Farewell 2015!

As this year comes to a close, it is important to reflect on what God has been doing this year.  To be perfectly honest, this year has been challenging for me in both new and predictable ways.  With all the craziness that was Medical School and all of the hurdles and obstacles we faced being 'Canadians in America' during that whole process, this year has felt, well, a little...safe.  It has seemed like we have been coasting through this year like regular folk - with Andee and I both working (one of us more than the other, haha), and living in the same place and even same apartment as the year before.  Minimal cross-country paperwork has been completed this year, and real money makes its way into our bank account every month. With a year and a half left of Andee's Residency Program, we have settled in quite nicely to our home and responsibilities in Iowa, but haven't yet focused in on making post-Residency plans.  It's strange, dare I say it, to feel normal.  Everything I wanted from the beginning, all the familiarity of what I knew before this journey has now started to feel unfamiliar and scary, and the fragile nature of my fear of change has started to emerge once again.  I don't want the complacent Christianity I had before this journey, but am once again reluctant to make a change.  I am however, determined to have my life marked less with anxiety and more with Joy.  And for this I need to let God take back control of all the things I have been holding on to, and to not allow myself to be discouraged or disappointed by the normal imperfections of life.  I, like many, strongly dislike seasons of refinement, but I love their necessity.  So, for this New Year, my resolution is to constantly choose joy, and be open to what God has in store for this year and the years to come.  If you would like to pray along with me, I would so appreciate this!  To 2016!!

Well, enough melodramatic monologues, let's talk about Christmas!  December is a great month, and was made especially great with the mild winter we have had thus far!  (Okay, so we currently have 8 inches of snow from last night, but up until now it was great!)  Andee and I were able to attend a few Christmas celebrations here in Iowa, celebrating with Andee's Residency crew, our Small Group, and with Prairie Lakes Church!  I truly love our family away from home, and getting to spend some time with these wonderful people really made this season special!  I was also very happy to lead one of my favourite Christmas songs with the Worship Team at PLC, 'O Come O Come Emmanuel'.  I love Christmas time so much!

We were also able to head back home to Canada for the holidays!  After hitting intense traffic due to the slick roads during a snow storm in both Michigan and West of Toronto, we were happy to arrive home after almost 16 hours of straight driving.  For those of you who were wishing for a White Christmas because 'it's just so pretty' or 'it just doesn't feel like Christmas without snow', well, you got your wish!  And the dozens of people on our route who spun out on the highways (one directly in front of us that we almost hit) and the thousands of people stuck in traffic appreciate these well wishes.  If you are traveling less than half an hour for your Christmas celebrations, please do all us travelers a favor and quit your wishing!  And boy were we missing the 'heavy traffic' on our daily 'commute' to work each day in Iowa!  Let's compare, shall we?  First we have one of the major highways in Waterloo/Cedar Falls described as 'heavy traffic' at 8:00am.  Second we have the major highway of Toronto described to have 'light volume' at 11:00pm.  I think Iowa has won this round!

 

A bit of a rough start to our vacation, but we were hoping it was on the up swing.  It wasn't.  The next day our little Aloe Cat was acting especially lethargic, and so we visited the local vet to see what was wrong.  Turns out all the stress of the car ride and being in a new environment led him to having a fever and a limp.  Two vet visits later, he ended up with an antibiotic, fluids, and pain medication.  He then refused to come downstairs for the next few days, but after a little while wandered downstairs to join us for some family time.  He was back to his old happy self soon after!  And the rest of the vacation much improved with this crazy cat family back on track!

The remainder of our vacation included visits with lots of friends and family, gift exchanges, Christmas cookies, and lots of delicious food!  We even watched Elf and It's A Wonderful Life to keep up with traditions and get into the Christmas spirit!  The weather was unusually warm for this time of year, making our excursions quite enjoyable with just our Spring/Fall jackets!  We gave some standard American gifts to our families, as well as received some wonderful Canadian gifts such as Tim Hortons mugs, Roots hot water bottle and sweaters, Canadian chocolate and candy, and Auntie Anne's famous nanaimo bars and Grandma's famous date squares!  Yum!  Andee and Trevor received some really neat Blue Jays themed gifts, including a hilarious ugly Christmas sweater featuring Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista.  Awesome.  A wonderful Christmas was had by all!

All in all, despite some of the early on crazy, our vacation was a success.  That being said, we are also quite content to be back to our warm apartment, normal sized bed, and regular routine in Iowa.  Merry Christmas everyone, and have a wonderful New Year!

