We received our permanent residence cards in the mail on Wednesday. After 2 plus years of waiting, it becomes so real when you have those cards in hand.

This is Good Friday. Easter weekend is a huge celebration here. Turkeys, ham, pumpkin pie, cranberry hot cross scones. It is a four day weekend with many businesses closed for that time. Heather and Darren are supposed to be coming over this weekend and hopefully some of our other friends, Ruth and Tom.

Yesterday we went to get our drivers licenses. We got our 10 year driving record from the States before we came. We thought we were completely prepared.

Immigration tip#133: If your driver’s license was renewed within the last 2 years, the date of issue on the license will prevent you from getting a Canadian drivers license because it will look as if you have been driving only a few months. Logically, you think, but I have a 10 year driving record from the DMV from my state. Doesn’t matter. You could have received citations without a driver’s license. You would be issued a graduated license (substantial impact on insurance rate) and be required to take the entire driving test again here in Canada. As it was, we had to take a vision test and a verbal test with the representative. You absolutely need a copy of your original driving application (in my case from 1974) if you have renewed your license within the last 2 years. After several calls to the Nevada DMV (while standing at the counter of the ICBC), Diane managed to persuade them to get a copy of the records off microfilm, type a letter on DMV letterhead, and fax it back to the ICBC while we waited (several hours). The Drivers Services representative was very surprised that DMV was willing to do this, as she has seen it rarely done. (Well, Diane requested it, obviously the representative did not know who she was dealing with!:)

We received our temporary licenses, a yellow piece of paper, while we wait about 30 days for our official licenses to come in the mail.

We are looking forward to next weekend when we go to Seattle for probably our only vacation this year. This week we will meet on Thursday with other BC immigrants and are looking forward to that, as well.

Okay, now for the really good news. We had an offer on our house this week. It fell through, but we had an offer! Second really good news, Diane has an interview on Tuesday with a major international engineering firm that is very interested in her. All of your positive thoughts are appreciated. We love our new home and are anxious for our new lives to get going.

Canada is so worth the wait!