Bilan 2008

• New Year’s in Montreal, with parents and family, covered with lots of snow.
• Back to Toronto by Via train, I love the train ride, especially in the snow season!
• Packed and shipped 19 boxes, or 2.2 cubic meters of the stuff I didn’t want to leave behind
• Removed the braces on February 14
  
• Left work at Dell in mid February. This was very hard…
• Sold my furniture on Kijiji and through a house sale
• Sold my car and what a pain it was to get rid of my Canadian freedom!
• Almost got a nervous breakdown from all the stress of moving and leaving
• Tante Mado had a family goodbye gathering at her house for me
• Slept in my empty apartment for the last few days before I left it for good
• Left Canada on February 28 to Beirut. One way, via Frankfurt on Lufthanza with 4 suitcases of 32 kilos each, along with a wedding dress and a handbag of 10 kilos
• Landed in Beirut on February 29 in the afternoon, to be greeted by Karam, Khalo Georges, and Karam’s cousin Fadi. Karam’s mom was also there, waiting in the car outside.
• Spent a month and a half trying to set up the old apartment in preparation for the family’s arrival for the wedding, looking for wedding related stuff, putting up with bullshit from future-mother-in-law and uncle’s wife
• Big thanks especially to Gisèle, Simo and Thérèse, for their presence and their help. It kept me sane and composed...
  
• Jano Habbouche, our next door neighbor, passed away 17 days before the wedding
• Parents, brother, uncles, aunts, and cousins arrived for the wedding and vacation, one after the other.
• Abdallah Tohme, my dearest non-family uncle, passed away 10 days before the wedding
• Almost had another breakdown and almost broke off the wedding, if it wasn’t for the family support around me.
  
• Had to change my Maid of Honor, who is Ammo Abdallah’s niece. So in 10 days my cousin Hyame had to have a Maid of Honor dress made and stand by me, as she always do
• Had to change the bride's house, and get the party going at Tante Mado's house instead of the family house
• Had the wedding, mine and Karam’s, on Saturday May 3rd
• Huge thanks for Khalo Maroun's support, for his help and for running around with me to finalize the last details of the wedding.
• Huge thanks to all my family who are always supportive and ready to do the impossible to get things done the right way
  
• Claude Farah, Père Jean Farah’s mother, passed away in May
• Nada Khoury’s father passed away in May
• Bought a car in late May; a nice Kia Rio sedan.
  
• Georgette Achkouty, my original Maid of Honor’s mother, passed away on June 12
  
• Started a job on June 26, at Al Waseet, in the online business
• Karam and I established residency in Zouk instead of Harissa, in the same house where I grew up
  
• Got pregnant at the beginning of July. We confirmed it for the first time on July 19.
  
• Luke Nabil Antoine Bakhache was born on October 17, and I became “3amto Coco”!
• Bought furniture and made curtains for the house, so it started to feel like home
• Learned that the baby I am carrying is a girl, on November 10. Waiting for Anastasia in late March inshalla
• 3 more people in the neighborhood passed away in November and early December...
  
  
• The real highlights of the year are:
  
  1. seeing my daughter move and grow at every doctor's appointment, and feeling her movements in me,
     
  2. marrying Karam, the best husband I could have ever asked for,
     
  3. being back in my beloved homeland, Lebanon.
  
  And as an added bonus, I got to live again in the house I grew up in.