Migratory Byrds

Migratory Byrds

Saturday, March 23, 2013

PR Party

Ben and I recently became Permanent Residents of Canada! This means we have most of the same rights and privileges as citizens - the only relevant one we don't have is the right to vote. Of particular note is the fact that we no longer need to pay for work permits each year in order to continue living and working here, and we no longer need to keep getting new I-94 visa waivers every 3 months in order to visit the USA. Hooray!

We started the PR process almost 2 years ago, via sponsorship through Ben's work, and it involved lots of paperwork, thorough medical checks, a fingerprint check for me (apparently I'm more suspicious than Ben), a fair chunk of money, and a long wait. So our eventual approval was cause for celebration!

On Saturday, March 16th, we hosted a "PR Party"! We donned our red and white and shared a delicious potluck with some of our local friends under the Canadian flag.




Parties at our house these days have a few more kids in attendance than they used to! This evening there were 13 adults and 7 kids!

Aydin and Claire

John and Chloe

Claire

Gemma

Joel and Finley

Ted and Rach with Finley (who gave Rach the privilege of
being the first person other than us that he's smiled at!)

Us with Helene and Chloe

We even managed to catch Finley's smile on camera for the first (and so far only) time - here he is charming Rach...

Awww :)

Thanks for helping us celebrate our PR!

4 comments:

Laura said...

Congratulations!!! And Finley's smile is so cute :)

Anonymous said...

Wow! Congratulations!!

Congrats too on getting that smile on camera. I've found it's really hard to capture those first smiles and usually end up having to wait weeks to get a decent shot! :-)

BTW, Finley is an absolutely ADORABLE baby!! would love a cuddle :-)

Sonya xo

Jackie said...

Yipee! Congratulations!! :)

Could Finley grow any cuter?!

xx

Nicole B said...

Aww looks like fun, & congrats for your permanent residency!! On the topic of visas, work permits etc - we got ours! & we fly over on 12th June :) and Finley's smile is very adorable, and so are the other kids there!