Vancouver Island!

We're here, at last, after many miles and many days, we landed on Vancouver Island this morning. We've had a great time with friends in Edmonton and Calgary over the past week, and now we are getting ready to explore our new home. For this week, we are renting a lovely apartment overlooking the ocean in Parksville, a small town about a quarter of the way up the island's east coast. (click here for a map...)

We have a car for a week as well, and will spend the time getting back into a routine with the kids (up on time, breakfast, school, outdoor, lunch, explore, dinner and sensible bedtime!) Much the same for us too, in fact. Exploring involves driving to different towns and checking out those and other places we pass on the way. That should give us a feel for things, then once Ty Dewi arrives, we spend our next couple of months exploring by water then set up to do some final on-land fact-finding before we choose somewhere to come ashore. It's actually a rather challenging process - some days we just think it would be easier to have some employer saying 'we're posting you to here' and the choice is made for us. But not really, this should be fun in the end.

For now, this evening, we have just watched the forest on the far shore being lit up by the sunset and the tide is slowly covering the sand flats as night gently falls. In the near distance, the mountains still have their covering of snow.

We ain't in Cambridge any more, kids.