Dearest Family and Friends,
You may have noticed I haven't been as active on social media the last 2 years or so. Life for our family has changed drastically during this time.
In June 2021 we decided to pack up our home in Edmonton, list the property for sale, and move to Prince George BC to live with my mom and stepdad. So, the first weekend of July that year we did just that. It was an adjustment for the kids as they missed the only home they had ever known and the friends they had made both at school and in our neighbourhood. Luckily, they are all likeable kids and make new friends quickly wherever they go.
Living at my mom and stepdad's house had its ups and downs, but ultimately in February 2022 the living situation basically blew up and we moved into a hotel for 3 weeks while we looked for a house to rent. During this whole time (since August 2021), both Andrew and I were actively looking for employment. Andrew gave up the fight with his previous employer from Edmonton and resigned. After securing a place to live in March 2022, I got a job interview and subsequently a job offer for a position with the BC Public Service. I started working in May at the Ministry of Children and Family Development as an auxiliary administration assistant. Andrew became "Mr. Mom", taxi-iing the kids to and from school and music lessons. He also spent the summer with them and got a taste of what my life had sort of been like home with kids for the previous 8 years!
On June 15, 2022, in front of God, our children, and a few witnesses, Andrew and I promised ourselves to each other in holy matrimony. It was a small ceremony in the park and the 10 of us went for dinner afterwards. Driving home from dinner, there was a bit of rain and a double rainbow, which we took as a great sign!
In September 2022, I applied for a full-time position as a Team Assistant with MCFD and was hired on. I absolutely loved being back in the workforce and pretty much working "banker's hours" 😁 It was nice to use my brain again: learning the court processes as well as all of the day-to-day operations of the Ministry. I gained a new respect for social workers and how difficult their jobs can be.
While I was working, the kids were attending school and making new friends. On Saturdays, Milana and Lenae took music lessons, piano and violin respectively. This was Lenae's second year of violin and Milana's first year of piano. Lenae also took a ballet class and Bianca took an acrodance class (kind of a combo of acrobatics and jazz/hiphop I think). Unfortunately, Cohen didn't take any classes or join any teams, but he got quality Mom time on Wednesday evenings while the girls all went to their Brownie (now called Embers) meetings. Also, sometimes he would go out with his dad and get to play VR, which he loves.
In April 2023, we actively started planning a big move… to Ontario! We weren't sure when exactly we would leave Prince George, but we started selling and donating as much as we could so all of our possessions would fit in a 6x12' U-Haul trailer that we would pull with the 2005 Nissan Pathfinder we purchased Easter weekend. I let my office manager at work know I was planning to leave my job and although she was sad that I'd be leaving, she was very supportive and understanding. In May, I started training my replacement who didn't know at the time that's what was going to happen 😝 Lucky for our admin team, the two of us made a great team and I was able to impart my knowledge to my counterpart quite easily.
The kids were excited for yet another new adventure, but of course talked about how much they would miss all of the friends they had made the last 2 years at school. I encouraged them to exchange Roblox and Minecraft usernames as well as trying to connect with some of their friends via Messenger Kids. They also even parted with some of their toys and clothes and even their bikes (which they had mostly outgrown anyway).
June 24th was my last day of work and June 28th we started packing the 6x12' U-Haul trailer. Not everything we planned to take fit in it although we also ended up packing things we could've parted with… some tough decisions! In the end, on June 30, the day after school let out, we started our long journey East. U-Haul gave us the trailer for 8 days, although we stuck to our own schedule and drove an average of 6.5-7hrs per day, except the first day we only drove to McBride 😂. The next day we stayed in Rocky Mountain House Alberta, then Swift Current Saskatchewan the night after. We stayed in Brandon MB for two nights and then headed south to North Dakota, east through Minnesota through Duluth, which took us through a very small piece of Wisconsin, before driving through northern Michigan, and finally crossing back into Canada at Sarnia Ontario on July 8th.
