Settling in Canada

We arrived in Canada a week ago today, and have been running non-stop to get a million things done before Neil started work & the kids started school. We've had to get new Canadian drivers liscences & liscence plates, required Ontario vehicle inspection, new insurance (auto & home), we had to get the kids registered for schools (at the district to go over all the international paperwork, as well as at each individual school) and get them extra supplies that we didn't have, open new bank accounts, apply for our Ontario Health Insurance Cards, etc. etc. It's been quite a whirlwind couple weeks, but we've been able to get almost everything done.

The trip out was fine. Our movers came & packed up all of our stuff on Friday Aug. 26th. We had boxes EVERYWHERE! Stacked in our kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms, living room, etc. We asked them to leave one TV out, and they left the beds as well. Other than that, we were living out of suitcases. So, we decided it would be nice to go see Neil's brother, who lives in Oklahoma City, one last time before we moved. We had a great weekend, just relaxing & spending time with Spencer, and eating all of the delicious food he cooked for us. :)

We headed back home Sunday evening, and the movers came back on Monday morning to load everything onto the moving van. Before they got there, Neil ran to get the small U-haul that we were taking with us, to put our washer & dryer, suitcases, folding table & chairs, file cabinet, the little boys toybox, sleeping bags, pillows, vacuum, etc. We had to fit our dog's kennel into the van & wouldn't have had space for anything else otherwise. After Neil picked up the U-haul, he had to take our dog to the vet for the health paperwork that is required 72-hours before crossing the border. While he was gone, I started to load the U-haul.

At about 9:30 or so, the movers showed up. They were there until about 3:00, getting everything loaded. We bought them hoagies, drinks, & treats to keep them fed & happy. We were told that all of our shipment would arrive anywhere between Sept. 3rd and the 12th, depending on what other shipments they had coming this direction. They will call us the day before they are set to arrive, we have to go meet them at a "clearing house" sign all the customs paperwork, pay some more fees, and then we'll have all of our things. I called yesterday to find out when our things will be arriving, and they said most likely the 12th. OF COURSE it will be! Oh well...we like sleeping on the floor and eating off paper products in an empty house. :) We just hope it all gets here without damage!

As soon as the movers were done loading all of our stuff, we finished the last bit of cleaning, and then headed out. The drive was a total of about 19 hours. Not too bad, considering we've driven about 21 hours every time we went back to Utah to visit family. The kids & our dog all did just fine. Along the way, we were able to pass through St. Louis one more time (we went there several times while living in Arkansas & loved it), as well as Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.

We arrived at the Canadian border on Wednesday morning around 7 a.m. We were glad to be there early, because there was only 1 family in front of us. We weren't sure how long it would take getting through customs, because of all the paperwork. We parked the van & went into a building where they process everything. We had to show them all our passports, Neil's goverment issued work permit letter, our van title, our dog's vet record, the list of all our items we were bringing across the border (both what was with us and what will be coming in the moving van), etc. They issued Neil his official work permit, we paid some fees, and we were done in about an hour! We were glad that it was only that long, we expected that it might be a few hours.

Once we got to Burlington, we called the property managers to see if we could get into our home a day early. They said that would be fine as long as we adjusted our renters insurance to show coverage from Aug. 31st, instead of Sept. 1st. So we made several phone calls, had our insurance change the policy & fax it to the property managers, went to get the key & headed to our house. We were able to get in, get the U-haul unloaded & returned to the closest U-haul place, go grab some lunch & a few groceries, and then headed to the bank.

The bank was booked with appointments, so we had to schedule a time to meet the next morning. Afterwards, we headed to the DMV to see how long that would take to get new drivers liscences & liscence plates. There was a full room full of people waiting. One lady said she'd been there about 3 hours. We decided to come back another day. We went home & cleaned for a while, then headed out to dinner.

