Sunday’s opening Bears home game was Liam’s first, and we sure enjoyed dressing him in his little Bears jersey for the first time and watching the game together as a family. Liam is a pretty adorable little Bears fan, if I do say so myself.

To celebrate the return of football I decided to try my hand at making cheddar beer soup and homemade soda bread to eat for lunch during the game. I got the recipes from watching Claire Robinson’s Food Network show, 5 Ingredient Fix, the other day. Everything turned out really great; I followed the recipe for the soda bread exactly and formed two small rounded loaves from the dough instead of one larger loaf so that Lucas and I could make bread bowls for our soup. (This turned out to be a great idea, by the way.) The bread was the perfect density for a bread bowl and sopped up the flavor of the soup well.

For the cheddar beer soup we used Newcastle brown ale, whose nutty flavor blended nicely with the extra sharp cheddar cheese. I used whole grain flour instead of the all purpose white flour that the recipe called for in the thickening process, and I liked the whole grain texture that this produced. And speaking of the flour, we made sure our tablespoons were heaping, based on the recipe reviews that I read ahead of time. It seemed a lot of people took issue with the soup being too thin when made as written; heaping tablespoons gave us the perfect consistency, though.

One of my favorite parts of cooking together with Lucas is how we discuss the food we’ve made as we eat it, and talk about how the flavors turned out. For these recipes we talked about how different beers and/or cheeses in the soup would change the flavor and what combo we’d like to try next time. The recipe calls for 2 cups of cheese, and I think one thing we decided was that we’d want to add even more when we make it again. The soup was perfect in the bread bowls, and it’s definitely a fantastic football Sunday meal that we’ll make again and again, especially as we head into cooler weather.

Here we are, about mid September, and we haven’t begun packing yet. We close on the house on September 29, and we’re planning to make the move on October 5. This means we have just a few short weeks to get everything together! (Thankfully my mom is coming up to help watch Liam so I can get some packing done.) Then once we move, that gives us 5 days to get settled in the house before I return to work from maternity leave on October 10… nothing like cutting it close, huh? Speaking of returning to work, part of me is ready, but part of me is sad that these days cuddled with my tiny, precious little boy all day is coming to an end. He’s growing up so fast! I’ll also miss watching non-stop Food Network while nursing, too, but one perk to the move is that I’ll  be able to act on all of this foodie inspiration in my huge, brand new kitchen with my boys. The layout of the kitchen and living room is an open concept plan, which means we’ll be able to cook and interact with family and friends at the same time now; I’m so excited because this is without a doubt where we spend the most time. It won’t be long until Liam can help mama in the kitchen, too!

We’re going to be pretty busy the next few weeks but we’ll be sure to tell you all about it once we’re settled and back into the swing of things!

Get married? Check.
Buy a car? Check.
Have kid(s)? Check.
Buy a house? CHECK.

Yup, that last condition has been met; Lucas and I are now officially grown-ups! Oh, and we now own a house, too.

Yesterday, quite unexpectedly, we bought our first home.  We had been talking about it for years, really. It didn’t take long to realize in Calgary that it was going to be an unobtainable goal, (holy crazy housing market, Calgary!) but the market is much easier on the buyer here in Indy. To be fair the cost of living is different, but the price of homes, even as far south of the Calgary city centre as you can possibly be and still technically be in city limits, is three times the cost of the same size home here.

We’ve been throwing money away on rent for too long. When a flyer came in the mail the other day with some sample mortgage rates listed next to beautiful pictures of three bedroom homes, it seemed too good to be true. I had just been talking with my boss about interest rates two weeks ago, which fueled our desire to start seriously considering home ownership again with the market being so great for buyers. And we’d not be just any buyers… we’d be first time home buyers, and there’s a plethora of programs and benefits out there where people practically throw money at us for it. I checked out the flyer’s website and created an online portfolio where we chose some floorplans we liked and indicated what part of the city or surrounding areas we were interested in. We were contacted quickly by an agent and set up a time to chat and see if they had anything that fit our needs and budget.

