Well it's been over two weeks. We're sorry we haven't updated our blog till now, but we were shoveling. We arrived in Kirkland Lake on Thursday, Dec 2nd and it has snowed ever since (or at least it has felt that way). So we are preparing ourselves for more: we've bought Livia a snow suit, dug through storage crates for our own, purchased some shovels, are putting the snowies on our Sienna tomorrow and are in the market for a 4x4 pick-up truck to get Dan to work on call (we'd get an SUV but we want to fit in).
After leaving Reading, we finished the American portion of our trip and arrived in Kingston in time to visit our home church (from 2004-08). The rapidity of this leg of the journey may be partly attributed to Dan's well-established habit of looking at the 'mph' digits on the speedometer - 80km/h has never been more fun. We had a wonderful time visiting with Catherine's three sisters and their families - Christine & Ellianne having made a surprise trip to Kingston to visit with everyone. Visiting the old chapel in their new building was strangely nostalgic. We are sad to be so far from people we love so dearly, but we have a calm confidence in God calling us to Kirkland Lake. We will serve Him here as they all serve Him there. We had brief but enjoyable visits with Dan's family and Catherine's parents before saying our (temporary) goodbyes (Christmas is so soon) and driving to OUR new home!!
We arrived on a Thursday and were thrilled that our lawyer was able to bump up the closing date of our house by one day (lawyers are wonderful people, eh Eric?). We got our keys, enjoyed a warm meal with friends and then headed over to our new place. On the way over we talked about how we were feeling. "Strangely normal" was our consensus. We weren't nervous about walking into our house which we'd only seen once, we weren't over-the-top excited about being in the same town as so many of our closest friends. We were going where we were called, and now it was time to get to work - that's it. Ten minutes after our arrival we got our first visitors. The Kurz and Ghent families had arrived and Livia had a wonderful time tearing around the empty house with five other kids. About 5 minutes after their arrival we laughed to hear a voice from downstairs "ah ah ah Dan? ah...we broke your door." The joys of home ownership had begun.
Note the frost on the camera
Cold, but still not much in the way of snow...just you wait, Livia!
Work is going well. Dan has been doing a combination of emergency medicine and clinic. He will be rostering his own patients in the new year. He is looking forward to getting to know "his own people" really well and managing them as he wants rather than picking up the pieces left behind by locum after locum at the no-family doctor clinic. He is seeing an inexplicable number of shoveling injuries (weird) and heart attacks ("honest doc, I thought the chest pain would go away if I just shoveled a while longer") and even did his first house call (makes him feel like a real country doc).
In our spare time, we put all those boxes to good use and built the coolest fort EVER in our basement. It's mostly a maze, but it opens up into a couple of rooms and a trap door to poke your head out. Livia and the Ghent kids have enjoyed themselves immensely and we are hoping the rest of the KL kids (and anyone else who wants to make the trek up for that matter) will make their way over here to join in on the fun. We may never get our basement back (visitors be warned, tunnels make very comfy sleeping quarters).
Tomorrow we are heading in to Timmins to put snow tires on the van. Getting around in this weather can be treacherous and the snow tires are clearly non-negotiable. Dan went in to the Ford dealership on Saturday and him and Doug are working something out. So far, we are enjoying the novelty of knowing our mail-persons (and car salesmen) by name and running into familiar faces all over town. We are excited to serve this community on many different levels. The needs are great - but hey, so is our God. Merry Christmas All!
