Worst Blog Ever

So, I got one question submitted on my AMA post last night. No, I'm not counting the one from my sister-in-law that asked:

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

Let's leave comedy to the professionals, shall we Sue?

Anyway. My friend Leigh Anne asked what prompted Kristie and I to move to NZ.

In a word: Edmonton.

Sorry, that sounds really pejorative. But the fact of the matter is, Edmonton is freaking cold man! And don't tell me that it's only really cold for three weeks out of the year. Because it usually starts snowing in October, and doesn't stop until May. Sometimes not until June! And those three weeks you're talking about? That is three weeks where it is below minus 40 degrees Celsius, and that goes beyond cold.

Although I'm being funny...

Really? That was funny? Now who should leave comedy to the professionals?

Anyway, a year or two before we made the move, we had spent an unbeleivable Christmas in Hawaii. When we got back to Edmonton, in January, we were absolutely miserable. If memory serves, it was a long cold winter, followed by a cold wet spring. So we finally just said: forget it!

When we got back from Hawaii, we were knew that we wanted to leave Edmonton so we started looking at all of our options. We wanted to go someplace warm, and someplace that where the political values would align roughly with our own. So we kicked around a few places in our minds:

Hawaii? Yeah, we could afford that!
Austin? An island of liberalism in a sea of conservatives, but a possibility.
Greece? We dodged a bullet there!

Then Kristie suggested New Zealand. Hmmmm...New Zealand eh? After doing quite a bit of checking into NZ, we decided that it may just have what we were looking for in a new home. Warm weather. Well, warmer than Edmonton anyway! At the time, it was into its third term of a liberal government, and even though it shifted to the right when we came here, it wasn't going to go Progressive Conservative any time soon.  It placed high on the OECD in terms of livability (I think Auckland and Wellington were in the top 8 places). So we made the decision to leave Canada.

At the time, Kristie was only about a year into her PhD program, and we knew that we'd have to stay in that winter-hinterland for another two to three bone-chilling years. Or would we? One day, while pining for our new home which was still two to three years away, I spied a job offering that would have been perfect for Kristie with the Ministry of Health. I brought the job to her attention and long story short (too late), she applied and got the job! After a short period of time where we applied for our visa, Kristie was on her way to forge our path in NZ. I stayed behind to sell the house, and get the dogs ready for their travels as well.

Years later, after settling in, we are still finding more and more that confirms our decision to move here! Cognitive Bias? Maybe, but we're still happy. Yes we miss our friends and family, and yes it is expensive getting back to Canada for visits, but we know we made the right decision, and we know we're going to be happy here for many years to come!