Our needs were pretty simple. We wanted a single story home with three bedrooms and an office. An open concept kitchen to living room was a must, as was a yard and garage. When we left our apartment yesterday to meet with the agent, we figured we’d go over our budget and needs and then he’d show us some floorplans. We had no idea that he already had a few brand new homes ready for immediate move-in picked out according to our needs, and that he was ready to show them to us same day. We looked at one home, and moved on to the second, which we fell in love with. It was perfect, with everything that we wanted and more. The location was good for work, and the neighborhood was nice.  Sold.

Though it sounds crazy that we started looking, found, AND bought a home in one day, (in about four hours start to finish) and that it was only the second house we had seen, we’d like to think that it was instead just our good luck. All of the stars aligned just right and all of the pieces just happened to fall into place… it was meant to be. We couldn’t think of any reason to say no to the perfect house; why hold out when we had found exactly what we wanted at a great price and a good location?

So the summer of 2011 has been monumental. First our beautiful son is born, and 6 weeks later we stumble upon the ideal home buying scenario and purchase our first home in one day. Both huge life-changing events that came surprisingly easy to us. We are so thankful. And happy. Life is pretty darn perfect.

We move at the end of September, so we’ll need to start packing soon. In our own house we can finally paint, so that’s something else exciting to think about, too. As long as we close as planned, we’ll be in the new home before I go back to work from maternity leave, too. It’s going to be a busy next few weeks, but so worth it! Yay for being grown-ups!

PHOTOS! Almost forgot… I took a few photos of the house yesterday while we were there and they are in our New Home gallery on Flickr; we’ll be adding to that gallery as the adventure unfolds. And while you’re over there checking out those photos, you’ll definitely want to swing by the Liam gallery to see what’s new, too. I swear he is growing every day before our very eyes. Newest photos are always added at the end!

1. We spent a fantastic belated honeymoon/anniversary trip in Nova Scotia in June. (See our last post.) It was wonderful!
2. We moved back to the states (Indiana) at the end of July/first of August.
3. I started teaching Computer Applications at the middle school, and love it.
4. We moved into our own place at the end of October.
5. My brother and sister-in-law had their first child — we’re now an aunt and uncle to one adorable William Herman.
6. We had our first (U.S.) Thanksgiving with Indiana family in three years.

That pretty much sums up the last few months! It’s been an exciting adjustment period getting all settled in back in Indiana. This weekend we put up our Christmas tree and today we got our first central Indiana snow… about a quarter inch in fact, which helped get me into the Christmas-y mood. (After living in Canada for three years, I’m not used to NOT having snow by now so I was having a hard time believing the holiday season was actually here.) It was hilarious driving to work this morning because it felt like everyone was driving SO SLOW over such a minuscule amount of snow. Dare I say I adjusted to driving in Calgary snow?

Our Christmas cards will be going out shortly, and I’ll post one up here closer to Christmas to share with the rest of the world. It’s a pretty cute one, if I do say so myself. Not because I made it, (I’ve got too many knitted gifts to finish this year, so we opted for a Walgreens photo Christmas card instead of my usual handmade) but because the new family photo is darling. Hope you have a wonderful holiday season!

A mama goose built a nest in one of the most unlikely places (though common downtown so I’m told) on a ledge of a tower of the office building I’m working at for the summer. Lucas comes over and we meet up for our lunch hour each day, and today we checked out the fuss over the baby geese that hatched from the nest on the ledge. The area near the window had some caution tape to keep us pesky humans at bay, but you are able to be close enough to see the little miracles. It’s like a little mini zoo off the side of my building. First there were just eggs. Now there are four little ones. They’re growing rather quickly, considering they were just hatched this week and it’s only Wednesday.  Mom and dad are always with them, keeping a watchful eye out. If you don’t see them sitting on the ledge with the babies, don’t get too comfortable… they’re definitely not far away. Today mom was down below, coaxing her little ones to go over the ledge. What seems like a deadly fall to me is apparently no big deal to birds… however, these guys aren’t quite big enough to get over the lip of the ledge to attempt flying (read: falling) yet. I took several (non-flash) photos today because while this has been really neat to witness, people came today in attempts to relocate the geese and I’m not sure if they’ll still be there tomorrow.

