7 years today - and no itch!

Kids are OK, very busy with school and dance. Oldest daughter has had a bit of a nightmare time at High School and has not enjoyed it much at all! The end of Grade 10 is in sight, and on several days I thought she'd never make it. Only two more years to go - deep breath. Younger daughter goes into High School this September. Another deep breath with some crossed fingers too. Both kids are still gorgeous though.

Promotion each for me and husband this year, which was nice, and life is so very busy. No time to fart, even if I ever did such a thing.

Diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes for one child - Alberta Children's Hospital have been amazing. Still been very challenging though.

Heading out to Vancouver Island for a holiday this summer. We hit the UK last Christmas. Husband is returning for a week in June to look after his mum while his dad takes a break - her alzheimers is kicking in strong now, so that has been hard.

Winter was utter shite. Landscape beautiful now but on many days I thought I'd never see "green" again.

Have bought a kayak for the day trips to lakes. Have bought an SUV because, well, I live in Alberta.

S'alright really. Think we'll stay for a while.

Glad everything has worked out and is going well for you and your family!
I hope that I can do a post the same in 6 years time

Good to hear Ann.

As you may recall, I am a Type I diabetic too. Once your daughter gets the hang of how to manage it, it is very easy to manage and should not affect her ability to do anything too much at all. I would much rather be a Type I than a Type II.

Thanks D. I think she will be fine with the diabetes in the long run. Teething problems, a teen with the attention span of a gnat some days, and then well, being a teenager - learning to drive, learning to drink, learning to party. It's all just got one extra angle to it for us!

Congratulations, and well done on the promotions and being successful at work. That can be a huge issue here for lots of immigrants.

I am sad to hear that your eldest has had a nightmare. Think of it this way, she is a teenager, and that is a nightmare in itself. She might have been just as unhappy in the UK.
Hopefully, she will be able to work it through soon.

Overall it sounds positive for you all, and the arrival of the SUV will no doubt further your attempts to look like an Albertan.

Wishing you many more years of success and happiness.

Thank you helcat. We have often had those pondering conversations, about whether the same issues at school and even with her health would have arisen in the UK, and in my heart I don't think they would, but we are committed to here for now, so......

Overall, life IS positive and daily, we acknowledge we are lucky indeed.

I often have these thoughts, too, with regard to the troubles we have had here. "What if we had stayed in the UK? Would it have been better? ", but in the end, we can never know how things might have been.

When things go wrong when you emigrate, it is so easy to attribute it to the choices you made, and that makes us feel guilty, but we shouldn't feel that way.

If you stay still, things catch up with you in the end, but if you move about, you sometimes encounter different issues that you might not have if you had
stayed.
Either way, you made the decision for the right reasons, and we will never know about the "what if"s, so we should let them go.

Easier said than done, in my case.

Congratulations to a fellow class of '07 immigrant. Glad its all working out for you.

Congrats on the Canniversary Ann M, I'm glad it's worked out for you. Our oldest son has type 1 diabetes - diagnosed at 3 years old and is a happy and healthy 22 year old now and is at Uni aiming to be a Physician or as he told me recently he might change track to be a research scientist looking into a cure for diabetes (that's him in the picture below.) Diabetes has never stopped him from doing anything and his latest adventure is that he will be hiking the West Coast trail this August. I hope the next 7 years are even better than the last 7 for you and your family.

Glad everything is settling down for you, Happy Canniversary

Thanks for your message jossie, I do appreciate it. Hard to see beyond next month sometimes but it's great to hear your son has just got on with things. My daughter's passion is dance so it's been hard to balance sugar levels with the volume of exercise and the adrenalin dumps at competitions. I hear stamp collecting is a good hobby.

She'll be fine. Practise and fine tuning, and it's barely been six months so she is doing really well.

And thanks PP.

Nice to hear things are working out well for you! You sound happy. Its nice to hear people are settled. I agree winter was a tough one where ever you lived in Canada this year...even the hard core Canadians struggled, but were through it now, summer is here at last!

Enjoy and heres to your next 7 years!

Ann M, very best wishes and best of luck for your next 7 happy years. Like helcat, one cannot but help and wonder if some of the problems that arrive, are just 'problems' that would have come anyway or Canadian specialities, that might have stayed dormant if you'd stayed in another continent

Enjoy every green filled second of summer, rejoice in your canoes and big girl toys, and fill up your tanks with enough perfect happy memories to kick the winter into touch.

What no F-350?

I'm not sure I'd go quite that far, the problem I find with it is that it robs me of a lot of spontaneity, because you have to plan everything. And when you do new things, you're not quite sure what is going to happen to your blood sugar.

I found when I was younger it was easier to control as well.

Here's a good example - had lunch the other day, so had regular dose of insulin. In the afternoon, car got a flat tire, so this was exertion I was not expecting, had to crank up the car, undo the nuts, change wheel, etc. And by the time I got home my blood sugar was really seriously low and I'd already eaten more food because I knew that was going to happen.

The trick I think is to get into a routine so it's easier to control the variables.

It does have the benefit of forcing you to think things through because there's only so many times you want to come to in the back of an ambulance.

It also has the benefit of stopping you from getting fat, because you can't binge on food, although I read that it is possible to have type 1 and 2 diabetes.

What a fantastic blog! Really enjoyed it. Funny to see some of the old London stuff that just used to be - just - there!!