Flurry of Packing!

Boxes Packed Today: 23 (55 total)
Sharpies Used Up: 3
Rolls of Packing Tape: 5
Boxes of Bubble Wrap: 2


With moving day looming (15 days to go!) and Colin being swamped at work, I decided to tackle the pile that is taking over my office and the dining room....I spent the day surrounded by bubble wrap and a new packing tape bracelet.  I feel very productive and while I still have the kitchen to tackle...at least I made a dent!


I got 23 boxes packed!  I would have gotten more done, but I ran out of boxes.  :)

Cross-Canada Itinerary - subject to change

In a very Wills & Kate moment...Colin and I now have our tentative travel schedule in place!

July 5 - official pack up the truck day
July 6 - get out of Vancouver!  (spending the night in Kelowna)
July 7 - driving to Calgary - people to visit - dinner with Erin & Nick and a visit with Jon AND Colin and I hope to do the Fastest Zipline in Canada!
July 8 - lunch in Medicine Hat with Shannon and her manwich
           - spending the evening with yummy smoked food in Moose Jaw with Todd & Meaghan (can't wait to meet her!)
July 9 - driving to Winterpeg to see the future Mrs. Hicks!  (Melly - will we need to pack our winter stuff?)
July 10 - driving to Thunder Bay - who do we know in Thunder Bay?
July 11 - driving to Sault Ste Marie - perhaps a little cross-border shopping may take place??
July 12 - visiting Papa's grave in Thessalon and continuing on to Oro to see my Mom and Nana for some Mama homecooking!
July 13 - arrive in Toronto at the new house and not wanting to take any roadtrips for a while!

Not much new to report on this end, other than a packing stoppage due to a week at home to help move Nana from the hospital in Ottawa into Mom's house for good!  Still have most of the house to content with, but luckily a few solid days should do it.

Colin is swamped with work, but that won't end for another 2 weeks until his tax freedom can take place!  We are both glad that all of the Change of Address cards arrived safely before the Canada Post lockout took place.  Anyone that we are visiting along the way is getting a hand-delivered card and a big hug!

Being back in Ontario this last week just solidified how excited I am to be back in the heat and humidity and close proximity of family & friends who may as well be family!

A Week of Crossing Stuff off of the To-do List

It's definitely been a busy week since the last post.  In that time, Andrea has continued packing, while work has picked up for me as my busy season approaches.  We've donated a bunch more of the extraneous stuff that we've accumulated over the past year, and We've also been doing some more planning for the move and have booked our moving company.  The big thing this week, though, was that we have locked down a place to rent in Toronto for the next year!  We've just signed a lease to rent a 3-bedroom house near Yonge and Sheppard.  It should work out really well, as it is pretty centrally located, near the subway, highways, and shopping, and shouldn't result in too long of a commute to my new office in Thornhill, nor to downtown Toronto.

The difference between rental prices in Toronto versus those in Vancouver is shocking.  In Toronto, we'll be renting a 3-bedroom house, with a yard, for nearly $300/month less than we're paying in Vancouver for a 2-bedroom townhouse!

Andrea and I are both really excited to having the living situation solved, as we can now start to do some of the other things that need to be done - changing addresses, start cancelling our services out here, and start getting our services set up in Toronto.  We are really looking forward to being back in Ontario.  Keep a look out for the change of address cards.  45 days until the journey begins!

Seven Weeks to Go!

Boxes Packed: 9 (32 total)
Sharpies Used Up: 0
Rolls of Packing Tape: 2
Boxes of Bubble Wrap: 1


Seven weeks to go!


Well it has been a busy few days with packing and dealing with finding car insurance. I personally cannot wait to come back to Ontario where there is insurance competition! Apparently Colin and I have the same rating as a 17 year old driver because we have only had our driver’s licenses for 1 year, which of course makes our insurance astronomical. Who charges $700 for 3 months of insurance?? Thank goodness we will have rates more appropriate to our age and years of driving soon.


Packing is going really well and the house is starting to look sparse. Most of the pictures are down, the bookshelves are empty as well as the DVD shelves. The only rooms that we haven’t started packing up yet are the kitchen and the master bedroom, mostly because of the fact that I haven’t had the energy to figure out where/what to donate yet.


Colin and I have started house shopping and I was really surprised with the cost (twice the house for the same cost) compared to Vancouver. I was also pleased with the availability of rental houses for a year. I personally want to rent a house because I am sick of our chain smoking neighbour and his lack of respect for everyone else that has to share a wall. Apparently the strata complex is discriminating against him because the rules are that all outdoor spaces are smoke-free.


