We arrived in Ottawa on schedule about 2 weeks ago, but we've been really busy and also run into some "blips" getting our internet set up. That is all settled now, and settling into the house is coming along too.

The journey went fairly well. Ted had no trouble on the drive, except a separated tire tread on the RV, and lots of paperwork at customs. I was happy to have his mom's help on the flight and it went pretty well too. Peyton fussed a bit now and then but we made it. Our luggage got lost though, and didn't show up in Ottawa for several days, so that was tough.

The signing of the papers for our house went pretty smoothly. The only glitch was that the old owner seemed a little reluctant to get out and was showing up for several days after our possession date continuing to move stuff out of the sheds. All our furniture showed up and was moved in, cluttering our new house up completely. We had a larger house, with larger rooms, in Texas and we're finding it difficult to know where to put everything! Some furniture items didn't even fit where we wanted to put them, for example I wanted to put the queen bed into the spare room in the basement, but there was no way to fit the queen-sized box spring down the stairs. So we're still working on where to put everything.

Ted's mom's help was much appreciated while we moved in and unpacked most of our boxes. She is gone home now. We still have lots of work to do, though, both in terms of unpacking and settling in, and renovations and home improvement stuff that needs to be done here. It's definitely a work in progress! One of our first projects was to get Central Air installed. We did that last week... whew... thank goodness. It was pretty hot and hard to sleep at night before that.

We had a good time on Canada Day, complete with a visit from James, Sean, and Katie! We all went downtown to see the crowds, and later on had a good time at a local pub near our house. Ted and I were even able to go out since we had Grandma to babysit, what a treat! Although we have been too busy to socialize too much, we have been enjoying our new neighborhood. The local shops, pubs, restaurants, and coffee shops are great. We are even becoming friends with the new neighbors who seem super friendly. We have had brief visits with Lisa and Rob, and also John and Tina who invited us to a pool party where we met lots of other Newfies and other kids around Peyton's age.

We spent the weekend in Sarnia visiting Ted's grandparents and other family. It's really nice out there. It was a 7 hour drive but by timing it around Peyton's naps and stopping when she was getting too fussy we managed.

Tomorrow my parents are coming to visit for a week. They should also be a big help in continuing to get us settled in here. I hope it's not all work though and we have time for some fun too!