Want to see more photos? Of course you do. Be warned: they will make your heart melt. Especially the one where cute little yellow fuzzball has his tiny little eyes squeezed shut. Totally adorable. To see the full gallery of fuzzy cuteness, click HERE. OH! And I made a little video of the window ledge action for you, too. Don’t mind the round hole/opening on the ledge that one of the babies falls into in the beginning — it’s a shallow (but stable) drain thing (like my technical terminology?) and the other two little ones are down in there. They’re just not quite tall enough to hop back out once they fall in, lol. But I promise they’re safe and sound in there. Enjoy!

Today was our neighborhood parade of garage sales; a lot of the houses in the neighborhood registered together and set up their yards and driveways with wares from 8am to 3pm. We’ve been excited about it for awhile, because lately Lucas and I have made rollerblading our pastime. Any evening we get the chance and the weather is playing nice, we’re out doing a good 40 minute circuit through the neighborhood on wheels. I’m getting a lot more confident! Today was the perfect excuse to pull the rollerblades on and explore every inch of the neighborhood in search of good deals. And boy did we ever score some fun stuff!

First of related importance was a new set of rollerblades. While tooling through the back streets we ran into someone selling a nearly-new pair that had been worn once… by the seller’s wife, who took a nasty spill the first time she used them and from that point on swore off rollerblades. Too bad for her, but great for me! They were being sold ridiculously cheap ($15!) and even though it was a bit more expensive than the $6 we spent on the current pair of rollerblades I had been using, these new ones were in better shape and didn’t have a broken clasp on the right boot like my old ones. Score!

Another great score was a crepe maker; we actually had purchased some ingredients needed to make crepes this past week in preparation to make them this weekend. Crazy coincidence, eh? I think it was fate. It was $1, and in perfect shape. And even better… the seller had a 7 week old bichon/shih-tzu puppy hanging out with her. SO cute! I cooed over him while Lucas made the purchase. We also got a new DVD player to replace our crappy $20 Wal-Mart DVD player that stops working if you look at it funny. Somewhere in there we also got some great martini shot glasses. We really lucked out with our finds.

Nearly 3 hours later we returned home exhausted and starving. Good thing we picked up some amazing steaks fresh last night on the way home for just such an occasion. We fired up the barbecue for the first time this season and threw the steaks on. They were HUGE! The boys manned the barbecue while I whipped up some pineapple smoothies in the kitchen; a little fat free vanilla frozen yogurt, milk, and crushed pineapple blended together. Delish! Hopefully the weather will continue to stay this way so we can continue to enjoy it! Maybe tomorrow we can tote our rollerblades to McKenzie Towne and do a little tour of the area and stop for gelato. Mmmm… gelato. Hope you had a great weekend and enjoy the pleasant weather :)

This evening Lucas and I ran a few errands to get some essentials for my first week of work.  We picked up some great items for the classroom (I think my kiddos will love the giant dinosaur egg that “hatches” in water in 24-48 hours when we do our dinosaur unit) and then I picked out some sweet winter boots.  These babies have an inner insulated form fitting sock that velcros into place within the sturdy boot shoe.  We’re talking warm. I’ve never experienced a second inside piece of insulation on boots before.  Though in all fairness I’ve also never lived somewhere where it gets as cold as it does here in Calgary before, either.  The traction on these real winter boots can actually be called real traction.  No more slipping on the sidewalks!  They hang on tight.  And the best part?  They’re pink and brown. Awesome.  It’s about time I became a real Calgarian, eh?

