wobben.org

Finally we can officially share the news, now that the conditions of financing and a satisfactory home inspection have been met: last week, on the Dutch Queen’s Day on April 30th, WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!!! It’s located in the good and beautiful neighbourhood Arnheim Place (didn’t find out yet if there is a connection to the Dutch city Arnhem ), which is in the south-east end of central Regina, still within the ringroad, close to the Wascana park and a bit more south-east of where we are right now (Broders Annex). Most houses in this neighbourhood are too big and too expensive for us, so we were afraid that we couldn’t afford it, but we got lucky that this house was on the market for a while and nobody wanted it, because it needs a bit of TLC. Well, it’s the type of TLC that we would love to put in a house (painting, cleaning, redoing the floors) if it means we can afford it! Some bigger projects for the future include new furnace (right away, we’ll also put central air in), drainage from water away from the house at the outside (ASAP), adding ventilation to the attic (ASAP), developing the basement, back yard and updating the garage (coming years).

The house is from 1954, it’s 1004 sqft (93 m2) (and just as much basement!!), whole lot size is 5793 sqft (538 m2), not bad, huh? It has a big and bright living room (not as big as in our old house, but big for these bungalows), 3 bedrooms on the main level as well as a kitchen and bathroom. The basement walls have been braced for the most part, there are no major cracks or shifting (the ground “works” quite a bit here in Regina, so minor cracks are normal). And let’s not forget the gorgeous deck in the front!

Thank you to our mortgage broker Don Schick, who got us pre-approved way sooner than expected, and huge thanks go out to the AWESOME pair of realtors we got in touch with when we phoned for a certain house (we saw only 8 in total), Angelo and Jennifer Coppola (585-0444) of the Sutton Group! It immediately clicked, we had some great viewings with Angelo who explained so many things to us, and Jennifer has done some great negotiating to get us a good price on the house! The market is so crazy here that most houses sell for way over listing price (ten-thousands more), but because this one needs some work, she managed to get something off the price instead

Here some pictures of the house that we took while we were there for the home inspection and to take some measurements, as you can see the owner still lives there, but possession should be on the 23rd of this month, so pretty soon!!

album 05/08 our new house! (27 pictures)

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Last week we got pre-approved for a mortgage, sooner than expected!! This means the house-hunt has started, yay!!! We already saw one house that we loved and put an offer on it today, but even though our offer was 25,000 over the asking price, we got overbid (which we expected, but this was as high as we could go). That’s the Regina house market for ya… it’ll be though, but today we looked at a few other houses (none of which we want) and there will be more! Even though we had already talked to a realtor on a previous visit, this time around we happened to get in touch with two others, Jennifer and Angelo Coppola, who we just loved right away, so they are now our agents in this adventure

Another thing that made me happy is my new bike! We both got new bicycles (Trek) and we’re loving them! I immediately went to work on mine, so I don’t need any rides or buses, a Dutch girl is not complete without her bike Of course we also enjoy just cruising through the neigbourhoods (esp. with our house-hunting now) and such together.

I’ve uploaded Nico’s pics from the 30th Annual Pow Wow of the First Nations University that we went to on the 5th. I plan to add some more as soon as I copied the video footage off the camera, I may have some nice close up shots in there.

album 04/05 Pow Wow First Nations University (42 pictures)

A week later we went to Moose Jaw (70 km west of here) for a certain store that specializes in uniforms, to get scrubs for Nico. We walked down Main Street for a bit and we do plan to go back there some other day to visit the Tunnels of Moose Jaw. Al Capone used to be there supposedly, so you find reminders of that throughout the whole town. The huge moose (Mac The Moose) near the information centre was very cool too of course!

album 04/12 Moose Jaw (42 pictures)

Last Saturday we went on another road trip, to Arcola. That’s a small town about 2 hours south-east of here and Cortney’s mom and stepdad moved there. We went to help unpack and when we left in the afternoon, we took another route (via the Moose Mountain Provincial Park) and enjoyed many more hours on the prairie I’ll save those pics for the next update!

