August 2014 Favourites

Around The Neighbourhood

My second daily ritual after my morning coffee is to walk our two Golden Retrievers around the neighbourhood. Our dogs have a ton of energy to wear off and it gets me moving too! During the Winter, walking the dogs becomes more of a chore but in the warmer months it's a great way to soak up that fresh air and sunshine!

I was really excited that our new home is also so close to the water and couldn't wait to familiarize myself with my new surroundings.

Since we looked at the house in early Spring, we had only come to see the very edge of these trails. Then, still coated in snow, it was difficult to imagine everything in full bloom. What a fantastic surprise when the dogs and I came out of the clearing and ended up here!

As we walked the trail for the first time, I spotted this monarch butterfly caterpillar hiding under some milkweed.

And loved the simplicity of this small vine wrapped so tightly around this branch.

Genevieve and Murray were ecstatic when we ended our walk with a swim off the pebbly beach.

Walking the dogs has now become one of my favourite daily tasks. 

We've Moved!

Wow! What a busy year it's been for us!

   Out of the blue one snowy, February morning, my husband said to me 'I think we should move'. I instantly began crying because I'm an emotional nut like that. So many thoughts went rushing through my head - How can I leave behind our first home? The home we bought together to start our life together. The neighbourhood I grew up in. The home we had spent the past seven years fixing up and making just right for us. 

In my heart though I knew it was the right thing to do. Our neighbourhood had been slowly going downhill and we didn't want to be caught up with it. It wasn't a place I would want to raise a family and we had outgrown it. I was constantly frustrated with the lack of office space I had and our small backyard wasn't suitable for our two large Golden Retrievers either. If we had children one day there was no place to put them! So we decided to work really hard fixing up a few rooms and renovating a few others so we could get ourselves on the market by the beginning of April.

All of our hard work paid off and we had an offer five days after listing. A week later and it was official - we were moving! 

We had an extremely quick closing date and suddenly the panic set in that we had just over 6 weeks before we would be homeless! We spent days with our realtor visiting every home on the market that fit our criteria. And then we found The One. That dream home we had always envisioned for ourselves. It was absolutely perfect. There was just one problem - they couldn't leave until July 4th and we had to be out of our home on June 2nd. 

Thankfully we have some incredible family and friends and we were able to sort out places for ourselves and the fur family to stay while we were in between homes. The paperwork was signed and it was official - the house was ours!

Moving out was a nightmare! We had lots of hands but despite our reservation, U-Haul didn't have a truck for us. Instead we were given a trailer. A trailer. We had to move our entire home in to a storage unit 45 minutes away with a trailer. Thank goodness for those great family members, friends and a sun filled weekend!

The days leading up to the move were incredibly emotional for me. Every room had a thousand memories both happy and sad, but mostly happy. Even harder to cope with was the fact that I was going to be out of a home for over a month, most of our beloved pets weren't going to be with me during that time and I would only see my husband on weekends. 

On move out day, Hubby packed up the car while I did one more walk through our first home. I sobbed the entire way to my Dad's.

Then something happened. The next morning I woke up at my parents with a sense of calm enveloping me. The chaos was over and the thing I had been dreading for months - leaving our first home - was also behind me. Our fur family was in the care of some amazing people and best of all, our dream home was only a little over a month ahead of us.

And that month went quickly! I had a great time staying with my parents and spending time with my amazing seven year old brother. The dogs enjoyed their daily walks down the country trails and I looked forward to the weekends when Hubby would come up to visit.

And then finally July 4th was here! I'm not sure if it was the month in between where I had time to properly leave our first house behind and get excited for the new one but walking through that front door for the first time just felt right. 

I was home.