Hi folks,
Well this is it, my very first Christmas letter. The first ever letter from my family to yours. Here goes.
The last two years have been pretty amazing, what with Sebastian being born, moving out to Vancouver and basically starting things over in a whole new place. We’re now settled here in New Westminster and our apartment has a good feel of family and home. We’ve got our tree up, Kate and Sebastian made snowflakes that are hanging from our roof above the tree and Sebastian keeps trying to eat the popcorn garland right off the tree.
When we moved out of our house in Calgary to the little basement suite across the alley a lot of things happened to us in a short period of time. We were flooded, twice. We had a number of horrible weeks where we slept on the floor and couch in our cramped living room/dining room/ kitchen while heaters and fans tried to fight back the water in our bedroom and office space. Worried about mould and what would happen the next time it rained and scared as new parents about what could happen to Sebastian in this place. Also living on my IBM contract job was getting more and more difficult and we were finding it consistently harder to make ends meet. Thus it was decided that things needed to change, drastically.
We packed our bags and headed out to Vancouver in our little BMW and hoped for the best. We had a wonderful place to stay for a few months while we got everything back together and most of all it would be above ground! Dad and I made the drive out together following behind Kate and Sebastian who flew. We talked about this and that and made the drive over two days. This I could feel was the beginning of something new and wonderful. Dad and I hadn’t spoken so openly and comfortably for quite some time and I think that his coming along with me on this trip was like bringing a bit of my family forever with me to Vancouver.
We stayed in this new age house for two months at which point we gave it back to it’s owner and moved in with our friends Jenn and Rob. Their house was a little less nice than the one we had been in but still, the feeling of community and friendship within the house made up for the blemishes it had physically. We lived there for a few months and slowly the stress of pleasing three adults and one small child with an increasing ability to get in to trouble started wearing on us all. We had all but decided that we should find our own homes when deja-vu struck and the basement flooded. The BMW died and we were looking like maybe this had been a bad idea after all. So… we had a garage sale.
We sold almost everything. Everything had a price and we wanted it gone. All the excess baggage, all the junk, and all the stuff we had been toting around for years and could no longer remember why. It was time for it to go, and so it went. We got rid of almost everything. Then we got a moving truck and headed to New West.
Now we live in our cozy one bedroom apartment, we still have too much stuff but it’s a smaller place so it’s all relative, right?
New West is a nice place and we’ve got a good community base. There are programs like Motorin’ Munchkins, where Kate and Sebastian go some mornings. Sebastian gets the run of a huge gym full of toys and just has a blast running around. Queen’s park is very close and there is a wonderful track around the park for walking, forested area and a big playground with a huge spray park. Kate has started a parents group and has meet-ups with parents and their kids during the day time where they can go for coffee or to a park and talk while their kids play.
In October, I got hired on and I am having a wonderful time here, it’s much more gratifying than IBM ever was. The stability of having a constant income and health benefits have given us peace of mind, we are finally making waves towards a positive future.
Sebastian has grown up a lot over the last months. He has so many more words in his vocabulary and he loves pointing at everything he sees while shouting with great enthusiasm words like CAR and TWRUCK and TWREE. Sebastian paints and draws and plays music on his drum and recorder. He gives hugs to all the new kids he meets and says (and signs) thank you to everyone for even the smallest things.
And right now… with the tree, the snowflakes and the presents……
He’s finally realizing that something is up. Christmas is here.
Much love to all of you from all of us,
Merry Christmas,
Andrew, Kate and Sebastian
No comments:
Post a Comment