The core of man's spirit comes from new experiences.

Christopher McCandless (Into the Wild)

What? Final Blog? Yep! As the saying goes, "All good things come to an end." And so will our German adventure. We will be returning to Montreal on August 16th.

In all, it will have been 2 ½ years that we lived in Berlin. This city, although we cursed it at times, has become a second home to us. We've managed to integrate into a different culture, we learned a new language (sort of), and we made new friends. Most significantly, this is the city where our daughter was born and spent the first 2 years of her life…..needless to say Berlin will forever hold a special place in our hearts.

It's been a little over a year since our last blog. And it's not because we haven't thought about our friends and family back home, or because we don't enjoy blogging; we simply have been very busy! So given the amount of time we have to cover, we will make it very brief - point form (almost) - just to give you all an idea of what the past year was like (we've selected some random pictures of our last 12 months - check them out in the Photo Album section!).

• We left off the last blog with Kaleia's pending 1st B-Day party. Well, the party was great & the ladybug cupcakes turned out perfectly (If I may say so myself)!
• In May 2009, we went spent 2 wonderful weeks in Italy (Rome & Tuscany).
• Over the summer I joined a Buggy Workout Class (fun) and continued with my German classes (not so fun). Kaleia also continued with her Music & Movement classes (also fun).
• I also started training for my 1st 10 km race, which took place on August 22nd.
• Dom ran his 10 km race in Prague on September 12th.
• Through both of these races, we are proud to say that we raised a total of $3,336 for Smile Train, an organization that provides free cleft lip & palate surgery for children in developing countries. Thanks again to everyone for their contributions!
• In July 2009, we went to Paris for 3 days & then flew to Portugal (Lisbon & Algarve) for 10 days.
• In August 2009, Dom & I started having date nights, thanks to a wonderful babysitter, Bianca! Having time to ourselves every 2nd Saturday night was a well-needed treat.
• At the end of September2009, I met a lovely British woman, Jayne, who happened to be a Tagesmutter (a woman who takes care of children - literally translated as "day mother") and who happened to have a space available. So we began the integration of Kaleia being cared for by Jayne 4 days a week.
• As some of you may know, Dom has a goal of celebrating his birthday in a different city every year. So off to Dresden we went, combined with a stop in Gorlitz, and quick cross-over into Poland, for a short, but sweet 5 days.
• We also had some lovely times with visitors from Montreal: Catherine, Phyllis & Mort, and Lana.
• In November, I started another intensive German course. It was actually enjoyable!
• Dom threw me a surprise B-Day party and invited all of our Berlin friends. It was really great! It was also a nice reminder that we really are not alone here.
• We were in Montreal for the holidays. It was really nice, but hectic.

2010

• I started the New Year feeling like I needed something new in my life, so I tried Qi-Gong. Interesting, but not for me.
• In February, thanks to my friend Nina's good connections, I got to see a few movies at the Berlinale Film Festival!
• Kaleia was invited to her first B-Day party!
• I decided to go back to Yoga. Thank goodness! I needed something to keep me grounded.
• Kaleia attended her first music concert! It was a guy & his guitar with a few puppets. Unfortunately Kaleia wasn't really into his gig & 20 minutes into it she turned to us and said, "Kaleia go home now." Oh well, we tried!
• In March, my mom came to visit & joined us on our 10-day trip to Morocco.
• In May we celebrated Kaleia's 2nd birthday with another party. This year the theme was Elmo. As luck would have it, Kaleia had a fever of 39.1 °C, and was cranky during most of the party, so that kinda put a damper on things.
• There are a lot of German holidays in May, so we spent one of them in Lübeck and Hamburg.
• On May 23rd, we brought Kaleia to the Carnival of Cultures. She loved the music & all the pretty dresses that the dancers were wearing.
• In June we went on what will probably be our last European vacation for a couple of years. We spent 7 days in Lombardy, on Lago Maggiore, 2 days in Milano and 1 week in Liguria, on the Italian Riviera (Cinque Terre). I don't think we could have chosen a better vacation for our last hurrah!
• From now until our departure, we have birthday parties & suppers to attend, 4 newborns to visit, things to sell & organize & a million other things to tackle on the to-do list!

If someone would have told us 3 years ago that we would live in Berlin, Germany for 2 ½ years and give birth to a child there, we would have thought they were insane! But when this opportunity presented itself, after giving it careful thought and consideration, we knew we couldn't let it slip away.It wasn't always easy, but when we think about everything we've gained from this experience….well, it's like the MasterCard commercial says, "PRICELESS!" Having said that, we are now faced with another adventure; one of repatriating back home. Although we have mixed feelings about this next stage of our lives, we're trying to be positive.

To our family and friends in Montreal....see you soon!

To our friends in Berlin..,Vielen Dank für die wunderbare Erfahrung. Bis bald! We'll miss you.

Amidst the worldly comings and goings, observe how endings become beginnings.
Tao Te Ching, verse 16