Saturday, January 16, 2010

Catching Up

Yikes - it was Halloween since I last blogged!  I'll use the old cliche that much has happened since then.  I'll start by saying that Darcy is pregnant and is due around April 24.  We're both very excited and a bit nervous.  Call us old school but we decided not to know the gender of the baby.  We want it to be a surprise and we don't think it will be too hard to buy gender neutral clothes for the baby's first few months. 

We've bought and received some baby books and baby clothes.  We also bought a car seat in Edmonton and shipped it with us back to Abu Dhabi.  But we still have a lot of things to purchase plus baby proof our apartment before the birth.  Few boy and girl names have caught our fancy but we don't want anything too old Testament or New Agey sounding.  The photo below is the Team Canada 2010 Olympic hockey jersey for our little one.  No, I didn't buy it - Darcy did!  It's very cute and appropriate since the baby will be born in the same Olympic year.  Maybe I should get it framed once s/he outgrows it.




Our November 25 to December 10 trip to Paris, Bruges and Brussels was fantastic.  The weather was cool and rainy most of the time but it didn't dampen our spirits. Our hotels were in great locations and were within walking distance to many places.  Paris highlights were Notre Dame, Versailles and the Louvre but we saw wonderful places every day.  The medieval city of Bruges was incredible and we filled our share of Belgian waffles, chocolates and mussels.  The Grand Place in Brussels was very interesting too.  We did a lot of walking and took the convenient subways.  If you have a Facebook account then you can view photos of our trip here.

On December 21 we renewed our National I.D. cards.  The process only took an hour but we visited the office early in the morning and crowds weren't too bad because it was the holidays.  Darcy got hers delivered Saturday and mine should come on Sunday.  That should take care of us for three years until our residence visa runs out.

Christmas came and went very quickly but we got some nice presents.  Darcy baked some goodies but unfortunately I only had a normal two day weekend.  Unfortunate news is that Darcy's father passed away on December 27.  So we flew to Edmonton for the funeral.  Things weren't any easier with us trying to book tickets within 24 hours of leaving Abu Dhabi.  Plus I had horrendously long layovers and missed flights because of winter weather.  My roundtrip flights were about 70 hours door to door.

However, it was comforting to be home for a short time and visit with family and some friends.  We had not visited Edmonton over Christmas in five years so the extremely dry and cold weather (averaged about minus 20 celcius) caught us a bit off guard. We returned to Abu Dhabi on January 12 severely jet lagged.  I often wonder how politicians can fly around the world, attend conferences, make speeches and not appear jet lagged. 

So the last few months have been bitter sweet for us.  But we'll visit Edmonton in the summer and Darcy's mother may visit us after the baby's birth.  We'd like to fly home for Christmas too.  2010 will be an exciting year for us!