August 3 - September 4, 2015

After a year of travels, we finally landed in Chicago and were reunited with my parents. It was as if no time had passed at all. My folks looked great. They picked us up at the airport and we had a lovely evening together catching up.

No trip back home would be complete without a stop at Mykonos Restaurant for some Greek food. YUM! We did not get enough Mediterranean food on our travels.

The kids were also thrilled to meet up with some friends. Michael, my sister and I made a couple of trips to our storage unit to grab some clothes and anything else we felt was important. I think we just made a bigger mess of it.

Four days wasn't nearly enough in Chicago, but we had a huge task ahead of us in St. John's. We had to find a house to rent, buy a car, and oh yeah....Michael had to find a job. As the non-Canadian citizen of the group, I am not allowed to work until I obtain a work permit.

We spent the month of August living with Michael's parents. They were amazing hosts. We spent our days reading through online ads for houses and cars and then running out to check out the merchandise. After seeing several cars, we finally found one that would work well for us. Nothing was easy. We found out the car was not registered for the year. The owner did not want to pay to register it, but we couldn't drive it unless it was registered. We also had to get the car to pass an inspection before we could register it. The owner was moving and eventually decided to pay the fee and related fine. We also had to pay taxes on the used car. This seems to be a huge scam. Every time the car is sold, the province gets a cut. Well, we were happy to have some independence now to get around on our own. We even managed to get the kids to wash the car....for a fee of course.

Within a few short weeks, Michael was able to secure a great job. He would start in September. Now all we needed was a house. We wanted to be downtown, near shops and restaurants. Of course, it needed to be furnished as well. We went rounds with some owners. Some were simply unreasonable. We finally ended up settling in one of the first houses we looked at. The location was perfect and it had a garage. That may sound silly, but not many houses here have garages. The downtown area is quite old (St. John's is the oldest city in North America). Our house is over a hundred years old, so cars weren't really a thing. The weird part is many relatively newer suburban houses don't have garages either. I still can't wrap myself around that one since there is a ton of snow and salt.

This isn't the first time we lived in St. John's. I lived here with Michael twenty years ago and three years ago, we spent the summer here. We rented a different house downtown. I wrote a comprehensive blog then and it includes all sorts of details and facts about Newfoundland, including how it has its own time zone (2.5 hours ahead of Chicago) so check it out for more pictures and facts at mysummerinnewfoundland.weebly.com

Newfoundlanders LOVE to talk about weather. This was August...the best weather month of the year. They had an awful July, We felt our arrival was responsible for the positive change in temps and sun, so we took advantage of it all. We started out with a nice hike on the East Coast Trail with one of Michael's best friends and his sister's family.

Throughout our travels, we met several extraordinary people. We have kept in touch with many of them and hoped to see them again some day. Well, one of the lovely young ladies we met in Peru was on holidays with her mother and sisters and she informed us they would be coming to St. John's! We were thrilled. They are from Vancouver, and decided to drive through and explore Atlantic Canada.

We were happy to provide some travel advice and met them on a boat tour about 40 minutes outside of St. John's. We caught up while viewing the puffins. What a wild experience knowing we last saw each other in Cusco, Peru about ten months prior.

So we were ready to experience a new set of 'firsts'. Maeve went to her first concert. It was a combination of performers in whom she was interested. Thankfully she was old enough to go on her own at this manageable venue (I was not game for experiencing my first teenie bopper concert as a parent).

Michael and I were finally able to go out for walks on our own and reconnect with some of the lovely Newfoundland parks and trails.

It was finally time to settle on our own in the rented house. The kids only had days to prepare for their first day at a new school. We were hopeful and eager to start a new chapter.