The next morning (Thurs.) we were up early to go meet with the bank at 8:30. We got our chequing (that's how they spell it here) account done, but she said to get a credit card, Neil needed a SIN # (Social Insurance Number, like the US Social Security Number, which he would also need for work to get paid & file our taxes). Sooo...she gave us the info. of where we needed to go for that. We went to that office & got that paperwork finished & got the number, went BACK to the bank & were able to send in the application for our Canadian credit card. After the bank, we went home & picked up the kids, & headed to the school district building. We met with the lady who is over all the international students. We had to show her all our passports, the applications for the kids to go to school, birth certificates, immunization records, Neil's work permit, etc. We got that all done & then headed to the Elementary school for more paperwork and then to the Highschool for yet more paperwork & to get PJ's schedule all set up. We were all getting pretty worn out, but the kids were all SO great & patient. After that, we decided we needed to reward all their patience & waiting around at home or in offices with some ice cream! So we headed to Baskin Robbins. It was a delicious break! :)

Early Friday morning (at 7:45 a.m.), Neil & I headed to the DMV again, hoping to get in & out fast, since they open at 8:30. We just left the kids at home to spare them the long wait. Well, even though we were first in line, it STILL took us over an hour to get everything processed & done. We both got our Canadian driver's liscences & they took our van title & issued us a Canadian title for our van. We then headed to ANOTHER office where we had to get new liscence plates. When we got there, the lady said that we had to have a required vehicle inspection before being issued new plates. SO...we went to a lube shop to see when we could get that done. It was going to be a few hours, so Neil took me home & dropped me off, & went back out to get that done. After the inspection, Neil went BACK to the office to get our new plates. WHEW! Long day!!! And we learned that no matter where you live, the DMV is an international, universal, PAIN IN THE NECK!!! :)

On Saturday, we went shopping to get the kids school supplies that they needed (we brought some of their stuff that we bought to start school in Arkansas, but needed a few other things), and then went out for some pizza. We quickly learned some different things about Canada. "Duotangs" are folders with brads, "pencil crayons" are colored pencils, it's a "washroom" not a "bathroom", they don't refer to freshman, sophmore, etc. or say 1st grade, 2nd grade, etc. It is "Grade 1, Grade 9...etc." And if you order "Canadian Bacon" on your pizza, it confuses everyone! :) hahahahha!

When we ordered our pizza, I asked for Canadian bacon with pineapple & mushrooms. The guy wrote "pepperoni, sausage, bacon, pineapple, mushrooms." I told him I wanted HAM. So he added ham to the long list, and I told him I didn't want those extra toppings. We were both confused. I said that when I said "Canadian Bacon" I meant "Ham." He said that their "Canadian" pizza is pepperoni, sausage, & bacon. Whoops! I'm sure he thought we were crazy!

Sunday we went to church & everyone was very friendly & welcoming. It's a much smaller ward, but there are at least a couple kids each that are close to our kids ages. Then on Monday, there was a ward Barbeque with lots of food, games, & crafts. PJ had fun with all the teenagers, Tessa found a friend from her primary class to hang out with, and Jonah & Clay had fun running around & playing on the swings & playground with the other kids. We had signed up to take cookies to the BBQ, not realizing that when it's a holiday around here, EVERYTHING closes! We went to Sobeys, FreshCo, and even Walmart! Everything was closed for Labour day! I guess they take their holidays seriously here. :) We finally found a little drug store that was open & had some basic groceries, so we bought a bag of packaged cookies.

The kids started school yesterday. It went fine, it's just that any change is hard. We had a few tears, but they are all trying hard to be positive. Today was better, and they all were able to make some new friends & were feeling happier after school. Hooray! :) They all seem to have great teachers & plenty of kids in their classes to get to know. PJ was a little upset because there's only a couple other LDS kids at his highschool and he doesn't see the other kids at all (which is a hard change from Bentonville where there were LOTS of kids at the highschool that were LDS & he had a great group of friends). But he's excited for some of his classes & he likes most of his teachers. I think once early morning seminary starts next week, and he can see kids from church every day, and start going to the weekly activities, it will be even better. They have a youth temple night tomorrow, which will be nice too. They leave around 5:30, and will be back home around 9:30 or so. It will be SO nice to have a temple closer (only about 45 minutes away).

