Tuesday 25 August 2009

We are nearly, nearly Canadian

Last week we received a letter from those lovely people at the Candian Consulate in LA to say that our application for permanent residency in Canada has been approved.

Things we can now do -
- live in Canada indefinitely without having to renew work permits every 2 years.
- work for any company, although I'm happy where I am. My work permit tied me to ISL.
- live anywhere in Canada, although ditto. My work permit tied me to Edmonton.
- apply for citizenship.

Things we can't do -
- vote.
- stand for political office.
- have a Canadian passport.
- live outside Canada for more than three years in every five.
- remain in Canada if we are convicted of a serious criminal offence.

So we've couriered our passports down to LA to get them stamped, and then when we get them back, we have to leave Canada and enter again to get landed immigrant status which is what permanent residency is known as. Some people do this just by driving down to the US border and back again. However, it should fit in well with our trip back to the UK in October.

Wednesday 12 August 2009

Shrink the Fool

Yes it's finally happened I am now making a concerted effort to lose some weight. This includes such fun items as smaller portions, more exercise and eating better. I don't have the confidence at the moment to post my actual weight online but I do aim to tell you how it's going.
Jacqui and I will be supporting each other through this gruelling event and I know you all wish me well.

Monday 10 August 2009

Getting Older

Had the plumber out form the coucil today to replace the water meter, and wow did he look young, either I have no idea (bingo!) or he was about 12! Hopefully the thing doesn't leak or I fear he may cry if I complain......

Vegas in Summer Part 2: The Other stuff


Friday the wedding party left so Jacqui and I went for a wander in 40+ degree heat up and down the strip. We saw such hotels as the Bellagio (nice) Excalibur (soo tacky) and the Paris (Jacqui's favourite) in a wander that took around 3 hours. We also explored the rest of Caesar's which was MASSIVE. We did not realise what a monster hotel we were staying in for the first two days :)



Then we had a nice meal at an Italian place in Caesar's and then we had the icecream. It was incredibly rich, expensive and tasty in equal amounts and Jacqui had too much. We're walking along the promenade and Jacqui is slowly getting greener and greener and looking more and more pained. So we start heading backing and she's less and less talkative and her breathing is getting heavier and heavier. We just get into the room and she dashes into the bathroom and removes the icecream from her vicinity well and truly. No pictures of that thankfully.

So the rest of the evening was spent chilling and not doing anything that required Jacqui getting up.

Saturday we did some more of the hotels and saw the fountains again and had a quite impressive buffet lunch in Planet Hollywood and before you knew it we were back at the airport. Arrived at 6 in preparation for our 8pm flight check in no probs, told that the flight was delayed a short time in Edmonton, not particularly worried. Turns out the plane was stuck in Edmonton for over 2 hours, yawn! I probably spent more money gambling in the airport than in the rest of the time we were in Vegas. But eventually the flight came and we got home around 3am.
Our thoughts on Vegas.

Too noisy too hot and pretty expensive. I would go again, Jacqui would rather visit Luton.









Ok Ok Monster Vegas Post with Shiny Pictures Part1: The Wedding

Apparently I was supposed to say more about Sin City, well I suppose I should. We went down to Vegas for Jon Kirk's wedding to Victoria Slight for those of you that know them:) We would have probably got round to visiting the place some time in our lives but the wedding brought those plans wayyyy forward.

So we arrived on the Wednesday night after leaving work at lunchtime and a 3 hour flight, not too bad. Turned up at Vegas, walked out of the airport into a hot air blower, like you get from the vents outside shops but only this was just a fairly cool intro to LV.

A simple minibus ride later and we're at the hotel Caesar's Palace, well swanky, and in total touchdown to room was less than an hour, a nice result all round. We also got upgraded without asking and the room we got was really nice, there will be a pic or two of that.

Wednesday night we had a meal with the wedding party from about 10-12, which was nice but quite expensive, it was in Nero's though a really nice restaurant.

Jon just before the ceremony.
And the next morning was the wedding, and blinking flip it was hot, around 45 degrees I think. It was held at the little chapel of flowers which was a nice little place and the service was tasteful not what we expected from Vegas. However the chapel was located across form a BK and next door (although luckily protected from) an adult cinema :)

After that:- wedding breakfast / lunch and then a tour round the multi-thousand dollar wedding suite that Jon had wangled for a fraction of that. And a perfect view of the Bellagio fountain display that goes off every 30 mins.

Evening was a bit of gambling and socialising then we headed for bed.

Fool in Vegas Shocker

Went to Vegas, it was okay, Jacqui had too much icecream...the end!

Thursday 6 August 2009

And last, but not least, football

In mid July, we went back to the Commonwealth Stadium to watch Everton, yes Everton, take on River Plate from Argentina in a friendly. Even better, was that one of my colleagues had got his hands on an executive box courtesy of one of his clients, so there was room for everyone, including my friends Ann and Gordon who were visiting from the UK.

Richard can write his own damn blog if he wants give a blow by blow account of the match, but in case you are wondering, River Plate won 1-0.

Wednesday 5 August 2009

Horse Racing...

A couple of weeks ago, our neighbours John and Sonja took us out for an evening at the races. Edmonton has a dirt racetrack fairly near the city centre, and you can have a nice meal in the restaurant while watching the racing.

There were eight races and for each race we used a highly scientific method of choosing our preferred name of horse or name of trainer or name of rider or colour of silks or colour of horse or preferred odds to place a $3-5 bet for a horse to be placed (come first or second). Richard won a couple of the races and so made a bit of money. I won none of the races, but I came second in four of them and so finished the evening with $46 having bet $24. Obviously reading all those Dick Francis novels has finally paid off. It was great fun, and many thanks to John and Sonja for taking us along.

Rugby,

A few weekends back we went to watch the Canada v USA Rugby World Cup Qualifier which for some reason was being held in Edmonton. The first match of the qualifier had been held down in South Carolina and the USA had beaten Canada by a few points, so it was important that Canada won this match by a few more points

It was such good fun. The weather was reasonable and a couple of thousand people turned out to support Canada (rugby isn't one of the leading sports out here), most swathed in red (except me!). there was a real carnival feeling.
The match didn't get off to the greatest of starts. As the two teams lined up to sing the national anthems, a big fanfarey piece of music started playing over the tanoy. I thought it was a special introduction to one of them, but after about 30 seconds people started looking puzzled. After 60 seconds the music stopped and a rather sheepish voice said 'Sorry folks, wrong CD'. However, the right CD obviously couldn't be produced, so after a while, the Canadians on one side got into a huddle and sang their anthem with the crowd near them, and the Americans on our side got in another huddle and sung their anthem with the crowd near them joining in.
The Canadians dominated the first half, especially after one of theose nasty Americans got sent off for punching somebody, and the score at half time was something like 23-0. The Americans fought back in the second half and the final score was 41-13. Victory - the Canadians are off to New Zealand next year.
To add meaning to the game, we got chatting to the couple sitting next to us who had come out from Vancouver Island to watch because their son was one of the Canadian players. And he scored a try so it was all the more exciting for that.

Tuesday 4 August 2009

Coming Soon!

Vegas!
Football!!
Rugby!!!
Shocking news involving monkeys!!!!

Stay tooned!