Ok, this has been in the works for a little while now, but I couldn’t write about it on here because I wanted to wait until I gave my notice at work, and Liz gave her notice at work. As the title says, I’m on my way back to Canada! Sure, not immediately… We don’t leave Ireland for another month. And we’re going to be doing 6 weeks of travelling through Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand on the way back to Canada (more on that later). But I’ve finally given my notice, so I can finally tell the world!
The primary reason we’ve decided on Canada vs Ireland as a permanent living solution is because it’s just too darn expensive here in Ireland. Real estate is absolutely ridiculous, there’s no way we’d be able to afford a house any time soon, and so we’re going to head back to Canada where the interest rates might be a bit higher, but the houses are about 1/3 the price. Just as a comparison, the apartment we’re living in now - which is a nice apartment, don’t get me wrong, in a nice gated estate - would sell for roughly 650,000 euro. That’s getting up into the neighbourhood of $1 million Canadian, for a 1 bedroom apartment! And our apartment isn’t really very close to town, or shopping, or bus routes. It’s absolutely CRAZY over here. So I’m very excited to be so close to leaving - 4 weeks and we’ll be on our way!! 
So that’s two huge announcements in less than half an hour! Not a bad start to the return to the blogging world, huh?
Ok… I’m aware that it’s been a small amount of time since I last blogged. Hey, a month and a half isn’t THAT bad. But to be fair, I’ve had a lot going on in my head over the last month and a half (and longer, I suppose) so it’s been a bit hectic around these parts!
But here’s the big news: Liz and I are engaged!!! Yay!!! Now, I’ve actually been planning this for a few months now, but it’s all finally fallen into place. Liz and I had actually started looking at rings a fair while back (under the pretext of “having an idea” of what she liked “when the time came, if it came”). Thus, I knew exactly what ring she wanted… Unfortunately, the ring got sold! So I had to talk to the jeweller about getting a ring of the same design made. Luckily, they had a design book so I could pick out the exact ring. And it came out PERFECTLY! Then it was just down to trying to find the perfect proposal… And since we’d already been trying on rings, I *knew* I’d be hard pressed to surprise her! I couldn’t just suggest “Hey, let’s go for a romantic sunset stroll down at the pier!” or “Hey, let’s go out to a romantic dinner… no reason, really!” Thus, when she suggested that we go for a walk yesterday, I knew that it was the perfect opportunity - it was *her* idea, she’d never see it coming! We made a few laps around the park before we were alone in a secluded bit of woods… I pretended to stop to tie my shoe, with the idea of ending up on one knee - but then Liz just kept on walking! I said “Hey, wait, come back!” and she playfully responded “No, you have to catch me!” and started running away… I knew that my sneakiness just wasn’t going to work, so I ran to catch up to her and caught her. Some mushy words were said (Hey, some things are private!) about how much I loved her, I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. And she said yes! I mean, I never really had any doubt, obviously, but it’s still never 100% until you’ve got the rock on her finger! She was *totally* surprised, but very excited! And of course so am I! We spent most of last night telling everybody.
Of course, now the scary part - the wedding! Ahhh! But, of course, there’s some other news that means the wedding planning will have to wait just a bit longer…
