We made it

No caption needed

This will not be a long, descriptive post. I can barely sit down long enough to figure out what needs to be done next over here.  But I wanted to at least update for those who are anxious for news.  The long and short of it:  we all (eventually) made it!  It was not easy... in fact, it still isn't.  But we had sooooo much help that we were able to pull it off, and everything is beginning to start to feel like it might one day fall into place.

Killing time at the Toyota repair shop

The journey unfortunately got off to an ominous start - me and mom and the kids were out the door by 8am, which was a huge accomplishment.  A little over and hour into the trip, however, there was an alarming sound, and then pretty much all of the warning lights came on in the car, all at once.  Because we were not far at that point from the dealership where we had purchased the car, we turned around, and headed there.  Clark called ahead and managed to convince them to squeak us in at noon (thank goodness), but this meant we had a WHOLE lot of waiting to do.  As it turns out, there had been an air bubble in the coolant system (ironically, likely inadvertently put there by the mechanics when we had had the car in for routine maintenance a couple of weeks ago).  So when it popped, the levels dropped all at once, and the car was scared there was a leak.  All of that waiting and delay, and stupidness, for NOTHING. (Although they did also replace the wipers and a burned out headlight, which both ended up being very important parts of this particular trip, so it wasn't a total bust).

Anyway, more than four hours delayed, we were off again.  I got treated very poorly at the American side of the border when I tried to export our car - apparently, they only provide that service between 9am-4pm, and we got there at 5pm.  "Do you want to export a car?" one guy asked another.  "Not really", he replied snarkily, giving me the evil eye - "it's FIVE O'CLOCK".  But they did it anyway. Then there was another hour or so of paperwork on the Canadian side (at least carried out by an incredibly friendly agent), and a decision to be made - do we keep going, or call it a day and find a hotel?  I wanted to call it quits at that point - it was 6pm, and we had at least another 4 hours of driving, plus a supper break ahead of us, most of which would be in the dark.  I, however, got vetoed by all other members of the entourage, so we pressed on.  At one point towards the end, Juniper (having been woken up by us getting lost upon hitting Ottawa), declared "I'm car sick!!"" "What does that mean?" I asked nervously, mentally adding that to the list of the drive from hell.  "I'm SICK of being in the car", she replied adamantly.  Thank goodness.  Weren't we all.  We rolled into our dear friends' Simon and Judith's shortly before midnight, and thankfully laid down in our nicely prepared beds.  We had made it. 

The next few days involved getting the keys to our new place, and trying to make everything work while we waited for all of our stuff to arrive.  Our amazing friend Erin was here to help me find some places I need to find (with no working internet or phone, this was almost impossible for me without her help at the get go), and to take the kids while I got chores done.  And just for the record, it took me much longer (and heaps more frustration) to purchase and activate our new cell phones than it did to cumulatively apply for health cards, sign Juniper up for school, get a first load of groceries, and secure a doctor.  Honest to god.

On the lawn, ready to load

Meanwhile, Clark and Bill and Barb (his dad and stepmom), were packing and cleaning like mad people back in Wood's Hole. Clark informs me that this was a ridiculous task (more ridiculous than what I was going through?  VERY debatable), but that Bill and Barb were machines.  On the actual loading, Ben and Nick came over to help, and then Friday morning, Clark set off.  HIS drive went very smoothly (or, at least, as smoothly as it can while driving a 20 foot truck), and he arrived that evening.  On this end of things, my sister Faye and her s.o., Sandeep had already arrived to help out the day before, and my mom had gone home.  So on Saturday morning, Faye and Sandeep took the kids swimming, Judith and Simon came over, and we unloaded the truck. We then got Linden down for his nap and took off again, to IKEA, and purchased a couch, among other things.  It was an insane day.  

And now here we are, the start of our first real week of our new lives.  Faye is still here to help while Clark and I get things set up.  It feels like it may never, ever get done, but the kitchen is almost functional at this point, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  Juniper started her first day of school this morning, and I am anxiously awaiting her return in an hour or so.  She was clearly nervous (especially because she was starting french immersion with a bunch of kids who had started back in September), but I'm hoping she has a good day. I will leave you there, with some pictures from the last week (none of which were taken with the good camera, unfortunately - it is still packed away).  Hopefully next week I'll have some pictures to share of the house, with rooms mostly set up.  Wish me luck!

Snuggling with Mary (on a broken chair that had been left behind) 

Faye helps Linden eat some grapefruit (I rescued the Poang frame from the street on our first day here! I replaced the cushion, though.)

Simon reads Linden an "IKEA instruction comic book" on our newly constructed couch

lounging and eating a protein ball

post-manicure (Faye said that he looked down at his nails, and announced "I'm sooooooo beautiful!")

Empty truck, with a little guy who was over the moon the be let inside

See you next week!

The final week

I forgot to post this weeks ago.  This is what happens when you put Linden in a photo booth.  He goes crazy hitting all the buttons, until he somehow lands on the "poop and toilet paper" motif.  SO Classy.

