We are Canadian permanent residents!

We decided to go to the CIC office in Regina after all. I had thought they would send a letter assigning us a day and time to come. Instead, they called us and worked around our schedule, and even rescheduled when I learned that Eric had a conflict at the original appointment time. So we thought it made sense just to get it done rather than deal with it at the border at the end of a long travel day.

The CIC office was in a government building in downtown Regina. We handed over our passports, as well as the forms that were sent to us by the consulate in LA. The woman helping us asked for our Saskatchewan provincial nomination letter, which we did not have with us. I just said we hadn't been told to bring it, but we had sent a copy of it with our original permanent residency application. I guess that was OK, because she kept on processing us. We answered a couple questions about whether we had a criminal record, or had ever been refused entry to Canada. We got another stamp in our passports and she wrote an immigration number under it. She said they would send our forms on to an office in Nova Scotia where they make the permanent residency cards, which we would receive in about a month's time. Even though she printed out and gave us our Confirmation of Permanent Residence forms, she said we couldn't cross a border without our permanent resident cards! At that point, we thought "Oops!" and explained our planned trip to Minnesota in a month's time. She said we needed to show our PR cards to get back into Canada, but we could call the Border Services office to check. She said she wouldn't have gone ahead with processing us if she'd known about this planned trip. Well, after we got back to Caronport, I called the Canada Border Services Agency right away, and they said it was no problem and that showing the forms was adequate. Our cards may be here by then anyway, but Eric is presenting at a conference in Minnesota so if he had needed to cancel, we would have had to give plenty of notice.

Another advantage in finalizing our permanent residency in Regina is that Service Canada is located in the same building, and we were able to apply for permanent Social Insurance numbers today. Again, the CIC worker had said we would need to show our PR cards, but Service Canada said that the forms were good enough.

We then walked a couple blocks to the Vital Statistics office, where we applied for permanent Saskatchewan Health cards. It was great to get all three of these tasks done in one morning. It gets wearisome constantly sending copies of passports and birth certificates to various agencies, and was a relief just to do it in person.

Now, I need to figure out what agencies need to be informed of our new status. So far, I can think of Briercrest (Eric's employer), the Canada Revenue Agency and the specific offices within it that handle GST credits and child tax credits, our banks. Anyone else?

It's a great feeling to be done with this! We already love Canada but now we can feel even more welcomed and settled here than we already do.

White Bean Soup with Rosemary and Parmesan

Here's a simple but tasty soup recipe using dried beans. This is a popular dish in northern Italy, especially Tuscany. You can substitute other dried beans like chickpeas, white kidney beans or cannellini beans.

White Bean Soup with Rosemary and Parmesan

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups dried small white navy beans
3 Tbsp. olive oil
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. minced fresh rosemary
7 cups chicken or vegetable stock, or water
salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley

1. Pick over and discard any damaged beans or stones. Rinse the beans. Place in a bowl, add plenty of water to cover and soak for about 3 hours. Drain the beans and set aside.
2. In a large soup pot over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Add the onion, carrot, and celery and saute, stirring, until the vegetables are soft, about 10 minutes.
3. Add the garlic and rosemary and continue to saute for 3 minutes. Add the drained beans and the stock or water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer gently, uncovered, until tender, 1- 1 1/2 hours. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly.
4. Place 1/3 of the bean mixture in a blender or food processor fitted with a metal blade (I just put my stick blender right in the pot). Puree until smooth. Return the puree to the soup and reheat gently. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
5. Ladle the soup into individual bowls. Garnish with the Parmesan cheese and parsley, and serve immediately. You can also add croutons if you like.

--From the Beans and Rice book in the Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Library.







We served it with this Cracked Wheat Bread and rolls--recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

Fun with homemade play-dough

People have recommended I make homemade play-dough before, but I never got around to it until today. We used the recipe from The Tightwad Gazette, and it was fun and easy! I don't know whether the kids enjoyed making it more or playing with it more!






HOMEMADE PLAYDOUGH

3 cups flour
1 1/2 cups salt
6 tsp. cream of tartar (cheapest if you can buy in bulk)
3 cups cool water
3 Tbsp oil
food coloring (can add with liquids or while kneading.)

Mix dry ingredients together in a big cooking pot. Blend all liquids together in a bowl. Combine with dry ingredients and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat when dough pulls away from the side of the pot and can be pinched without sticking (about 5 minutes). Turn onto board or counter and knead until smooth and play dough consistency. Store in airtight container.

We added the food coloring while kneading so we could make three colors instead of one.

Obama's visit to Canada

Barack Obama is here in Canada now, and according to this article, will talk with Harper primarily about Afghanistan, trade, and energy. Here he is greeted by Governor-General Michaëlle Jean, with Mounties in the background.

Almost done!

We got our passports back today in the mail, complete with immigration stamps! Now the final step is to reenter Canada at a border crossing. We have until September to do this, but plan to do it next month, as we already had a trip to Minnesota planned. The envelope also included some forms we need to bring along and present to the border officials.

I'm not blogging much these days because I am between computers. Hopefully my new computer will be arriving soon!

UPDATE: I read the immigration letter more carefully and noted a big change to their policy that may affect others who are immigrating.

*If you are already in Canada as a temporary worker, you do not need to cross a land or air border in order to complete your immigration process! I called Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and in our case, we could go to one of their offices in Regina. We could be seen within two weeks, however, they would tell us exactly when to come. Since this might conflict with Eric's teaching schedule, and we already have a US trip planned for next month, we'll probably stick with our original plan. But it's definitely great news for some immigrants.