Back to packing…or course work – I haven’t decided what is more fun!

Car Shopping Sucks - Until You Find Your Car

Boxes Packed:  6 (23 total) + 1 half packed
Sharpies Used Up:  0
Rolls of Packing Tape: 1

With the move to Ontario at the beginning of July rapidly approaching and the plan to drive across the country as part of the move falling into place, one critical piece was still outstanding - Andrea and I did not have a car.  So we decided to spend this weekend taking a look at various dealerships to see if we could find anything we liked.

We started out Saturday morning at a Ford dealership (I have a discount with Ford through Ernst & Young), and test-drove a new Ford Focus.  I never thought I'd be entertaining the idea of buying a Ford, but we both found the new Focus hatchback to be a great car and had fun test-driving it (even though the salesman decided to come with us).  In the end, though, the discount wasn't as great as we'd hoped, and the Focus ended up being a bit more than we wanted to spend.

From there we went on to two different Toyota dealerships.  Both were owned by the same person, but I was surprised at how different the service was between the two.  At the first, we initially told the salesman that we were looking to buy used, and were looking at either a Matrix or a Yaris.  The salesman completely ignored us, and from there spent his time trying to get us to buy a brand new Yaris.  Now these cars are supposed to be small and economical, but by the time he was done with his sales pitch, the car was priced at over $21,000 - for a Yaris!!!  Quite the change from when Andrea got her first Yaris in 2007.

The second Toyota dealership had much better service, but unfortunately had only two used cars that we were interested in - one was an older Matrix that had already been sold, and one was a 2009 Yaris that we were very interested in.  After discussing the Yaris with the salesman, we decided to take another day to look around before starting to make any decisions.  It was a busy Saturday, and Andrea and I ended the day feeling very disappointed and frustrated.

Sunday started out quite a bit better - despite the black clouds, the rain held off and we headed to the Richmond Automall to continue our shopping.  Our first stop was another Toyota dealership, and the day seemed to start off with another pushy salesman that wasn't initially listening to us.  However, he turned out to be quite helpful, and after Andrea and I had a look at their used inventory, he went off searching for the car we wanted to look at - a 2010 Matrix that had just come back on a lease.  Apparently some other salesman had hidden it on the lot, but after about 20-25 minutes, our wonderfully helpful salesman had found the car.  Andrea and I both knew pretty quickly that this was the car for us, and left about an hour later with a signed sales agreement!

All we had hoped was that Sunday would be a better car-shopping day than Saturday, and that's exactly what happened.  Although we didn't go out expecting to buy a car, we're both really excited to have that crossed off of our to-do list, and can't wait to pick up the "Silver Bullet" tomorrow!

The recycling depot is going to LOVE me...

Boxes Packed:  5 (17 total) + 4 half packed
Sharpies Used Up:  0
Rolls of Packing Tape: 1


In an effort to procrastinate from my online course, I decided to get some packing done.  I went through all of my binders from AC and recycled 2 boxes of papers from those binders alone.  I was able to clean out the office and got another two boxes of paper and a box lid full of overhead pages.  I can't believe how many overheads I made during practicum.  I (heart) my SMARTboard!  The office is now officially packed with the exception of the bookshelf, filing bins and minimal office supplies.  


All of the pictures are now off of the wall and thanks to Colin's mudding last weekend, all of the holes are filled in.  We are currently on a hunt for box that is tall enough for our degrees and Paris picture.  I guess we'll have to buy one...


This weekend is going to be a car shopping/antique dish packing weekend.  It should be interesting!  


If your address has changed or will change before the end of June - please let either of us know!  

Books & Movies

It's hard to believe that we did this only a year ago April when we moved all of our stuff from Belleville to W 6th Avenue!  But....we still have lots of stuff to get rid of.  

Currently there are 3 boxes worth of books waiting to head to a used book store.  If you have any favourite authors/genres - please let ones of us know and we may have some new books for you!

Also - the list of (free) DVDs is currently (we will be adding more as time goes on):

- Heroes (S1 & S2)
- White Oleander
- Stardust
- Michael Clayton
- capote
- Harry Potter - Years 1-5

If you want any movies - please let Colin or I  know and we will box it off and ship it out!

Less than 2 months....I can't wait!  :)