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Finally, after 6,5 weeks (including some delay in Montréal because we needed to prepay something and they apparently couldn’t reach us) our shipped goods, our 65 boxes of household and personal goods, have arrived in Regina! We both worked on Tuesday and saw on our phone later on that we had missed a call from Fastfrate. The next morning I phoned them back to find out that our stuff had arrived, texted Nico if he could take a longer lunch break maybe and that I would go home earlier too. Joy (Nico’s boss) sent him home for the day, so we had plenty of time to take care of this! We went to Fastfrate, they gave us some papers and together with the stuff the agent in Montréal had emailed us, plus our packinglist and ID, we went to Customs at the airport. A nice lady helped us, gave us spontaneous compliments on our detailed packinglist (like the guy in Edmonton, btw) She stamped it all and we were out there again in 10 minutes! YAY! Now we had to wait for Fastfrate to get the goods from the bond warehouse (in another part of town, with a railway company). We ran some errands and an hour and a half later we could come and get the goods!! We got a hold of Ken Stephenson, who had offered to help us with his pickup truck, and it turned out they could put one whole pallet in the back, so he drove twice to get both pallets to our place, where we put them in the garage for the time being. Thanks for the help Ken!! Then we brought all the boxes to the basement and much to our surprise all the small boxes fitted exactly up against the wall in the utility room (just outside of our apartment), lined up one row thick to the ceiling! Only the 4 bigger boxes, Nico’s photocase and one box with CDs are inside. Awesome!! We’ll only unpack what we think we need, the apartment is already pretty full by now

Nico is working normal day hours at the moment, because of introduction courses, and some days he works on the unit as a “shadow”. He has nice and helpful co-workers and loves it! At the end of the month he’ll start with his normal schedule and 12 hour shifts. I started working at Canada Life 2 weeks ago and I love it too! I have to dress a bit more business-y (no metal shirts and jeans to this job) and you need to make production there (data-entry), but that’s ok, and I love the work. You get a workflow list with scanned benificiary forms (for pension plans) that you have to check and put certain data off it in the system. I have my own cubicle by the window (luckily), I can listen to my own music (earphones) and decide for myself when (between Mo-Sa and 8am-8pm) I work my 20 hours (max. 7.5 hrs/day)! I try to work 2 full days so I can travel with Cortney (who works full-time with fixed hours) plus a 5 hour day.

album 03/25 - 03/27 Marlies’ Canadian job (14 pictures)

A good week ago, Tim left for a 5-6 week tour (US and Japan) and I took some pics when they were packing their RV and trailer and when they left:

album 03/28 Into Eternity leaving for a tour (19 pictures)

I also uploaded an album with some miscellaneous pics, made in March, where you can a.o. see a bit of our basement and our “adopted” cat Spooky

album 03/02 - 03/30 miscellaneous March pics (30 pictures)

Friday we went to a show presented by the Band Of Brothers, a benefit for the Fraser family called “Strength For Chris”. We don’t know him, but many here do, and he is struggling with cancer (brain tumor) and luckily now seems to be on a long hard way of recovery after some operations. The show brought about 10,000 dollars in, so that’s amazing! I’m honoured to say that Lisa has asked me to become a member of the board of the BoB organization soon!

Yesterday we went to the 30th annual Powwow of the First Nations University here in Regina. That was quite an impressive event! We stayed for several hours, watching all the colorful dancers and listening to the mesmerizing singers with their chants and their drums. It was held in a small arena (the Brandt Centre), and I hope that we one day also get a chance to go to a powwow in a more natural setting, like outdoors on a reserve. Anyway, pictures of both events soon to come.

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Last Monday, Nico started his job with an introduction week, so he’s been bombed by lots of information and comes home with a fried brain each day I’m using this time for myself to update some websites, and here is the promised update on our trip to the Greenwater Lake Provincial Park, March 4th - 8th!

Even before we moved to Canada we said that we wanted to have the first month off and even wanted to get away for a week or so if possible. At first we were thinking Banff, but we knew we’d also have a lot of exploring to do in our “own” province Saskatchewan. After we moved here and bought the car, it turned out that insurance-wise we can’t leave the province with our car, because Nico still only has his Dutch driver’s licence. He will have to get the Canadian one within 3 months, which means doing a written test and a road test again Anyway, we chose the Fisherman’s Cove at the edge of the Greenwater Lake Provincial Park, about 3 hours north from here.

