January 2nd – 10th • Becoming Canadian • Part 1
Hello, world! That is how the blog should start as I have been missing in action for the last bit, you see, I feel like we have been so busy I don’t even have time to think as of lately. In the last month, we have been to Canada, to over 10 states, and gotten Canadian Citizenship for the older kids, and myself, Kevin got his green card and we sold both our Canadian homes. So to say we have been busy is an understatement. I know you all are waiting for an update because everyone keeps asking me and the number of visitors to our blog keeps going up. That said, I am now sitting on my couch because I was knocked down with asthma and can literally do nothing but update you on our lives.
The kids and I moved to Ituna, Saskatchewan in Canada, in June 2015 to start our Canadian journey. We were both excited and nervous about the changes that would take place living in another country. We were able to apply for a Permeant Residency after arrival which allowed us to live in Canada legally. We needed to live in Canada for a minimum of 1095 days before we could apply for our Citizenship. We applied to be Canadian Citizens in January of 2019 as we all knew that we loved Canada and wanted to call it home. Our citizenship should have all been processed before we ended up hitting the road in April of 2021, but since the pandemic happened things were taking way longer than they should have. When we left Canada, I knew the journey to finalize my Citizenship would be more difficult, but we didn’t have many choices.
I got an email from the CIC (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada) that I had an interview scheduled via video call for December 10th, 2021. I showed up to my call while in Iowa and they told me that they couldn’t do my interview unless I was physically in Canada. Kevin had planned a surprise 40th birthday party for me in Las Vegas but, the only date I could get for a reinterview was January 6th, 2022. I want to thank everyone that was planning to come to my birthday it was a big deal to me and I really hope we can do something in the future maybe with a bit more planning. We spent Christmas in California (which I’m planning to write about next) and then headed back to Iowa so I could get ready to head to Canada for my virtual interview. We left California, on January 2nd and got back to Creston, IA on the 4th. We took the route through Arizona and New Mexico as it was the middle of winter. We still saw lots of snow along the way back home. We did 1716 miles (2,761 KM) in just 2 days as we were on a real-time crunch to get me back to Canada in time for my interview.
We dropped the kids off in Iowa, then Kevin drove me to North Dakota, where I had to leave him as he couldn’t cross the board yet as he was still waiting for his Green Card. We drove through massive blizzards for 2 days to get there, I dropped him off at a hotel in Bowbells, ND for the night and then drove the rest of the way to Estevan, SK on my own. The drive there was 872 miles (1,403 KM) and about half of the way was blizzards. Not ideal driving conditions but, I didn’t want to miss this interview again! With Covid rules, I was required to be in quarantine, so I was able to drive through Tim Hortons on my way to the hotel and checked in as a quartine guest so they would bring everything I needed to my room. Got up for my interview the next morning and did a virtual call in the hotel room and proved to my immigration officer that I crossed the border and was in Canada at the time of the interview. Once, I was done I was able to head back to North Dakota and pick up Kevin.
Once I got back to Kevin’s hotel we knew we shouldn’t be driving very far in this weather if we didn’t have to. We talked about it and both decided we should hunker down for a few days and let this storm pass. We had been rushing and running now for 4 days straight and we were exhausted. We drove down to Spirit Lake Hotel and Casino where we would just wait out the storm for 2 days. It was actually a really nice time, we slept in and dealt with some business. It was the slowest 2 days in the last year we have had. The blizzards were bad and the temperatures were -27 so we just hung out in our room and did phone calls and little things that had needed to be caught up on after our Christmas vacation.
After our forced rest time, we headed back home which was 685 miles (1104 KM) to get back on track with our business. One thing I can say after traveling I’m always happy to be home and do home things. We got back on the 8th and the 9th we just spent time with the kids around the house while Kevin was lining up the next batch of the tractors for The Tractor King, Inc. I made a big batch of perogies and John rode his new John Deere tractor around the basement since it was still too cold outside to enjoy our yard. This is just part one of the journeys to finalize our Canadian Citizenship so be sure to check out Part 2 of when the kids and I went to Canada for our actual Citizenship Ceremony.
Well if you were keeping track that was 3,662 (9,521 KM) miles in 7 days! Needless to say, we were happy to be home and ready to get back to some normal life whatever that may be! Stay tuned for more updates….and where the road will take us next.