Work is going really well.  It’s challenging, but at the end of each day I’m already looking forward to the next day. And all I do is constantly scribble down neat little lesson ideas I think will get my little guys excited and engage them.  They’re really a great bunch of kids and the support staff I have to lean on as I get acclimated to the routine and students has made all of the difference in the world. It feels great to have a meaningful position again where I truly feel like I’m changing the lives of kids for the better. I love my job :) And of course, my sweet and wonderful husband surprised me by having flowers sent to me on my first day. I am so lucky.

Today she wound up deep in a snowy ditch way out in Blackie.  Where’s Blackie? Exactly.  Way out in the middle of nowhere, and chances are you’ve never heard of it.  Today was the last day before Christmas break and I was guest teaching for my absolute most favourite first grade class of all time out there.  I say last day before Christmas, but it was my last day guest teaching as well, because I start teaching kindergarten on a full-time contract after the break. *squeal* What?! Yes, I’ll get to that in a minute.

So I had probably only gotten around 5 minutes from school when I took a corner wrong and my back-end swung around and went butt-first into a very deep ditch to the side of the road.  My camera phone pictures from within the warmth of the tow truck doesn’t quite do this situation justice — you should’ve seen it from the other side. (I was too cold to get out and go back around it from the driver’s side door.)  My first thought was that I wasn’t hurt at all; I was driving slower than a grandma and was trying to be really careful at that corner already.  My second thought was absolute panic because I was literally out in the middle of nowhere in -40 (with windchill) on an angle so steep in the ditch that my gas tank went from being half full to empty, prompting the gas light and bell to go off.  I called Lucas who works in the middle of downtown Calgary, around 60km away, in tears and as he was calming me down (he is SO good at keeping a level head when things go wrong) the grandmother of one of the students from my first grade class that day drove up in her big truck to make sure I was okay.  She offered to drive me to the next little town 5 minutes away in High River.  High River is a town you might’ve actually heard of. High River actually has services, unlike Blackie which doesn’t even have a gas station, lol. Anyway, as she’s driving me to High River (thank goodness for her truck’s heated seats, what a godsend.) Lucas arranged a towing service available in High River.   I was dropped off somewhere warm to wait for the tow truck and all went well — I managed to get a crochet project in my bag done while I waited, and the Neon, once pulled out, appeared to be in excellent shape considering the situation.  I think she’ll be back to 100% once we get an alignment; I could definitely tell it was way off trying to get home afterwards.

This Neon has seen and done it all, from driving what felt like halfway across the world from Indiana to Calgary nearly three years ago, to taking the most gorgeous scenic routes to British Columbia through the Canadian Rockies.  It was broken into by would-be car thieves and survived, and it’s regularly abused by massive amounts of dog hair from our family trips and has endured having a block heater installed to keep it toasty in the coldest parts of a Calgarian winter.  She sure takes a beating… and continues to be my baby.  For those of you that have known me well since junior high, you know how obsessive I am about my Neon.

Want to hear the funniest part of the ditch situation?  As the tow truck driver and I were sitting in the cab of the truck filling out paperwork and processing the payment, a man in a red pickup pulled up alongside and motioned for the driver to roll down his window.  He leaned out and looked at me and said, “Did you just have your car towed out of that ditch?” I nodded and he patted the side of his truck saying, “See this truck?  I’m on my way home from picking it up at the body shop — I had to take it in after I hit that very same ditch last week.”  … so apparently I am not alone.

Anyway, on to positive news — I got a teaching contract! Last week I was hired by a private school in downtown Calgary who had an open kindergarten teacher position.  I start on January 5th after the holiday break.  I am so excited!  I’m going in over break to set up my classroom and have been busy with preparations and lessons.  I’ll have a morning and afternoon kindergarten class, the morning class having 11 kids and the afternoon session having 12.  The contract is for the rest of the school year and then will roll over into next school year, so I am set!  The schedule aligns well with Lucas’ schedule since he already works downtown, so that means we can carpool together/train down and back together.  It’s about time, eh? :)