We finally received our Smartboxes on Tuesday, but not until 3:30pm far from the promised time of between 8am and 12pm. We were lucky enough to have 4 missionaries, Melanie and Ryan our good friends and neighbors, and another member of our ward whose name has slipped my mind (amongst other things) there to assist us. Fortunately with all the help, the chore of moving was made quick. We are so glad to be in our new apartment and have only had one or two melt-downs on my side of the equator.

We’re really enjoying the loft in our apartment. It’s so great and provides a wonderful office for Conor and I, well as soon as we get a desk for me. Our bedroom is a little on the small side and we are sadly unable to fit all of our furniture in there. Fortunately Conor and I were able to come up with a solution and will be moving our armoire to the living room. I’ve agreed to sand it and Conor is going to paint it and we’ll get some new knobs from Anthropologie. I’m excited about that especially since we have a deck to paint it on. I have had to be creative with clothing placement and I think we’ll need to get a side table for some leftover clothing. I’ve done my best to share my dresser! Because we don’t have a linen closet we’ll most likely take advantage of our armoire for our vast collection of towels. All wedding gifts.

We have a ton of cabinet space in the kitchen, which is awesome! I can’t even fill it. I get a big cupboard for a pantry and we’re going to get a short bookshelf and slip it under our staircase and use that as food storage too! I’m giddy about it. We have so many other ideas on the fly of how to make our apartment our home. We’re estimating we’ll be here for about a year and a half and if all goes through this will be our longest lived in home! Whoopee!

We’re dreaming of bookshelves with doors (to hide things), lamps and a bedside table. And maybe even a little table for two. It feels good to have my own space again.

P.S: even though Conor bought 50 more hangers (which we used up), we have an overflowing large box of clothing to giveaway. Ya. Intense. Needless to say our closet and drawers are full.

Pictures to come tomorrow as well as my most heartbreaking casualty of the move.

We’re half way and spending the night in Idaho. Crossing the border was a piece of cake! And I totally stunk at saving my emotions for Denver. SO MUCH has been going on in the past two and a half weeks that I just cannot bottle up any emotions, good or bad. And so I cried like a baby saying goodbye to my family on Thursday. I love waving to my Mom and whoever else stays at the window with her whenever we drive away from their house. As you can imagine it was extra tender as we drove away Thursday night and I waved like a maniac and cried my eyes dry. And then this morning, Vienna broke down when we were leaving and was the only one of the children who actually understood the magnitude of what was happening, and of course I could not withstand her tears and my own seeped through. I hate goodbyes. Really. I’m all about the clean break. Ugh. Once I have all my stuff again right? My worldly possessions will fill the void. Please fill the void.

The big drive is coming up and I am not allowing myself to think about not seeing family for over half a year! Instead I’m focusing on cleaning and packing, eating enough food and drinking enough water. I can’t believe everything has come up so quickly! On Friday I will officially be a Landed Permanent Resident of the United States of America. Oh my goodness. I picked up my passport with my visa today. Wow. This is really real. Well I better go pack or something before this seriously sets in and I turn into a blubbering baby confessing she doesn’t really want to go. Because I do want to go. Oh, I’m going. I’ll save emotions for our new little apartment.

So I had to take another driving test. Unfortunately Alberta came up with GDL (graduated drivers license) driving before I passed my Learners which therefore meant I would have to take a Basic Road Test, be on probation for 2 years and then take an Advanced Road Test. I’ve seriously put off this last test… until today. Ya, I took the test today and passed (phew!). I was hoping I could slide out of this one, but did a little research and found that Colorado has a very similar system (and I’m still considered a minor in the USA) so either way I’d need to take a test. We decided it would be best for me to keep some Alberta ID since we’ll have residency in both the USA and Canada. So there it is. All that anxiety for nothing!

One thing on my definite must see list was the Basilique Notre Dame. Oh my, was it ever beautiful! It was built between 1672 and 1683. Additions were made in the 1800s and in 1978 a fire ravaged the Sacré-Cœur (Sacred Heart) Chapel which had to be reconstructed. It is an immense building and the details are incredible!

This is the main chapel, the famous chapel. It’s so large! The colours are fascinating.

Down the middle aisle on each pew is carved a person. I’m assuming that each is a different saint.

The doors and the stained-glass windows were incredible!

Everywhere are paintings of Mary and these rosary beads sit right in front of some sort of Mary shrine. Am I using the right words? Anyways, very catholic.

This is the underside of a spiral staircase or pulpit. I guess Priests would stand on steps so their voices would be able to travel better and so this is called a pulpit.

Here’s a different staircase in the Sacred Hearts chapel:

So although I am not catholic, I can certainly appreciate the beauty and history of this chapel!