Once I receive my paperwork, I’ll drive back to Toronto (to return the rental car) and then fly home. As I cross the border, I’ll use my paperwork to register as a Permanent Resident; I’ll then receive my greencard and Social Security Number by mail within a few weeks.

As with any bureaucratic process, I spent most of the time waiting; I passed the time chatting with two couples going through the same application and sharing similar personal circumstances – sadly, I forgot to exchange contact info with them before we all went our separate ways. I even exchanged a few jokes with my interviewer – the interview started well when I congratulated him for correctly pronouncing my name over the intercom and it turned out he’s Polish/Ukranian and has a son named Luka.

Anyway, at the end of the day I’m just relieved that everything is approved and anxious to receive my documents and return home to my family!

To kick off 2010, we’ve given our blog a major facelift, as you’ve probably noticed. Not only do we have a new layout, but we’ve got a whole new domain as well. The old gallery system has been replaced by a slick Flickr account integration; you can see the most recent uploads in a photostream off to the right there, and clicking the “gallery” link above will take you to all of our photos (most recent sets at the top) and photo collections. Everything from the old Look At Us Go gallery has been moved over and old links on Look At Us Go will now redirect here to thekarpiuks.com. (While we feel like we’ve caught them all, if you find any faulty links just let us know!) Our email addresses have also changed accordingly. You can email us both by using us [at] thekarpiuks.com or individually with our name [at] thekarpiuks.com. With all of the immigration dust nearly settled, family is hopefully on the horizon; a fresh start with our family blog in a fresh new year seemed to be the way to go!

Speaking of immigration, we took a quick road trip to Toronto earlier this week for Lucas’ medical appointment. All went well and he flies back in to pick up the results for his final interview appointment in Montreal on January 5 to get his green card.  We’re really excited about the final piece falling into place so that we can move on. While in Toronto we enjoyed good sushi and good company and were sure to get our fill of Tim Hortons and other Canadian goodies that we’ve been missing. Special thanks to Ronald and family for their amazing hospitality!

2009 went out with a bang.  We treated my parents to dinner and their first live hockey game: the Indiana Ice vs. the Chicago Steel at Conseco Fieldhouse. It was a great time and afterwards we went back to their place and played Wii Fit until the ball dropped. Pictures can be found in a set on our gallery page. Lucas was of course my first kiss of the new year, with Oliver and Winston a close second and third ;) I sure am lucky to have such a great family. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for us in 2010.

May 2010 bring you a fresh start, new excitement, and good health! Cheers.

Firstly, our Christmas cards went out last week and most have been received. They feature our 2009 Karpiuk family photo, and they turned out really cute, if I do say so myself.

I updated our Family Life 2009 Scrapbook to feature a few new pages to cover September – early December. Ten pages have been added all total, with some featuring (of course) our new nephew, William, Thanksgiving photos, new family photos, and the boys with our Christmas tree. There will be a few more after Christmas to add before I close that scrapbook and begin work on the 2010 album.

2010 already looks promising in the way of immigration; Lucas received his immigration interview letter recently (FINALLY!) and his appointment is in Montreal on January 5. We’re taking a quickie road trip (9 hours) up to Toronto to complete his medical so that he has the results to take with him for the interview. If all goes well, which it should, he may very well have his green card within a few business days of the interview. Happy day! That’ll be a great start to a new year.

Here’s to 2010 and exciting new promises on the horizon. Merry Christmas from our family to yours, and Happy New Year!

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!

PEGGY’S COVE

Our flight landed around 7am on Friday, and by 8am we were in the rental and well on our way to our first destination: the famous Peggy’s Cove. There are two routes to the cove, so we came in from the north and made our way back to Halifax from the south. The scenery of each route was quite different, yet equally incredible – both peppered with tiny fishing or industrial villages.

In the cove itself, there is a small information centre, a museum, a few small trinket/treat shops, and of course the lighthouse. Pretty much any time throughout the trip that we found ourselves on a shoreline, we could be heard taking in deep breaths, sighing happily, and seen smiling, but no other part of the trip brought us quite as much peace as sitting and staring out at the ocean from the large rock formation that the lighthouse is built on.

HALIFAX

After about an hour, we tore ourselves away from the view, stopping at the lighthouse giftshop long enough to send some postcards, and made our way to Halifax. We had lunch at the Red Stag Tavern, attached to the Alexander Keith’s brewery, while enjoying the view of the harbour from their rooftop patio (the food here was amazing – it essentially ruined all other fish-n-chips for me). After lunch, we wandered around the harbour area, checking out the local shops and attractions. We spent the night at the Best Western on Chocolate Lake, where we were greeted by a very friendly chocolate lab, and slept like… well, like people who had barely slept on their inbound red-eye flight and spent all day exploring, I guess.

LOUISB(O)URG

We got up early on Saturday morning and drove roughly 5 hours to Louisb(o)urg (we’re not really sure how to spell it, and neither does anyone who lives there, apparently – we saw two signs within a few hundred feet of each other with different spellings). Along the way we passed about a dozen McDonald’s signs advertising McLobster, but we didn’t feel brave enough to stop and try it. The drive was mostly inland, but boy was it worth it. Lesley had found us a great bed & breakfast with their own private beach: Point of View. We were too late to tour the Louisb(o)urg Fort, so we spent most of the evening relaxing on our balcony, knitting, enjoying the view, and drinking twice as much wine and champagne as was really necessary. There is nothing quite as soothing as falling asleep to the sound of ocean waves just a few hundred feet away.