Tessa met a few girls in her school class that were really nice & talked with her & included her (I'm so glad because she can be so shy in new situations). But this morning she was trying really hard not to cry when I dropped her off, because she was really missing some of her friends from Bentonville & all that she's familiar with. :( There are 3 other girls at church that are close to her age. They combine all the Valient classes, because there are only about 9 kids in that age group, so she is in the same class as Jonah. She wasn't too excited about that. But at least she'll be going into Young Women's in November. I think that will be really good for her. All the Young Women meet together, because of the small numbers (it's the same with the Young Men).

Jonah seemed to have a good day, other than he said that he still doesn't have any friends. But as we were walking into the school today, a kid behind us (with his mom) said hi to Jonah & his mom said that they are in the same class. So I was happy about that. I told Jonah that now he knows a friend that he can play with at recess. Clay & Jonah have recess at the same time & were able to play together yesterday, which was nice. There is only 1 other boy at church that is Jonah's age (at least that I know of). Kind of a bummer. Maybe he'll have to play with kids that are older or younger, and kids from school and our neighborhood that we get to know. The other thing that is different here is that they don't do scouting. They will help the boys pass off things if they want to work on them, but it's not an organized, offical pack. In most places out of the US, scouting isn't as big. In the church, they do the Activity Days program for both the boys and the girls, meeting every other week for activities. They also help them work on goals in their "Faith in God" booklets. So, even though he won't be doing cub scouts anymore, at least he'll be doing some fun activities with other kids in our ward a couple times a month. And we can still do some scouting things with him if he wants to.

Clay was fine yesterday too. His teacher said that he didn't get sad at all & had fun playing with Jonah at recess. But Clay got sad this morning because he said that now Jonah has a friend & he doesn't. There were quite a few little boys in Clay's class, so I was hoping he would play with them today & feel better. The first thing he told me after school was that he made a new friend! And at church, Clay is in a class with about 5 other little boys his age, so hopefully we can have some friends over for all of our kids to hang out with & play with (once all of our furniture, T.V., & Wii gets here).

Neil's job is going GREAT! He is so excited & feels like this will be a great company to work for & great people to work with. It's nice to see him so happy about his job & so excited. And because of the traffic, they are letting him adjust his time so that he'll leave for work right after dropping PJ at seminary (at 6:30 a.m.), get to work by 7 a.m., work until 4 p.m., and be home by 4:30. It will be so nice to have him home earlier, so he can have more time with the kids after school. And his boss said that on days that it's really snowy or if she knows the traffic is going to be bad for some reason, she just leaves work earlier and works from home. And they have been SO great & understanding about us getting settled. Neil's boss told him not to worry about coming in yesterday until around 11:00, so he could help get all the kids to school & settled, because it's a pretty big deal. I really appreciated that! :)

I'm doing fine. My biggest worry is just hoping that the kids adjust quickly & make friends & are happy. It breaks my heart when they are sad. :( My other big concern is just hoping that our house sells soon. I don't want to worry about the extra financial strain from that. We keep praying & praying that we'll have an offer soon! Our realtor keeps assuring us that we are still getting lots of interest & we have one family that is VERY interested. They are trying to sell their home right now, but might go ahead & make an offer on our house with a contingency (where we accept their offer, but can continue to show our house & if someone else makes us an offer, we just have to give the first family 48 hours to make a decision to move forward or cancel).

Anyway, all is well & we are adjusting. Hopefully all of our things will arrive soon (without any damage), we'll be able to feel settled, the kids will develop some great new friendships, and our house in Bentonville will sell soon. :) We feel so very blessed!