Pete and Rexy visit / heading home

Hey Everybody! Hope that 2008 has started great for all of you. Our friends from home came to visit and stayed for almost a week and we had an awesome time. I have known Pete since we were first paired up to live together at my first year of college in London and we have known Rebecca (Rexy) for a number of years now too. We did as much as you could possibly do in the short amount of time that they were here. We ate lots of good food, took them to some good malls so they could spend their strong Canadian dollar, and took the road trip back to the Grand Canyon. Pete thought it would be fun to not tell Rebecca that we were going to the Grand Canyon and instead tell her that we were going to Sedona. So once we passed Sedona on the highway Rebecca told us that she thought she saw a sign that Sedona was only a few miles away...and that was 20 minutes ago. So we told her the surprise and she was so excited that she cried a little! It was so awesome to see her so surprised. Besides the Grand Canyon trip, the highlight had to have been New Years Eve. We went to the Fiesta Bowl Block Party over in Tempe near the football stadium at ASU. They shut down a few blocks of the street and set up multiple stages for live music, as well as vendors and a midway. The end of the street had the main stage where we got to watch the Barenaked Ladies and ring in the new year. It was nice seeing a Canadian band here in the States and they put on a great show. The Fiesta Bowl Block Party is voted as one of the top 10 places to celebrate New Years Eve in all of the U.S. and there were over 100,000 people there. We had so much fun....the time flew by and 2008 came before we knew it! Having Pete and Rexy here was a wonderful way to end our time here in Phoenix. We travelled around and did some new things as well as showed them all of the stuff that we already knew about. We were sad to see them go.

So, maybe that second-last sentence through you for a loop. I know that I haven't publicly written about our plans for after our placement here. For the most part that is because it took a long time to decide what we were going to do. We listened to the various job offers throughout different parts of the states but none of them were really standing out as a place we would love to go live. Also, when we were making our decisions the Canadian dollar was sky-rocketing daily. The further it raised, the less it made sense for us to continue on to a new placement. We also have some things going on back home that we really don't want to miss out on. Friends having babies, some pre-wedding events, things like that. There is no one single factor that is determining us coming home. We are desperately going to miss travelling and seeing new things around every corner. However, when we left to head out on this adventure we never knew exactly how long we would be gone for. Although we said our plan was to leave for a year, we never knew if it would be shorter or longer. So there have been a myriad of reasons, situations, and conversations that have gotten us to this point. Our apartment is a mess as we are packing everything up for the last time. We are leaving here in the morning to start the 32 hour drive home to London. We are heading to my sister's house and will stay with her and my brother-in-law for a while until we get ourselves settled in the new city. For most of you the news of us heading home isn't a surprise as you have heard through the grapevine that we were coming back to Canada. We are really excited to see our friends and families. I will type more once we are back and I will reflect a bit on our time away and the things that we learned about ourselves. For now, I should get back to packing. Thank you for reading and thinking of us. If you are reading from Canada then we hope to see you soon!

Stay Classy!

p.s. We had one last great Sunday lunch with Ron, Cathy, Stacey, Joey, and of course, Isa. It was hard to say goodbye to them....we will miss them all very much.