Finding jobs and housing in Ontario was NOT as easy as we thought it would be and hotel rooms for a family of 6 are not very affordable. I learned the hard way that a cheap hotel is not the best option after suffering exposure to bedbugs! We also camped at a great campground for one weekend (sorta to detox from the bad experience but also because the hotels in southern Ontario get booked solid on weekends). We spent 2 weeks at 2 different hotels in Waterloo, which were nice and had continental breakfast, but didn't have kitchenettes, so food options were kind of limited with a microwave and our electric skillet. These hotels were right down the street from the St. Jacobs Farmers Market, which is Canada's largest year-round market. I tried to go almost every day it was open mostly just to look, although I did buy the famous apple fritters from the Fritter Co., some African Shea Butter, treated the kids to bubble tea one day, and bought fruit once too.
As for employment, I had applied for admin positions with different Federal Govt agencies while still working for MCFD and was accepted into a job pool for the Dept of Justice, however a place in the pool isn't an offer of employment. Andrew applied for every job he could on Indeed, probably over 250 positions, and had one telephone interview. Landlords want either proof of employment or a job offer letter and neither of us had either of those. We finally thought we had secured a rental for August 1st, after signing a lease and offering 6 month's rent upfront, but the property owners turned down our offer!
We decided to switch to Plan B: packed our suitcases, put the vehicle in storage with all of our stuff that was already being stored, and got on a plane to Jamaica! We arrived on August 5th in Montego Bay.
We are currently staying in a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom apartment, which is bigger than the hotel rooms we stayed in during July, so it works. We have a vehicle and are about a 15-20 minute drive to our property. We are looking for a "local" rental, which will be a bit cheaper than what we are paying now and the application process isn't as crazy as Canada, although there aren't many available in the small community we are aiming for. We are hoping to start building a house on our property very soon, but everything here seems to happen slowly. Once the building process starts (i.e. the groundwork is done), it might take 4-6 weeks to make something liveable.
Our goal is to build 1-2 bedroom villas on our property over time, so if any of my family or friends would like to come spend time down here and "cool out", you will get a special rate 😜
This week we were able to enroll the kids in school, arrange for their school uniforms to be made (although they won't be ready in time for the first day as the seamstresses are booked solid at this time of year!), price out their book lists, and we've been to our "farm" almost every day too! It's been a major adjustment for all of us between the heat and humidity of summer and some culture shock. While rent here is cheap by Canadian standards, food prices are pretty ridiculous as most everything is imported. For example, a 250ml jar of Smuckers jam that we'd pay maybe $4 for in Canada… about the equivalent of $12 here! Definitely an indulgence. Grace brand jams are about $4 per jar though, so there are other options if you are ok with guava jam instead of strawberry 😜 Also, glad we brought a huge jar of peanut butter as the 500ml one here is about $10. I've been buying store brand frosted flakes for the kids, which are about $5/box or $10 for the jumbo box, so comparable to Canada. Eventually I'd like to go to Price Mart in Spanish Town or Kingston. It's the Jamaican equivalent to Costco, so I'll try to stock up on some things then.
One thing I should've stocked up on before we came is mosquito repellant! The mosquitoes here are small, fast, and plentiful. The bites they leave vary in size from small dots to huge welts. There are also sand flies which pepper your ankles with bites while you enjoy the breeze on the veranda. I also had a "mystery bite" during the first week we were here, which was the size of a twoonie and had a bruise next to it. While I don't like seeing cockroaches, I have killed a couple without much effort. However a 40 Legs had me screaming and scaring the kids into tears and panic while Andrew came running with the machete to kill it 😱 Google it if you're curious. Perhaps that was my mystery bite.. gives me the heebie geebies thinking about that crawling on me while I was sleeping 😨
By the way, a machete is a tool common to every household here. Not just used for killing 40 Legs, also useful for chopping bamboo, cutting open jelly coconuts, cutting back vines and underbrush, protecting you and your family from would-be home invaders, and, if you don't have a sharp enough kitchen knife, cutting up chicken (or other meat) through the bones.
Well, I think that brings everyone up-to-date on our lives. I hope to have whomever would like to visit come spend time. Ocho Rios is an hour from our farm if anyone is planning an all-inclusive resort visit anytime in the near future. Otherwise, keep in touch and let me know if you plan to come this way and I promise to give more frequent updates from here on out.
One Love 💕
Dominique