So, to catch you up...
First, the house. We have a contractor lined up for the kitchen. We have a floor plan. Cabinets are being made. We have an estimate and deposit made. We have a counter top picked, cabinet color picked, next week should give us our tile floor pick and then we can worry about paint and backsplash (we are doing those ourselves). We plan to start in October. It will take that long for cabinets, ordering needed items and for the contractor to finish his current projects at schools in the area. The project will take 6-8 weeks. Luckily forecasters are predicting an Indian summer so we should be able to eat and cook outdoors during most of that.
We talked to the town about the driveway. We can't touch the sidewalk, other than that they don't care what we do. The kitchen contractor wants a chance to bid on the job and I need to call the other bid we have and see what he says about this information.
We finished up the school year strong. C has been biking around the neighborhood with his friends and is looking forward to a summer of no school & playing video games. H's teacher and I had a talk about some of his quirks and she, I and H have seemed to have a better understanding of each other and finished out the year well. V will have H's teacher in September. V finished up her school year with a graduation and her teacher is very sad that she's off to public school next year.
Also, over the summer my immigration has started to move forward. In May my application for permanent residency was opened. After asking for paystubs (because when I submitted 9 months ago, P was working in the US, not Canada) and a copy of my passport (I had to renew in March) I was told to go get digital fingerprints done. Those were then sent to RCMP to check to make sure I'd stayed out of trouble in Canada. I finally received a notice right before our trip to WA that I'd been approved and had a final interview set.... for August 1st... 2 days before my brother's wedding and while P would be working in WA. Not ideal. Paul tried to call to reschedule but they wouldn't talk to him. I couldn't call directly because the phone number only worked from Canada. So my in-laws helped me do a 3 way call to reschedule it. The hard part was waiting. When you call into the main office, they pass along a message to the office you are scheduled to have your interview with. There's on calling the office directly, so you just hope they get it. Finally within a week or two I received an e-mail stating my interview was rescheduled for August 20th. Much better! After getting my paperwork at the interview for permanent residency, I went to the Service Ontario office to apply for OHIP (provincial health insurance). Ontario has a 90 day waiting period, so November 20th I should be covered like the rest of the family. What a relief! My permanent residency card is due to come in 6-8 weeks, then I can go back to Service Ontario and obtain a SIN (like a US SSN) and apply for a job or go to school if I like. According to the immigration officer, the only thing I can't do that a citizen can do is vote or run for office. I do have to renew my permanent residence card every 5 years. To apply for citizenship, I have to be in the country 3 or 4 years out of the next 5. My year I've already been here is allowed a 1/2 day for each day I've been here-so 6 months so far and I need to keep a journal to prove the 4 years I've been in the country.
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