Catching Up

Yes, it’s been a little while since I last sat down and wrote something. Part of that has been deliberate. There were things in the wind that I wanted to have settled out to some sort of order before I discussed them too widely.

There’s something of a running joke that every time the CEO visits up here I come out of it with a new job. Well two weeks ago he was here … and I am still in the same role. Almost remarkable, but worthy of noting that it could well have been different.

In the discussion that I had with him whilst he was here, he mentioned that the company was looking for an Alliance Manager for a new contract that we’ve won in New Zealand. I’d taken a brief look at the location prior to his arrival and decided that I didn’t want to end up there, but following discussions with him, said that I’d consider it.

A bit of research suggested that there could be a nice place to live near there (Whakatane on the Bay of Plenty) but schooling options weren’t looking overly abundant and with a few other issues as well, we decided that perhaps we should just hang tight for now and look forward to our return to Oz at the end of this current contract.

That was the biggest piece of news that I was sitting on kept me from sitting down and writing. Although, it would have been nice to have been that much closer to home … possibly might have encouraged a few more visitors than we’ve managed to attract to this rather lonely part of the world.

In other news, we’ve had a couple of different illness’ run through the family. It certainly hasn’t helped with the ability of the family to cope with the extended winter that we get in this part of the world. I think that Sam and I are the only ones who have managed to avoid turning our stomachs inside out at some point in recent weeks, though we have both had the head cold that ran through the house.

Caroline was perhaps the least fortunate as she threw up early last Saturday morning when we were in Edmonton to watch Emily and Thomas’ ringette tournament. Instead she spent the day ‘relaxing’ in the hotel.

A month or so ago we were informed that Air Canada was having an international seat sale and looked very seriously at coming home for Easter. Sadly that was vetoed when the company banned us from taking leave in March and April due to a planned turnaround event. So there went our trip to the sun. So we looked for an alternative. We considered Mexico but in the end, booked a trip to the Caribbean, Jamaica to be exact! Yes, in approximately 13 days we’ll be soaking up the sun and drinking pina coladas! God I can’t wait.
And then, on top of that, and taking blessings from misfortune, economic slow downs and a fire in the plant pushed back the time frame for the turnaround to September which meant the travel ban was lifted. We didn’t do anything about it though. Not until early this week, when Sam was having a particularly hard day of it, not finding any joy in what was going on and we started to once again talk about when we could get home this year, or if in fact we would even manage to get home ahead of our contract end date.

And then there were specials on flights again …

Long story short, yesterday tickets were booked for us to come home for Easter! Cue party music!

I’ll be arriving on Sunday the 5th of April (Caroline and the kids will be there about a week and a half before that (Which I believe will mean that Emily gets yet another birthday in Oz) and then we’ll all leave together on Monday the 20th of April, having managed another Easter at Port Hughes and even getting a week of school holidays in there for the kids to see their friends. Due to the complexity of being stingy bastards, we’ll also have a day in LA on our way back over, so I am thinking that maybe we’ll be heading to Universal Studios. Can’t wait.