Well time flies when you're having fun! I almost posted after being here one year, then two but am determined to write something this year.

It will be 3 years tomorrow since my husband and I boarded a plane to Canada. Looking back I am not sure what we thought we were doing, probably a good thing too but you need to take opportunities in this life when they come along and that is what we did.

We moved to Calgary, primarily as we knew it would be relatively easy to get a job and luckily we were proved right. Actually we are both with the same companies we hired on with, have been promoted a couple of times. Having said that we now have a house, mortgage and the responsibilities that come with that so not as much disposable income, but we have somewhere to call home rather than the endless cycle of renting pokey flats. Is our house worth as much as what we paid for it? Probably not, but to be honest I really don't care. Coming over here for us was not about making money but giving us the chance to have a life whilst we are still young enough to enjoy it.

Last year our son, George was born at the beginning of February. The care I received in hospital was incredible, although I know of plenty of people who have not had such a great experience but not down to professional competence rather than a lack of beds.
When we left the hospital our town had "mommy and baby classes" running for 6 weeks at a time which was great to go to and meet other new mums and share experiences with. We had open access to lactation nurses, nutritionists, health visitors as well as our community drop-in centre which has scheduled play mornings for all pre-school age children.
No sooner than I got used to being at home though I went back to work (after 7 months) but in Canada you can split parental leave between mum and/or dad. This can be taken together (so both off for 6 months) partly together or one or the other for up to 50 weeks in total. It at least takes into account the father and gives them the option to take some time to be with their new baby.

I also went back to the UK last year for 6 weeks. I'm glad I went, we got to spend lots of time with the new grandparents and catch up with some old friends. Hard though as there were not many who actually came to see us and after traipsing round the old stomping grounds with a 4 month old in tow, in and out of car seats it starts to get a little old and we decided that we would not do that again.

Do I miss the place? Not really, would I go back to live, not a chance. George is Canadian and if something happened to us we have in our wills that he will be raised by his Canadian Godparents, something our parents are aware of and have consented to support should this happen.

So to Canada, yes there are things that frustrate me, but nothing noteworthy, snow in May and June on occasion is a bit depressing and my garden shrubs were near enough destroyed by an August hail storm last year but that's it really. Oh and I miss the footpath networks that we have in the UK, nothing like that really exists here unless you are in the National or Provincial parks.

We have travelled to a few other places in Canada but really haven't even got going on that one. It is such a big country that I doubt we will get the chance to go to even half the places we'd like to visit but we can try...

So there you have it, lives just transferred from one country to another, I highly recommend it. At least try, if you don't like it you can go back, albeit an expensive vacation but then you can say you gave it a go and you're not sitting there later on in life wondering "what if".

what a lovely post. congrats on making it, and thanks for posting from a different perspective (childcare, new family etc).

were you already in Airdrie when George was born? and what do you like about it?

Yes we moved to Airdrie about 8 weeks after arriving in Calgary, primarily due to the fact we were priced out of a few areas we were looking at in Calgary. George was actually born in the Peter Lougheed hospital in Calgary but all aftercare etc has either been at the doctors surgery or health centre in town. As I said I had a great experience there but my neighbour was scheduled in for a hysterectomy, had the operation and was then told there were no beds so spent 2 days in recovery and an isolation unit with no proper pain relief at all! She was then given discharge instructions for a D&C...

We like Airdrie, it is not particularly picturesque and we don't have as many stores as some of the other satellite communities but it has one of the easiest commutes in and out of the downtown core where I work. We had a young family move in two doors down from Saskatchewan but they moved within a year as he was working in the Southwest part of the city and the commute was terrible for him. We live on a street with young families, it is nothing impressive to look at but we back on to some green space which makes a huge difference.

Really the key to any place is trying to think about things from all angles, not just about the house. If you live in Airdrie or another satellite community you will probably need 2 cars although we managed with just one for almost 2 years since we were both working in a similar part of town. There is a commuter bus but times are restricted and no busses run into the city at weekends from here. Our taxes are also slightly higher too although we haven't got the % increases this year that Calgary has (apparently) (I'll wait until the tax bill comes before I believe that one). Garbage is restricted to 2 bags per week, anything over that you need to get a tag for from the council office. If you recycle the endless supply of flyers that get deposited on your doorstep this shouldn't be a problem though.

Helen

Sounds like you made the right choice in Airdrie! We will probably look at Cochrane only because we will be closer to the mountains (we are both addicted to snowboarding!), but Airdrie also sounds lovely.
thanks for a very informative post

That is fantastic, congratulations

Congratulations and I'm impressed with your well thought out plans!

A nice post. Congratulations.

Congratulations, lovely post!

Congratulations. It's also nice to have someone on here to speak for Airdrie.

Eamonn & Janet.

Congrats guys - sounds like you have settled really well