Getting Ready for Nunavut

Welcome to our blog! I've been meaning to write our first blog post for weeks now but as you can imagine, getting set for the big move has been crazy!

For starters, we currently live in the burbs in Oakville, Ontario and both just recently moved back to this home town of ours after finishing school down town Toronto and in London, Ontario. We were looking for interesting jobs, something to spice up our lives and found an ad in the classifieds of our local paper. To make a long story short we applied for a job, got the job, and are now moving to Iqaluit to work as a bakery supervisor and a general merchandise supervisor at Northmart. As of now we plan to be there for two years and will fill you in if that changes. We have lists and lists of things to do and see and are incredibly excited about them!

Matthew and I have had so many loved ones to say good-bye to and even more shopping and researching to do. To be honest, neither of us have even started packing yet. I do however have a designated "packing area" that my wonderful mom set up for me in her dining room. The dining room table is pushed up against the wall with all of my toiletries, non perishable foods, and way too many accessories on top of it. All of my clothes have been neatly folded and are sitting on the dining room chairs waiting patiently to be sorted and packed away.

Getting ready for this trip started out as a huge excitement as I searched any information I could find on Iqaluit, Nunavut. Stores, pass times, people, blogs! It was an Internet scavenger hunt. Blogs have been my saving grace. Especially a blog belonging to Jaime, shout outs, because everything of value that I know about travelling to Nunavut has come straight from her blog at http://newnavut.blogspot.com/. She lived in Nunavut for four years and recently moved back to the South. My greatest hope is that Matthew and I will be able to follow in her foot-steps and keep the details from the North coming for anyone else who wishes to transplant to Iqaluit.

The other night we had a bon voyage dinner with my dad's side of the family. They were wonderful to us! We got all sorts of much needed accessories... tampons, q-tipps, dryer sheets, brita filters, stamps, burned dvds, and a small stash of chocolate to name a few, along with so so much love! Tonight we had our final family dinner with Matt's family... which also served as my last farewell to East Side Mario's Cheese Capaletti. During dinner Aunt Janet gave us battery powered heated socks! Which I'm guessing will come in incredibly handy. Family is by far the hardest thing for us to leave behind.

My mind is so all over the place! We've been editing, crossing off and re-writing packing lists for months. I think my list is finally down to a few essentials that Walmart has inconveniently been out of stock of, and a few things that I plan to order off the net when we arrive at our new apartment in Iqaluit. Of course all this running around and stress has pushed Matt (who has been playing 'Melissa's personal driver') to near snappage.

The worst part of checking off things on the packing lists has been hunting down cat carriers to take on the plane! Who would have thought? We hit up the two biggest pet stores in Oakville and Mississauga, Rens Pet Depot and Petsmart and neither had a cat carrier that fit Air Canada's specifications. (10.5 inches high and soft sided - and the hard sided carriers have to be an inch and a half  shorter than that!)  We spent an hour on hold waiting for an Air Canada representative, hoping that she would tell us they would be lenient by an inch but alas, no such luck. She read us the sheet of details that we had already read over a hundred times off of their website. Eventually we found one! for $45.99 at Ryan's Global Pet foods. They even had someone bring over a second carrier from their other location and we got to pick it up the same day. For the trouble we've gone through I pray all will go well with my babies Jack and Sadie on the flight. After reading Jaimes blog, I knew I couldn't go through the nervousness of having my cats in cargo, so I am hoping with every ounce of my being that they are quiet and well behaved while stowed under our seats.

We are taking the cats as our carry ons and taking two suit cases each. Matt is a huge hockey fan so will be having his equipment shipped up to us and I am an avid baker and cake decorator so will probably ship some essentials to myself, along with all the fantastic things I picked up on my Costco shopping spree the other day.

Our flight leaves on the 19th, so wish me luck as I attempt to cross off the last items on my check lists and to-do lists and pack pack pack.

With love from... Oakville, for now.