-winded.
As the movers packed up the van I ran a few errands around Saskatoon and hung out at McDonalds with my sister and some friends. Karla took Kieran up into the playland climbing structure which he thought was pretty great. I got some really nice shots of the two of them.
We asked Avery to help me hold up the “Sold” sign for our house and this was the result! Cute. But bitter sweet. PS- If you live in Saskatoon and want a good realtor, 
With the van packed we said goodbye to some dear friends and hopped in our car. We stopped for this final shot of our dear Saskatoon. This move is particularly hard for me as I have lived here most of my life. I love the prairies fiercely and it’s going to be hard to be away. Especially not knowing if we’ll be back. But I am really going to try to have a good attitude!
We made it to Manitoba that day and settled in to spend some time with my parents. Colin stayed for 2 days before continuing on to London. The kids and I had a great time relaxing and taking a break from responsibilities. The kids enjoyed this swing in my parents’ front yard and going hot tubbing. Kieran even got his first hair cut, courtesy of my dad and his clippers. I thought it might freak him out but he thought it was hilarious and smiled and laughed through most of it.
The house we are renting is a very old house. About 100 years old, I believe. We have never lived in what could be called an “old” house. I have learned something important about myself in the days since I arrived here. I am NOT and old house person. I am most definitely a new house person. I love the idea of an old house. But in practice I am thinking it is so not worth it. If I were to buy an old house to renovate I would basically just totally redo every single thing about it. So why not build a new house in the style of an older house? I know some people are into renovating and bless your little hearts, you certainly have my admiration! But I think one year will be enough to cure me of any attraction I have to “character homes”. The owners of this house are clearly not as anal as we are. There are so many little things about this home that we would have changed. Like some outlets and light switches have been updated while others haven’t, the cupboards on the island in the kitchen are missing handles, huge patches of chipped or damaged paint on the walls that needs to be touched up, 3 different types of carpet and 4 other types of flooring (hardwood, lino, laminate and tile - and we’re not talking a big house here. It looks weird.) The bathtub, as you might be able to see in this picture, has been repainted at some point (I didn’t know you could paint bathtubs). The paint is now chipping off like CRAZY. When our kids take a bath there are a tonne of little white paint-floaties. I am thinking it is not going to be good for their health when they drink up the bathwater, which they both do, as if I only allow them to drink at bath time. Maybe it’s just me. But really, something needs to be done about this. 
On my first morning in London I had a definite agenda. We needed groceries. None of our canned/dry food was unpacked and my husband had been existing on the food he was given at school (some meals were included that first week) and basically a carton of orange juice and a pack of oatmeal cookies. So off I go to the nearby Superstore thinking “Fantastic! I’ll stock up at a place that will be fairly familiar!” 
It turns out that the neighborhood we live in is kind of the “ghetto”. I really don’t think we would have chosen to live here if we had been in the city when we were searching for a place. I thought the house looked really different, with lots of character (there’s that dirty c-word again) when I saw pictures of it. It turns out that it looks almost exactly like every other house in the area. They are all old and many of them are rentals, exactly like ours. They are divided into a basement suite, a main floor suite, and an upper suite, just like ours is. They are all brick. They all have front porches, they all have stained glass windows above their living room picture window. It’s just like houses in the new neighborhoods all have their garage out in front. But I guess that’s just the nature of humans. Houses in a neighborhood get built at the same time and everyone wants to build what is “in fashion” at the time. This pictures is actually a couple blocks from our place. Some of the houses and yards are owner occupied and some are rentals. Some are very well kept and others aren’t. Same as just about any neighborhood I suppose. 
Despite all this she has still been willing to play in the backyard and go to the park which is only 3 blocks from our house. Kieran enjoys the wagon ride and trying to eat grass and dandylions and sticks. And I only had to stop about 59 times in the three blocks to put his hat back on his head.
