Some people are confused where we come from. Some people in Calgary think we are from Ontario. Some people in Ontario think we are from Calgary. Most people in the USA think we are from Canada and leave it at that.
R and I were both raised in Calgary (although she was officially a BYU baby), and we both went away to other places for University, and then we took off on an adventure to Ottawa shortly after we were married. We honestly had the time of our life out there for 5 years, doing everything together. We both served in the youth program at church and we lived really close to my office and I was home early enough each day for us to cook together and we loved all the time we got to spend together. We went on road trips and overseas trips and all sorts of fun stuff.
But we still did lots of trips back west to visit her family in Calgary and my family in Idaho/Utah and we missed being with everyone. I remember one time it was time for us to fly back to Ottawa after a good visit and we were saying to each other, "Why are we leaving? We should just stay here." Well, eventually we did come back. We were starting our family and we came back to Calgary to spend every Sunday over at Grandma and Grandpa's house with all the cousins running around. It was awesome.
But the move to Calgary included a change in my career and that meant long nights studying finance and then long days commuting downtown so there was less of the cooking together and the trips involved a lot more carseats and strollers. Those early years with diapers and toddlers were tougher, but we still had a great time and now suddenly 9 years has gone by since we left Ottawa to come back to Calgary. I still find myself saying that we recently came back, but I suppose a decade doesn't count as recent anymore.
Now it looks like we are heading East again. At work I was offered a really good opportunity right at the epicenter of it all, on the corner of Bay Street and Wellington in Toronto. We had been looking towards the next step in my career, but this took us a bit by surprise. The timing was challenging because the kids had just started a new year at school and R's mom had been in the hospital with some significant health challenges, so it was not an easy decision to make.
But we took it. And now we are determined to really make the most of it.
I just finished up my first trip out to Toronto for the week, working with my new group. I will be back and forth between the Calgary office and the Toronto office for November and December, and then in January I will be there full-time, living in a temporary apartment until we find a place to rent for the whole family to join me in March.
I think everyone has up and down days when they think about this move. I am probably the most excited about it, because I love this sort of thing. Plus, I have a clear vision of what I am getting into. I have already seen my office and I know the people I will be working with. Still, it is tough to think about leaving behind so many people and places that I love. I think it is even tougher for the rest of the family, because they don't know who they will be friends with and they still can't picture the different places and things that we will yet discover together.
Think of this as an adventure. An extended vacation to a place, to really explore it and get to know it. We are not likely to stay in Toronto for the rest of our lives, so we should try to take it all in. Do all the things. See all the places. Eat all the food. Do it together. Get the know the city so well that people will wonder if we really are from Calgary after all.
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