As I write this, the house is in complete disaster mode.  It is Sunday evening, and I have done just about everything I can think of to do for our grand adventure tomorrow.  There are about a million more boxes to be packed and items to be organized, but I am now leaving all of that in Clark's (hopefully) very capable hands.  My task now is to triple check that we have everything we need for our epic car journey tomorrow morning (including all of the oh-so-important documentation for the border and beyond), pray that everything fits in the car, and try to get a good night's sleep.

This past week was exactly as I had imagined - packing, sprinkled with a whole lot of final goodbyes. We got to see everyone we had hoped to see (including one beautiful brand new baby!), and mostly got to visit all of our favourite haunts one last time.  My mom arrived Friday evening, and was able to take the kids everywhere they wanted to go while Clark and I went at the house as thoroughly as possible.  Thank goodness for moms!

As you can imagine, I still have a *few* things left to do this evening, so I will just leave you with a bunch of photos from the week.  Stay tuned for our first Canadian update next week!

Mr. Fancy on his last day of Child Centre

checking out the pond water

Linden was very taken with his present: a photo album of pictures of him from his days at the Child Centre

Linden and Miguel listen to their favourite story

At the farewell pottery potluck: Hollis and Linden trade sneakers

The pottery crew

Linden at the model boat show on Saturday

Juniper checks out her face art at Spohr Garden Daffodil Days

One last visit to the Woods Hole Coffee O

Playing for the last time at Taft's Playground.  Notice Juniper's new doll?  That was a goodbye gift from one of her teacher helpers.  She asked Juniper what she wanted, and Juniper said "either a doll, or a folder".  Yup, a folder.  Girl after my own heart.  But she got a doll.

One of the weekend's projects: smashing unwanted pieces of pottery.  Painful and yet oh-so-satisfying

Community (or: what we are leaving behind)

How Linden interprets "please don't play with those boxes" (a few minutes later, he turned them into a slide)

As you might imagine, with one week left to go, things have gotten a little hectic and surreal around here.  While Clark and the kids have mostly spent their week with as much normalcy as possible (ie, going to work and school as per usual), my time has been absorbed in the strange world of sorting, culling, planning and packing.  As such, our once functional lives have slowly started to become a little more confused. With each passing day, there is simply less available - less space, fewer means of cooking and clothing ourselves, fewer toys to play with.  This is at once satisfying (boxes full of stuff is such a tangible measure of progress!) and HIGHLY annoying. It is difficult enough to successfully navigate your days as a young family... to live in such a liminal state increases the challenges considerably.

Juniper performing in her fiddle class's final concert

 In all of the physical and mental slogging (and accompanying exhaustion) involved in these final stages of the move (coupled with the excitement and promise of a new chapter in our lives), I have only just now begun to realize how easy it has been to gloss over what will actually be the most difficult part of this whole experience.  To uproot so drastically means, of course, that we must simultaneously leave a large part of ourselves behind.  Even though we knew from the very beginning that this was going to be a temporary move, and even though we were only here for two and half years, we have become incredibly invested in our lives on the Cape.   Of course, Woods Hole is a beautiful corner of the world, but the true reason for our happiness here was that we had the rare privileged of being a part of some pretty amazing communities, filled with truly wonderful people. This is what made our time here such a positive experience, and also what will be so extraordinarily difficult to leave. All of this suddenly became very clear this weekend, as were were given two different farewell parties - one with a group of our very closest Woods Hole families, and the other with Clark's WHOI colleagues.  Here are some photos from those two events:

At Valerie and Dan's:

The "nice" group shot (can you believe we managed to assemble everyone for this?!) ...

... and the requisite crazy one!

Extra big hugs from Tuli

At Fiamma and Rosalba's:

 "kid's only" supper on the deck with Kea

Snuggles with Ben and Liz

A final good-bye to Becca

(the next day): drawing with Sharpies on ben and Liz's kitchen floor

This coming week we will truly be saying our final goodbyes - apart from all the people we were lucky enough to spend this past weekend with, both kids will be leaving their respective schools behind, and I will be saying farewell to the clay studio, and the friends that I found there.  We will be leaving Woods Hole just as the spring sun is bringing light and warmth, and everyone (and everything) is beginning to emerge from a particularly deep winter hibernation.  It is perhaps the most heart-breaking time to leave, but also one that will stamp a lovely image in our memories.  And as I'm already getting teary, I will stop for now.

I will leave you with a little video footage from our very last Woods Hole folk dancing afternoon.  Because it was such a momentous occasion, Clark woke Linden up from his nap early to come join the festivities for the last couple of songs.  It was the first time he'd ever gone, and he LOVED it.  (Juniper was a stellar big sister, and completely took him under her wing).

ferries and bunnies

Holding hands by the private Edgartown wharves

With only two weeks left of our Cape Cod life, Clark and I decided it was time to shift things into high gear this weekend.  We realized recently that in our 2.5 years of living here, we had never been to Martha's Vineyard, and it dawned on us that this Saturday might be our very last opportunity to go. So,  Even though Sunday was already going to be chock full of Easter goodness; even though the day wasn't promising to be warm or calm; and even though it is most decidedly off season, we hopped a ferry bright and early Saturday morning, and headed off on an adventure.

first ferry ride! 

