Welcome to Canada, have fun!

Greetings from Thunder Bay, Ontario! Here's an account of yesterday...

We left the house around 8 am. After picking up bagels we were on our way. Since we had 6YO and our dog with us, we stopped at Gooseberry Falls State Park, Split Rock State Park, and Grand Portage State Park along the way. You turn into Grand Portage about 100 m in front of the border. We were walking the trail back to the falls when I promptly fell. As I was going down I was thinking, "NOTHING is going to keep me from being able to land today!" That is, land in Canada, not on my ass. Short of some sore body parts this morning and a strawberry on my knee, all is well.

We approached customs, gave the fellow (who looked about 12) our passports and explained that we were landing. He was a bit confused, but then got the idea, did his thing, and directed us to parking. We went inside, told them what we were doing and they directed us to the Immigration window. A nice officer took our paperwork and he, too, was confused. Our paperwork indicates our original destination of Vancouver and we were providing a Nova Scotia address. That lead to a few questions. I was, being neurotic anyway, really nervous! He checked every detail on the COPR and then gave all the other paperwork back and said to go to the Customs window. The guy there was very nice, though he did look closely at the Goods to Follow list and asked a few questions about the B4. He then said, "Few people are this prepared" and seemed pleased. After that, which took about five minutes, we had to wait. And wait. And wait. And my blood pressure went, I'm sure, higher and higher.

With all the posters about traveling with children, missing children, etc. we both thought that maybe they were running a variety of searches. Even though we all have the same names we hadn't thought to bring the birth certificate showing that we are both, in fact, 6YO's moms. We waited. 6YO whined. And we waited. At one point he called me up and asked for a phone number he could put down. After almost an hour - and I was getting very anxious having read about those who breeze through the process - he called us up. He asked, in a friendly way, if we were legally married. I said, "Yes, in Canada." He replied that "a lot of folks were doing that." We initialled that we hadn't ever been convicted of a crime, signed that above statements were truthful, and signed the COPR. He showed us how our passports were stamped indicating permanent resident status and gave us the carbon of the COPR. He THEN said that we were the first people he had ever landed and that that's why it had taken so long, adding that he had to do some reading! Whew! I was thinking, ya' know, it would have been okay if you had told me that to begin with! He then said, "Welcome to Canada, have fun!" Rock on!

So, over an hour after crossing the border, we were on our way! I would have liked to have been able to "enjoy" it more, but after all that time on the road and the wait I was just relieved.

We went on up the road to Thunder Bay and checked into the hotel. Lo' and behold, our dear and sneaky friends, G & D, had called ahead and paid for our room. Is that sweet!?! We ordered multi-grain pizza for delivery - do we know how to party or what - and ate in the room. We had planned to go in the pool, but 6YO was content watching a DVD and we were exhausted. But, I wasn't too exhausted to make a quick run to Chapters to feed my habit.

I got back around 10:30 and crashed.

BTW, just about every single person I've passed in the hallway says, "Hello." As P said, that may take some getting used to...

6YO and P are in the pool now. I'm going to get us packed up. We plan to get breakfast, stop at the Canadian Superstore (which I confess to loving so don't tell me anything bad about them) stop at the cheese farm outside of town and head back. I have to be ready at 8 am tomorrow as I've volunteered - way before I knew we'd be landing - to help with a school event.

That's it. We're permanent residents. I can't quite believe it. It's still sinking in that we got through all the hoops and did it!

More soon!