Autumn Activities

What a gorgeous Fall we have been having here in Iowa!  Two years ago right around this day we arrived in Iowa for the first time for Andee's interview with Northeast Iowa Family Medicine Residency Program....to snow!  It's a good thing the Canadians were in attendance for the atypically cold October flurries to welcome us!  Not the case today however, with a high of 20 degrees Celsius and sun beams poking through the clouds!  And with the leaves changing colours and ample supplies of chai tea lattes and pumpkin bread at our place, this warm Fall weather is indeed a hit in my books!  In between work shifts and general weekly responsibilities, we have had lots of chances to enjoy this beautiful Fall!

Andee and I were fortunate enough to be able to attend the 'World's Largest Garage Sale' during one of the weekends this Fall.  Who would have thought that the World's Largest Garage Sale would occur right here in Waterloo, Iowa!  Boy are we lucky!  Okay so the title may have been a tad bit misleading, but there was a bunch of stuff to look at!  Amongst all the standard garage sale items that are somehow at every garage sale ever, it's always fun to spot the one or two gems that are hiding somewhere within!  And gems we did find!  We came out with a heart shaped wreath made of sticks for $2, and a beautiful rustic wooden crate for $10!  Garage Sale win!

Andee and I were seriously taking advantage of the warm Fall weather and made sure to visit a pumpkin patch and little Fall Festival for some festive Fall photos and promises of pumpkin carving and Fall squash!  And it was a success!  Pumpkins, spooky corn maze, hay rides, and cute little farm animals including cows, pigs, and goats made for a great afternoon!

This Fall we were also able to celebrate the delicious and wonderful holiday of Canadian Thanksgiving, or as we like to call it....Thanksgiving.  We invited a couple friends over for a delicious feast that included Mary Holt's famous potatoes, maple sweet potatoes, roasted acorn squash, stuffing, rolls, gravy, and of course, turkey!  But who needs all that when you have a turkey-shaped cat on your table!  Look at those turkey legs!  Better be careful Aloe Kitty, it's Thanksgiving!!

Going along with our Fall themed blog, we were able to enjoy a super fun Fall Party with our wonderful Small Group!  The festivities included a potluck dinner of deliciousness, pumpkin carving, a bonfire, and an outdoor viewing of 'Back to the Future' by the fire!  An eventful and fun evening with some of our favourite Iowans!  Check out our creative array of carved pumpkins!

This Fall has also been quite fun since Andee is now on the Recruiting Committee for his Residency Program!  Andee now has a larger role in helping with the interview process of incoming applicants, and was able to travel to Kansas City this summer with a few coworkers to be a part of the Northeast Iowa Family Medicine Residency Booth for Medical Students to learn more about the program.  And of course, a huge perk to being on the recruiting committee is hosting a few extra applicant dinners!  Being on the other side of an interview is a heck of a lot more fun than being the interviewee, and being able to enjoy delicious dinners at the same time is a huge added bonus!  And for me, it is essentially a free dinner where I just get to talk about Iowa and not cook for two nights.  Win-Win!  One of the restaurants we visited this year called Galleria De Paco boasts a recreation of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and the food was amazing too!

Surprised I haven't mentioned this yet?  Saving the best for last!  Our Toronto Blue Jays made it into the Playoffs for the first time in 22 years!  And of course, we are living in America when it happens...but that doesn't mean we can't join in the festivities!  As a birthday (and many many more birthday) present for Andee this year, we purchased a big screen TV for our living room - just in time to watch the Blue Jays clinch the AL East!  We had been talking about a TV for a while now, and the timing just seemed right! We had a little viewing celebration for the A.L. East Division Champion Pennant, complete with champagne, Jays gear, and a fellow Canadian Jays Fan, which is tough to come by here in Iowa!  And although our Blue Jays may not make it into the World Series after tonight, watching 'The Inning' with Jose Bautista's Home Run and Bat Flip for their advancement into the ALCS is legend enough to keep Toronto Sports fans excited for a while to come!  Let's Go Blue Jays!!

To end off this blog, I have to write about a very sad but important update in our lives.  Mom and Dad's cat, who is also My and Cassie's cat, Mr. Purr, passed away just a couple weeks ago.  I know I know, the passing of a cat is small potatoes compared to so much of the hurt and pain of the world, but Mr. Purr was a member of our family, and we love Him and want to honour his life and how much he meant to us.  I truly believe that God places animals in our lives to serve His purposes of loving us and giving us a friend to love back.  And Mr. Purr was an amazing 'brother' to Cassie and I and a wonderful 'son' to Mom and Dad.  Such funny memories of his crazy 'bare legs' trances, his hatred of the tiger stuffed animal at the cottage, and trying to fit into his tent at Christmas.  And such sweet memories of him cuddling up to Mom and Dad in the front room at the cottage, always coming when we sang 'God I look to You', and his 'swim' when getting belly rubs.  I love that fat and furry Kitty, and the fact that Mom and Dad were singing to him as he was being put down and he was being loved by the Aldridge Family right up until the end is such a comforting thought to me.  God will reconcile his creation back to Himself, and we will see the beauty of His creation in his living creatures up in heaven when we get there.  A place where '...the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion...' - Isaiah 11:6.  And it will be beautiful!  Here are a few photos of my sweet Mr. Purr just doing his Kitty thing - and that was enough.  We love you Purr!!