  The day was loosely planned at best - we knew full well that most things would be closed for another month or so.  We figured, however, that between getting to ride two huge ferry boats, and a bunch of busses, Linden's day would pretty much be made, anyway.  And Juniper is usually happy to just go with the flow and explore.

excited to be on the Vineyard

The ferry dropped us off at Vineyard Haven, where we wandered around exploring the town.  I would have been interested to pop into some of the cute little shops, but that is not an activity that is allowed with two kids in tow.  Consequently, it didn't take us long to hop a bus and continue on to Oak Bluffs.

Lunch in Oak Bluffs: fastidiously cracking appetizer peanuts

Oak Bluffs is a community I had actually been told a few things about before going - mostly due to the crazy old carousel and the "gingerbread houses" that can be found there.  We assumed that the carousel would not open for at least a few more weeks, so after a (way too expensive) pub lunch, we made our way to the "Camp Meeting Association" at Wesleyan Grove: home to what I thought might be a fun little whimsical kid's attraction (what else would "gingerbread houses entail"?).  In truth, I had absolutely no idea what we heading off to see.

What this ended up being was a strange little community, originally founded as a methodist summer religious camp in the 1800s.  Apparently, people would arrive here seasonally for day long religious services, which took place in a gigantic outdoor tabernacle, which is still there.  What started out as tents, however, have grown into these funny little houses, packed side by side, and decorated with crazy ornate trim and bold colours, appropriately earning them the "gingerbread house" designation.

The Holy Methodist Tabernacle

Some of the many "gingerbread houses"

These days, there are a few year-long residents, but most people who own these houses only come back seasonally.  Therefore, it felt like a strange little cult-like ghost town as we wandered through.  It was super interesting, but also had a kind of "I feel like I might be on the set of the X-Files" vibe.

the beginning of the end for Linden (right around nap time)

 At this point, Linden was starting to enter the "oh my goodness, I'm not actually going to nap today" crash.  We decided to try getting him to rally by heading in the direction of the bus, en route to our next destination: Edgartown.  On our way there, however, we happened to pass by this funny looking building, which turned out to be the "Flying Horses" carousel, which had JUST opened for its very first day of the season!

The crazy vintage horses at the "Flying Horses" carousel

 Of course, we stopped by for a look and a ride. Not only is this carousel old (as in, well over a century old), it is actually the oldest operating platform carousel in all of America.  It also boasted a "ring game" - you grabbed at these rings as you went around, and if you happened to grab a brass one, you got a free ride.  I'd never seen such a thing!  It was pretty cool, and worked to rally Linden.

Clark and Linden coming around the turn

 Next stop was Edgartown.  By this point, we were all pretty wiped.  Linden, in fact, sat down on the sidewalk for awhile, and stated tearfully that he was no longer able to walk.  Juniper, however, took him by the hand (this is what was happening in the first shot on the blog), and we walked long enough that we stumbled upon a small, old public library. This was EXACTLY what we needed at that particular moment.  There were jelly beans, an Easter egg-decorating craft, Easter stories, a large collection of trucks... we could have happily spent the rest of the afternoon there.  Juniper, in fact, told me that night that the library was her favourite part of the whole adventure  :)

Crafts and stories at the Edgartown public library (and a close-up of the new 'do)

 We did, however, still have to make it back to Vineyard Haven, and then back on the ferry.  So we left the comfort of the library for one last bus ride.

Linden, relieved that his dad finally agreed to carry him 

Dennis the Menace hair, riding the bus (with seat belts!)

 It was an exhausting day for everyone involved (especially poor little Linden), with a whole lot of walking, some pretty cold, stiff winds, and only a few things open, but I think we were all glad we made the effort to go.  I can see the appeal of the Vineyard the summer - it really is a beautiful spot, and there are tourist attractions galore.  But I'm glad, in the end, that we saw it in the off-season... I think it would have been completely overwhelming in the summer.

Back at home.  Unable to handle life.

 And then, Sunday was Easter!  The morning started off as you'd expect - some easter egg hunting, easter basket-exploring, and excited kids.  Apart from some books and puzzles, Juniper got a fancy princess dress, and Linden added to his train tracks.  Both were ecstatic.

Easter morning spoils!

Then, at 9am, we headed of for an easter party:  a proper outdoor egg hunt at a friend's house.  It was actually completely lovely and invigorating to be outside in the fresh air and the morning sun, even if it was still pretty chilly.

A good old fashioned outdoor egg hunt at Elise's 

And that, they say, is that about that.  There is no video this week - JuniperAndLinden.org is treating their employees to a holiday break, apparently.  See you next week!