Hello, friends, family and blog-surfers!
We took a summer vacation not only from teaching, it seems, but from keeping in touch with the people we love. Which is kinda unpleasant. I already have a reputation for composing Homeric blog posts; it would probably be a mite unreasonable to expect I would be able to recap everything that's transpired since the last time I e-communicated. But I'm going to survey it quickly and get up to the present. Then, over the next week or so (deo volente) I'll upload some photos and showcase some more detailed description of what our life out here in Alberta is like.
We got back from London at the end of June (yeah, it really has been that long since I updated the blog). We had hoped we could have taken our time a bit more but the schedule got accelerated because I got a call from my old boss at Ontario Parks asking if I could work at the park near North Bay for the summer again. Now, I had been planning to have a restorative and mildly suspenseful summer of seeing people and looking for teaching jobs. But the appeal of having some income was difficult to resist. So our return to North America was a little quick; we had just a couple days to sort out stuff and say hello to my parents in Brampton before hopping a bus to North Bay so I could start work that Friday.
I was doing what amounts to pretty much the coolest summer job anybody could ask for. You know when you go camping and there's the park staff member who runs programs about the nature and history in the park? That was my job. Bonus, though, being that this park is on the historic French-Canadian voyageur route, so we ran costumed, in-character tours in a replica 30-ft canoe up and down the river. So not only did I get lots of sun and exercise, but I was working in an education-related field and I got to do it dressed up like a 17th-century voyageur. Good times. The hiccups, though, were that my weekends were fairly spoken-for and I didn't get a lot of time off. Which left the aggressive job-hunting to Alyssa. I helped, as much as I could. But it should come as no surprise that she managed to get interviews and offers before I did.
It was a really awkward couple of months. The uncertainty of the fall - where would we live, what would we do, what would happen if we couldn't find anything - all of it weighed increasingly heavy on our minds as the summer wound to a close. And then the job came, swooping to the rescue, terrifying and unsettling. Alberta. A first nations reserve school. Alyssa could teach junior high math full-time, and I could do supply work there and in the area to keep myself busy. Good pay. Good school with good resources. So we took it. And packed up and moved to Alberta.
There's been a fair share of tricky bits that have come up from our migration. Getting our stuff from the movers was an adventure. We still have a spare room full of boxes, piles and unsorted stuff that'll probably go to the salvation army. And there's some paperwork stuff - change of address, banking, health cards, yada yada yada - that's taking time to get put through.
This weekend we are celebrating our first anniversary. One whole year of being married. And what a year it's been, too. Full of experiences and living. Ups and Downs. Anxieties and Problems and a lot of Grace and Provision. In a few minutes I'll be running home to pack up and clean up, and then we hop in the car for a scenic and gorgeous drive through the mountains to Banff. Where we'll chill out and be in a gorgeous place for a couple nights. Since it's just right here.
As always, we appreciate your prayers. Alyssa's first year of full-time teaching is coming with the customary share of challenge, exhaustion, and burning out. And I need inspiration and motivation to keep writing, to keep in contact, and keep everything else together while we ride out the dying gasps of autumn (we've been snowed-on twice already). We'll bring a camera this weekend.
