The Spacious Life

Last week we finally checked "work visa application" off our list. Well, we submitted it with one piece missing that we're just waiting for in the mail. But the big part is done. We also moved house last weekend which means two major things off our list lately! Almost back to having free time!

Dustin's application needed a binder for all the many many papers but luckily mine required a little less information. Not much less but a little less.

Sort of a partial virtual tour of our new digs below. Friends of ours own it and they are moving overseas for a couple years. So if all works out the plan is to do some small renos like painting and maybe floors, and who knows what else! The current design is kind of busy so if we are approved for visas, we'll have all sorts of projects to keep us busy through the winter! The property borders the hospital so I am one fence jump away from work now, great commute.

Living room that you enter via the foyer - yes we have a foyer!

 

Ok so you can't have it all, the kitchen is still as small as we've been used to over the years...

Our room

The office

Plan is for this to be a craft room but then we want to find a place for this...

And the bottles while they age... So the craft room might become the craft/beer room!

Our wee deck that is sort of coming apart so I am worried about a collapse...

This used to be a garage but we helped them tear it down last month... now it's kind of a fire pit.

We have fruit trees in the yard! Lemon, Mandarin, Grapefruit and Feijoa.

Also the veggie garden. What you can see if how brussels sprouts grow!

Finally a place for bikes and surfboards and tools that isn't inside our living room!

So we are still getting settled in. Next week we'll pick up a second bed for the guest room (it's the room where the beer is fermenting at the moment.) Once the work visas comes through we'll do a little more furniture shopping to really make it home. But for the next few weeks it's going to be a bit makeshift. That's ok, it's all just building up to good news and happy lives.

Of course lately we've been working as usual. Dustin's still playing tough rugby weekly (when they have enough players.) I joined a softball team so have a few games left of the season (a little late but life was too busy before!) Dustin has gotten right into home brewing as you've seen. I think we'll be bottling our first batch of ale later today. In his words, "If you can bake a cake you can brew beer." So, hope you like beer because when you visit we'll have lots on hand at any given time. (Each batch is 23L.)

I got to attend a concert up at a winery just out of town the other night. It was a dance party with Fat Freddy's Drop and others. The surf tends to be less happening in summer. Last week it was primo but there was a tsunami warning out so they were clearing the beach just as we showed up. The forecast was only for a 1m wave but being that the conditions would be unpredictable they didn't want to risk it. (There was an earthquake off the Solomon Islands.)

Coming up we have my parents coming for a visit so we'll head out of town with them for a couple nights. I think zorbing is on the itinerary. As is a cave tour to see glow worms. (Which I always thought was just those cool toy dolls we used to have that lit up when you squeezed them!)

So watch this space for work visa news. I am counting on it being good news but we are going to accept whatever the outcome may be. Which should be just continue as usual and work on getting our residency application put together by mid-April!

We have weddings to attend in BC in June so a trip across the Pacific is on the horizon too.

Ok time to bottle beer or pick brussels sprouts and maybe craft up a card for friends who just had a baby... all activities now taking place in separate rooms! I don't even know where in the house Dustin is right now! (For anyone who has spent most of their last 7 years in one bedroom apartments/suites and hotel rooms/tents, you will understand the gushing over all this space!! And we thought our last unit had a big room! Now we have multiple big rooms!!)

What's cooking with you all these days? Drop us a line!