Canadian Invasion!

This past week we were excited to welcome my parents to our little part of Iowa for a visit!  It was so great to feel like a piece of home made its way over to Iowa, and it was really fun showing them around to all of the fun places that we like to enjoy living in the Midwest!  Mom and Dad stayed for a full week this time around, and we were so blessed to enjoy amazing summer weather into mid-September!  I was also able to take some time off work to enjoy their company!  Andee was also able to join us for quite a few of the vacation shenanigans with a perfectly timed light rotation that allowed for him to have early evenings and the weekend off!  A couple times he even joined us for lunch!  Let me recount for you our Aldridge Vacation to Iowa!

The first few days boasted some seriously hot and beautiful July style weather in the middle of September!  Which of course for the Aldridge Family means lots and lots of time outside!  Let's break down our typical vacation day here in Iowa!

We started most of our mornings with a delicious hot beverage outside sampling a variety of coffees, teas, and hot chocolates!  Perfect for those cool Fall mornings (or in our case, warm Fall mornings!). Delish!

We then made our way to one of my favourite American stores - Hobby Lobby!  We had a blast reading all the cute, inspirational, and hilarious signs for decorating you home, and my parents ended up with a few new items to decorate their newly renovated cottage!

If you know my family at all, you will know that if the weather is hot, we will find a beach!  And that is just what we did!  We ended up on more than one occasion at the George Wyth beach in Waterloo enjoying the beautiful weather and the very lightly attended September beach!  We also boasted our brave Canadian spirit by swimming in the lake only a few days from the start of Fall!  We like to get the most out of our summers in Canada!

And those beautiful warm summer nights mean just one thing - a bonfire!  We roasted marshmallows, spider wieners, and enjoyed a beautiful fire atop our third floor balcony overlooking a beautiful Iowa field with an even more beautiful Iowa sunset!  We love Iowa!

An Aldridge Family tradition that we like to carry on wherever we go is to find a claw machine or two, and have a little friendly competition to see who comes out with the most animals.  This year we took turns playing the game with a predetermined amount of turns allowed, and tried our luck with the claws!  The score was tied with two animals a piece for Mom and Dad, and in the bottom of the 9th, with just one turn left, Dad won his third animal with the first ever claw machine claw-off!  And he definitely let us know that he was this year's winner!

Another fun tradition that has emerged is a trip to the Cattle Congress Fair!  For a small fair, it really has some fun shows!  We watched a ventriloquist, a frisbee trick dog show, a show with real live bears, and a wildlife show complete with a beautiful and stealthy leopard!!  What a treat!!  And what would the Cattle Congress Fair be without lots and lots of cattle?

And of course, we enjoyed far too much of America's favourite pastime...and no I don't mean baseball!  What we enjoyed were the massive portions and reasonable prices of American FOOD!  Whether it was steak dinner(s) at Texas Roadhouse or the giant pork tenderloin "sandwiches" at Newton's, we definitely had our fill of delicious American and specifically Iowan cuisine!  YUM!

In true Diana fashion I also orchestrated a little Iowa photo shoot, complete with Iowa sweet corn and bales of hay!  I needed something to fill up my handmade (by a talented friend, not by me of course) Iowa picture frame!  Enjoy!

So I think it is safe to say that my parent's second Iowa trip was a big success!  And only three more months until we travel  home to Canada for our Christmas vacation!  But until then, we will be enjoying our current home right here in Iowa!

...Meanwhile in Canada, some exciting news ensued in the last couple of weeks!  After much anticipation, my sister Cassie and her wonderful now fiance Trevor are engaged!!  With the many wedding plans and celebrations they will be engaging in in the next few months, we are so happy that we get to participate in them, at least from a distance!  And a special way in which I get to be a part of their special day was disguised as a birthday gift and sent to Iowa!  That's right - I get to be a maid of honour!  Andee and I will be heading back to Canada next year to see two of our favourite people say 'I Do!'  We could not be more excited for them!! 

And to add to the excitement, our cousin Andra has also accepted a ring, and will be getting married to her fiance Scott soon after Cassie and Trevor tie the knot!  If we play our cards just right, we may end up with the oppourtinity to attend both Canadian weddings!  While we work on this, until next time readers!