THE LOBSTER EXPERIENCE

While we were in Louisb(o)urg, we had dinner at a small shack on a pier, called The Lobster Kettle, and of course ordered the lobster dinner special! We’ve both had lobster before, but usually in some kind of processed state or, at best, a relatively fresh tail to accompany our steaks. We were not 100% prepared for the experience when the food arrived. It wasn’t until I was tearing open the lobster’s mid-section that it occurred to me that this lobster had been alive just a few minutes ago, and that the dark green guacamole-looking substance¹ now facing me was likely the remains of its last meal.

¹ photos available on request

LOBSTER BENNY?

We both love eggs benny, and we really enjoyed our lobster the night before, so we decided to see if we could find lobster benny for breakfast the next morning. A little googling led us to the Delta in Sydney, whose menu claimed to accept any and all substitutions and modifications to the menu. I asked how much extra it would cost, “to get some lobster on our eggs benedict?”

“$7,” comes the reponse. That seems a bit expensive for some lobster meat to replace the ham in my eggs benny, but I figure what the hell – we’re on vacation! Sadly, we did not have the camera with us – when the eggs benny arrived we understood the price: they had cooked a whole fresh lobster, half for each of us, and simply dropped it on our plates. It was a little more work than we’d expected, digging out our own lobster meat to add to our eggs benny, but it was worth it for the laughs alone – and the lobster benny was pretty good.

THE CABOT TRAIL

After breakfast we hit out on the Cabot Trail, which is easily the greenest and prettiest scenic drive I’ve ever been on. Unfortunately, it rained almost the entire time, so we mostly kept to the car and the occasional roadside giftshop or attraction; hiking and whale-watching are on our to-do list next time around. But, after three long years of fruitless scanning during roadtrips, Lesley’s dream came true and we spotted a moose!

We stopped for dinner in the largest Acadian village of Cape Breton: Chéticamp. After two consecutive meals involving fresh lobster, we opted for something a little tamer, and dined at Le Gabriel. By the time we had finished, the restaurant had filled with locals for the dinner rush, all speaking French – I think Lesley found this moment almost as peaceful as Peggy’s Cove.

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 :)

Lately Lucas and I have been talking about our future. We know that one or more children are definitely on the horizon for us; we’re almost ready. But in the midst of talking seriously about starting our own family, it hit us: how can we start a family so far away from family? Let’s face it… in Calgary we’re nowhere near either of our families. Lucas’ family is out in BC and mine is all back in Indiana. In going over our options and the benefits of a move towards family, we ultimately have decided upon moving to the states. Indiana specifically, or possibly Chicago depending on job situations. I’ve always been very close with my family, and I know that my brother and his wife will be starting a family of their own at some point, too. I’ve always wanted our kids to grow up together and be close. I also never imagined having my own children without my parents being involved. I’m betting they never imagined I’d be 1800 miles away when we started having kids, either. And we’ll most definitely still see Lucas’ side of the family just as much as we do currently, regardless of where we live. So the choice seems clear and simple to us. And we’re happy with our decision. In fact, we honestly can’t wait.

So wait, how is this going to work with Lucas being Canadian and all? Well apparently because I am a U.S. citizen AND have Canadian Permanent Residency, Lucas as my spouse can apply for a K3 visa. This will allow him to live and ultimately work in the U.S. until his permanent residency is fully processed. On March 23 we’re going into the U.S. Consulate office here in Calgary to turn in the first part of the application process, which is to establish our relationship in person with the Consulate. They will verify our documents and send everything off to Montreal. This is the part where we wait… as we’re not sure how many months it may take to get this interview. Depending on turnaround time on paperwork it’s entirely possible we could move as early as this summer, but around Christmas seems more likely. Who knows. Once we have an interview date, we’ll fly out to Montreal and attend, and then supposedly 2 business days later… voila! Lucas will be legal to live in the states, and we can head on down. For an additional fee he can get the ability to work tacked onto his visa, which of course he’ll opt for. The downside is that the medical exam part will force him to take a quick day trip to Vancouver and we’ll have to pay for that and a quickie trip out to Montreal together for the interview, but in the grand scheme of things we truly feel it’s worth it. The benefits far outweigh the few bumps in the road we may encounter on the way to this change.

I do have a few issues with moving back home, though. First of all, no Tim Horton’s. Note to our friends in Canada: we want cans of ground Tim Horton’s coffee for Christmas so we can brew our own in the coffee maker at home. Sure it won’t be quite the same, but it’ll be better than none. And while I’ll miss Tim Horton’s dearly, there is an upside to Indy in the form of Chik-Fil-A. MMMMMM. And Bob Evans. And Steak ‘n’ Shake. My second issue with moving back home is that Lucas politely informed me last week that if he’s living in Indy he’ll most likely have to become a Colts fan. I immediately put on the brakes and emailed my parents to tell them that the move was off. I’ve gotten over the shock, but I may have to disown him if he becomes a Colts fan. GO BEARS.

So it’s a bit long-winded and I’m sure it seems like we’re gluttons for punishment turning around and dealing with new immigration stuff to go the other way so soon after I finished all of my Canadian immigration stuff, but there’s our news. We don’t know how long the process will take or when for sure we’ll be loading up a U-Haul and riding off into the sunset, but we hope to have a better idea of the timeline estimate after our U.S. Consulate visit on the 23rd. We’ll keep you posted :)