Getting Ready

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The last month has been a whirlwind of activity and paper. B.C teacher licenses, retirement, pensions, and VISA info was the first round. Then selling the house, arranging for storage, dealing with mail, finances, cards, computers, phones, vehicles, packing and sorting - you know the routine. Everytime you check off something from your list, 3 more things pop up. It has been invaluable to have Rick at home to be dealing with so many of the items on the list.

We had a great garage sale where we got rid of a lot of unneeded items. Having the last hour with all items free really cleaned us out! Our house is looking pretty barren, though, as we continue to pack up pictures and knickknacks.

Now the major decisions are what to take in our 2 suitcases! Peter and Diane Wilson have been so helpful as to what we need to bring, but I think those suitcases will be stretched to the limit with every thing that is on our list! Packing 'the box' with winter supplies is the priority now so that it can be shipped off to Vancouver in early July to be sent to China.

We are so excited about this new part of our lives - will miss our community of friends in Peace River, but know that the new experiences will be well worth the move.








We have lucked into Madarin tutor when , by chance I mentioned our needing to learn Mandarin to the woman in charge of the Peace Literacy group (through which I am a tutor for a Korean woman). Lulu, who is from Beijing, is great and very patient with us. We are doing okay with counting, and Rick is great with ordering beer and wine! What else do we need to know?? Everything else seems to go right out of our head the minute she leaves, though. She has been a great help with understanding how the language works and those 5 tones.

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Photos

Photo 1
Gail's Garage sale

Photo 2
No need for this kitchen table when we return from China and move into our home in Qualicum Beach, so into the garage sale it goes.

Photo 3
Our Peace River home. We'll sure miss it as we love this house.

Lulu, our Mandaring tutor
Lulu has been trying to teach us the essentials of shopping and basic conversation. Speaking and hearing what people say to you are definitely 2 different things.