Heading up to the north country

Well, at long last I received my official job offer from INAC on Tuesday. It has since been signed, accepted and sent back, so this is really happening. My start date is June 7, so Christine and I will be heading up a few days before that. This also means that I will be able to run in the Saskatchewan Marathon on May 30th before we go. Unlike my previous attempt, I hope to finish this one. I didn't end up finishing a marathon before I turned 20, but I'll do my best to finish one before I turn 30!

Right now we are scrambling to get everything in place we will need up north. We will be trading my car in on a SUV or truck, something with 4WD and clearance, to better deal with pot-holed streets and heavy snow. We also plan on purchasing a deep freeze to bring up, and various other items that will make life more pleasant up there. Finally, we have tentative arrangements for both a property manager to look after our house and a potential renter, which gives some peace of mind.

It is both an exciting and somewhat sad time. I will be glad to be working again, in a job with more stability and less time away from home, but Saskatoon has become my home over the last six and a half years. Christine has handed in her resignation at her job, effective the end of May, which she is saddened to leave, and some of the congregation are taking her departure pretty hard. Our departure also means I likely won't be able to attend my friend Lee's wedding, nor be able to stand up for him as a groomsman, but I'm glad that Lee understands that it would be difficult to make it back so soon after we get there.

Given that we have almost two months to prepare, I hope to travel to Manitoba to visit family, and will also make one more visit to see friends and family in Regina. There are two going-away parties being planned that I know of, one being thrown by Christine's friend Sara and the other being held at the church she works at, so it's nice to know that we will be missed.

This Sunday I will be flying to Ottawa, spending the night there, and then continuing on to Iqaluit on Monday. I am being flown up for a geological conference there, which will give me the opportunity to meet the people I'll be working with, and get exposure to what's going on up there. I'm excited to see our new home for the next two+ years, and I have instructions to conduct research on food prices and other things that it will be good to know before we head north.

We are living in exciting times. May you do the same.

Easter Fools!

This past weekend, Christine and I were in Regina visiting with my family. Christine came up with the idea of hiding Easter eggs to surprise my parents and sister. Once everyone had gone to bed we laid down trails of little chocolate eggs leading from the front door, through the living room and kitchen, up and down the stairs and up to bedroom doors, as well as individual eggs hidden in various spots.

In the morning, we heard my mom giggle as she went down to the kitchen and saw eggs everywhere and apparently my dad said "holy crap!" when he saw how many eggs there were. The best part is that I was able to convince them that Christine and I knew nothing about it, and that it must have been Jen that had done that. This lasted until my mom went to wake Jen up, and got a rather confused response from her, but it was a pretty good prank. We had fun.

The video below shows the trail of Easter eggs through the house.

Edit: Unfortunately, the video as shown here is quite a bit darker than what showed up on the camera, so you can't see much in the latter part of the video. If anyone has suggestions on how to rectify that, please let me know.