Wow! Things are a bit of a whirl wind these days! We just signed a contract with a couple to rent our house for the year! What a relief that is. We found them by advertising the house on the Ottawa school board's intranet. As it turns out Andrew and Marnie went to high school and youth group together (we discovered this when they arrived to see the house). Brian also knows an old friend of ours, Pete Benton. After discussions today it turns out that Andrew and Brian both helped Pete move houses one day about 10 years ago! Brian also goes to the same church as Andrew's Aunt and Unlce! It is a very small world. Needless to say we are very happy with having them rent our house. All of these connections make us feel comfortable with the decision to rent the house out. Now comes the almost insurmountable task of packing all of our house up and squeezing into two rooms. (Brian and Marnie are not going to use the bedroom and office downstairs). It is hard to believe how much stuff you accumulate over the years. We are having a garage sale at my sister Karen's house next weekend. We are hoping to unload a lot of stuff there (including our couch and chair)
We have booked more of our trip now. We have our tickets from England to Ireland (at a cost of $122 CDN total for the 5 of us--gotta love Ryan air). We also purchased our tickets from France to Poland with Wizz air which I am a bit more nervous about as they have only been in business for 4 months. Our credit card provides travel insurance though so that makes me feel a bit better.
We have also booked a hotel in Dublin for our 5 nights. The Dublin airport hotel. It is brand new, opening June 5. We are able to get a family room that sleeps 5 for 89 Euros a night. This is cheaper than 5 hostel dorm beds. We will be a bit out of town but will purchase a family bus pass for the days we are there.
My cousin Kate has agreed to put us up for most of the time we are in England. (I hope here husband Phil is still talking to her after we leave) ; )
All in all things are coming together. I realized today that I have only 26 nights left in my own bed. I have the rest of this weekend and the first weekend in June to spend at home. All my other weekends will be spent at Red Pine. 21 Teaching days left (but whose counting?)!
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