Our First Post!

I'm so glad you are reading our blog! It means you think we are cool (or that you are bored)! I guess we should have had one a while ago but (in my opinion) our lives just weren't interesting enough to tell everyone what we did every week. "Worked 45 hours, spent 8 hours in the car, went to church, slept, went grocery shopping, and went to the gym 3 times" gets a little boring I would think. We don't have amazing cooking recipes or really adorable kids or hold ANY Guiness World Records. But, now we live in St. John's, Newfoundland, CANADA! Now we are INTERESTING! :) For instance, you are probably very INTERESTED to know where St. John's, Newfoundland is anyway. It's in the Atlantic Ocean. Here's a map:

Sadly, Jordan has not taken the two 4-hour plane rides to visit me on our new island. I became a resident of Canada March 7 during my apartment hunting trip, but my husband won't be able to join me until June 7. I am really looking forward to being married again! When he gets here, St. John's will finally be HOME. Don't worry, we saw each other a few times in between. We met in Boston and Chicago, I came to Houston for a week, and we are planning a trip to Toronto next weekend! Our weekend getaways have been a blast and I will do a different post about those trips.

St. John's has been a really unique experience so far. Here's some things you probably didn't know about "The Rock" (Newfoundland's nickname because of the...well, the rocks)

• Newfoundland has it's own time zone. It's an hour and a HALF later than Eastern time zone. The time zone is called Newfoundland Time Zone because it's the only place in the world on that time. That's right, when it's 10:17 in Atlanta, it's 11:47 in St. John's. Quirky.

• The accent here is a really cool mix of Irish, British and Canadian. I haven't been able to imitate it yet, but I am working on it. Sometimes it sounds like a song, and it always seems like they end on a question mark. I nod at least five times more than I did before.They end half of their sentences with ...right? or ...know what I mean?

• The church branch that we are part of is AWESOME. Some of the most welcoming and loving people I've ever met. They are a tight knit family. There are about 50 people who come every Sunday and they are so excited that Jordan is coming in June. "Another priesthood holder? He grew up in the church? We're so glad you decided to come to St. John's, know what I mean?"

• I love living in downtown St. John's. I have a 5 minute walk to work, 10 minute walk to fifty different (& yummy) restaurants, 15 minute walk to the grocery store, and the whole metro area is within a 15 minute drive. I get up at 7:35 and get to work at 8:00. I could really get used to this.

• The foggiest place in the world is right off the East coast of Newfoundland near St. John's. It's pretty often that you can't see further than a mile in the distance before it becomes a gray haze. St. John's nickname is "Fog City". They have an acronym to describe weather in St. John's - R.D.F. - which stands for Rain, Drizzle, Fog. As in: "Just another RDF week, know what I mean?"

• Newfoundland is actually pronounced Noo-fin-LAND by the locals.

• People from St. John's really like to drink. In fact, there is a street here that is believed to have the most pubs per square foot of any street in North America. It's called George Street and it's busy almost every night of the week.

• The homes are really colorful. Red, blue, green, purple, yellow. Think of a bag of jelly beans. They actually call them "Jelly Bean Homes" and they bring a real liveliness to the city.

Well, I don't want to tell you all the cool stuff about St. John's because then I won't have anything else to post about! But, there is a picture of downtown at the bottom of the blog. The brown building on the harbor on the left side of the photo is where I work. I live just up the hill from the brown building.

I am so excited that Jordan and I will be able to live together again soon! Being apart is no fun, but it has definitely made me realize how good we have it together. I can't wait for St. John's to truly be HOME, but until then, I am really enjoying the beginning of summer weather here!