Our three-day trip to Vancouver has gone swimmingly so far. Since arriving on Friday, we have met our realtor, toured all the available listings (10) in our three most desired neighborhoods, and made a successful offer on our favourite one. We’re very excited! On Saturday we began lining up our money, scheduled an inspection and took another look at what will soon become our home. I’d say we’ve done a good job. We don’t even head back to Calgary until tonight.

The next couple of days will be all about meeting with the bank, reviewing strata council minutes and eventually waiving the conditions on our intent to purchase. That must happen by Wednesday. Once our conditions are removed we’ll begin contacting our utility providers, booking our mover and packing. Lots of packing. And what we aren’t packing, I’ll be selling on Kijiji (anyone want one, two or three sofas?). At some point in the next ten days or so I’ll be heading back to the coast – by vehicle this time – beginning the arduous task of personally moving my wine collection. The movers want no part of it; or perhaps more aptly, they just want to be compensated a little too well for it. So we’ll do it ourselves.

Vancouver has once again been amazing. The skies have been blue and the temperatures positively spring-like. The daffodils and crocuses have been up for a while, and now it’s the magnolia trees that are beginning to blossom. The sticker shock of Vancouver real estate has started to wear off, although I’ll be the first to admit that your dollar doesn’t travel very far here compared to Calgary, but that’s probably because people really want to live here. On Saturday the beach at English Bay was packed with people enjoying the sun and resultant vitamin D. Everyone and their dogs are in a good mood. Let’s hope that our success, momentum and all of these happy feelings persist a few weeks more.

More thoughts soon.