Canadian Customs and unloading the truck

So after packing up the truck last week, Paul headed off to meet the truck at Canadian customs in Ontario.  When the truck left, Paul handed him a copy of his Canadian Passport along with a copy of Form B-4 and B-4A for the goods on the truck (a second B-4A form for the things we are bringing in our personal vehicle when we drive it back was prepared for customs, but not given to the driver).

Paul showed up at the ABF U-Pack terminal and handed his copy of B-4 and both copies of B-4A (the additional items on the truck as well as goods to follow, which we'll also present I think when we bring the car with us) to the person at the terminal and she handed them over to customs.  He then waited for about a 1/2 hour or so to make sure everything was good.  Two things came up that we were not expecting. 

1) the customs officer informed us that our forms should have been presented at the border when my husband arrived on the plane (we fly in the US then drive over the border as the US airport is closer than the nearest large Canadian airport) and drove over and told them that he was intending to meet a truck with these belongings. (I hadn't figured this out from the directions and no one told us this.  When I'd called the ABF terminal they said to bring papers to the terminal and she'd fax them to customs... nothing was said about the border) 2) He had to prove he'd been out of the country for over a year.  The only thing he could think of was that we had a copy of our 2012 income tax return ( I noted later he could have presented his state driver's license or some of the house forms he had with him, but apparently it was a bit deer in the headlights thing where you are trying to quickly think and of course, my not standing in front of the customs officer myself at a later time had other ideas of way to prove this... it was the quickest thing he could think of). While a little annoyed that the officer took some time to share our personal information with some other officers, my husband was pleased when the officer offered up that when we drive our vehicle back later in the month when we cross the border we are to be very clear with the border guard that we are importing the vehicle and should fill out paperwork upon our border crossing.  I'll update how that went probably first week in July.

The truck has been unpacked and Paul will call UPack/ABF to come pickup the truck tomorrow.  He showed me some pictures via Skype and for moving to and from the same square footage of house and how much we got rid of, it still looks like we have a TON of stuff!  He's got the furniture pretty squared away and is trying to do at least living room and bedrooms so we can sit and sleep and will do his best in the kitchen so hopefully we'll not be eating take-out too long.  I told a woman at church today this update and she said, "I don't know your husband well, but I like him for taking on such a task!"  I told her, "I would feel guilty, but I packed almost all of it, so he can unpack it!"  I'm sure things will be a bit fluid in their location for awhile as we figure out what we have left and how our new space will work, but I'm confident it will all fit as the new house while having the same square footage has a better floor plan (I think, I hope!) for how our family lives.

He says everything he's seen so far (he's not opened a ton of boxes, too busy putting furniture in place) has survived except one small skateboard we've had about 7 years that we used to brace some furniture got cracked apart.  The wine glasses, wrapped in bubble wrap and piggy banks are in one piece (my pampered chef muffin stoneware didn't survive the plane ride in my suitcase in April, so I guess it's safer to be packed by me in a truck than an airplane!)  I'll update more as he unwraps more so those moving in the future can learn from our experience.

Henri's graduation from preschool

We arrived a few minutes early and Valerie had fallen asleep on the way over. So far we were golden. I hoisted up a sleeping Valerie, grabbed the camera and asked Henri several times if he needed to visit the bathroom, but no, he insisted he was good to go. 

OK, then. We sat until the rest of his class came into the gym and he joined them up front.  They sang 2 songs....  yep, that's my kid....

(1:43) in is the good stuff... if you just want to get to the funny part...

After their songs they were supposed to sit down with their parents.  Henri proceeded to wander around, finally sitting down after realizing no one else was still standing up front before his teacher directed him towards me.

His "when I grow up" was:  When I grow up, I want to be a honeybee, I will make honey and have bees.  I will play Xbox with my brother forever and live in our new house by our school.

Siding!

Siding is finally going up! The front... Before: Now: My father-in-law has been painting up a storm, our bedroom is now a nice, sage green and Valerie's room is a very sweet little girl's room now that he was able to finish up the job Paul started when we were back there in April. Last night was our last night at the old house, today we loaded up the truck: We did not fill up the entire truck.  We did however decide we were close enough and wanted to have control over the entire truck rather than have them load other stuff inside that we are Using and paying for the entire truck.

update

Siding should start going on next week, look how great the garage already looks! Meanwhile, inside, my father-in-law has been painting! Our office before-pink, now, bluish-gray... office... On this wall there were mirrored butterflies glued on, I chipped them off then had to putty over the holes they left. Looks great now!

Adding the eves troughs and the soffets

This white is so bold I did a double take when my father-in-law posted the pictures!

Moving the windows

While the siding was off, we decided to make the window in Henri's room larger as well as drop the other two windows in the bedrooms 6 inches. Not a lot, but if we were going to do it, this was the time to do it.... Henri's room with window before. With the new window... The other bedrooms with the window moved down... you can see the difference in this during picture... from the outside... See before how the windows where completely against the roof? Now they are a little more "normal" looking...

New insulation under that siding!

We're getting some additional insulation put under the new siding, hopefully it will save us some dough on the heating bill this winter!