Tuesday, March 4

We left Regina around 2pm on a nice, sunny day. Snow was getting less, but the prairies were still mostly white and the wind was still blowing up quite a bit of snow, so the visibility would vary. We took the 10 to Fort Qu’Appelle, the 35 up north past Wadena, then east for a bit to Kelvington and again up north on the 38 for the last kms to the Greenwater Lake Provincial Park. When you leave Regina to the east, you’ll get a rolling scenery with some trees and bushes here and there - not exactly the barren wasteland people think of when they hear the word “prairie” The next person that dares to say that Saskatchewan is flat deserves a spanking, because it’s NOT! Esp. the slopes of a river valley can be pretty steep, the Qu’Appelle valley that you’ll see in our pictures is a great example of that. Ok, it’s not exactly a Rocky Mountain, but still impressive and gorgeous. I must say that most of these pictures have been taken from the car (photocamera or shots from the videofootage), so don’t expect any award winning artsy shots Close to the park, the scenery changed a bit, more hills, more trees.

We arrived at the Fisherman’s Cove little past 5, checked into the cabin (which was fairly basic, but ok) and went to the restaurant for a meal and a warmer entourage. They have a menu with burgers, sandwiches and breakfasts, but we usually got the supper special. No haute cuisine (not that we’d want that), but just a decent meal for a decent price. The cabin wasn’t decorated so much, but the lodge itself had all the beauty and warmth you’d expect from a real log home! We immediately knew we’d be spending quite some time here, for the meals, some (wireless) internet time and a drink or two in front of the fireplace. God, that fireplace rocked!

Wednesday, March 5

We woke up to a beautiful day with stunning blue skies and lots of immaculate white snow. After breakfast we wrapped ourselves in enough clothes, scarves and mits to be protected for the -25 C or something, and went for a walk to the Greenwater Lake. Minutes after we left we cabin, we already saw some white-tailed deer in the forest! So cute! We watched them for a while and filmed them (some shots from that footage are in the photogallery). The lake was only 5 or so minutes further away, it was awesome to walk onto a big, frozen lake like that! Very cold too! We walked along the lake a bit further, and around the area where the cabins of the provincial park are. Some of them were taken too and we saw a few snowmobiles there. Snowmobiling (something that we had never seen) is big up there! We watched some squirrels and saw the deer again on our way back. I can’t begin to express how awesome it was for us, coming from a country where there is hardly ever any snow and winter anymore, to experience some REAL winter! And sure it’s cold… but with enough clothing and sunny weather like this, it beats any gray, rainy day back in Holland, I can assure you that! We’d been looking forward to this so much, so we gratefully took in the crisp, cold air, and all the amazing views of a pure white snowworld.

Thursday, March 6

Uh-oh, sick…. I had a beginning cold when we left, but ok, how much does a cold really bother you normally? Nothing you can’t deal with with a paracetamol/tylenol every now and then. Well, either I got a flue on top of it, or (more likely) my body reacted heavily to the new germs taking over my body. Germs and viruses aren’t the same everywhere you know, so your body may have to start from scratch in getting anti-bodies against colds and flus when you move to another continent. Anyway, I felt pretty sick, had a bad night and stayed in the cabin for most of the day, in bed or on the couch (and every now and then just standing by the window enjoying the view). There was one tv channel to entertain me, and Nico went out for a walk on his own. In the afternoon he went to the lodge with the laptop to spend some time online, and for supper we both went to the lodge. It was good to get out for a bit, but my appetite wasn’t big and I didn’t want to stay long. Turned in early!

Friday, March 7

I still didn’t feel great, but just good enough to go out again. It was the last full day there, so I didn’t want to stay inside another day. We took the car and went for a drive. At first to Round Lake, we had heard we could see elk there. Over small roads we tried to get there, while it started to snow more heavily and the roads were hard to see sometimes. At one point we thought we had missed a turn and wanted to turn on the road. Nico drove to the right a bit… and a bit too much, because the right front wheel suddenly got off the road and buried itself in the snow. No way we could get out, or lift the car! Uh-oh… we hadn’t seen anybody in a while!! But after a few minutes a snowmobile appeared, he said he’d be back in about an hour and a half with more people, so he could pull us out if no one else did in the meantime. But while we were still talking to him, a few more snowmobilers came along, an RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) truck came from one side and two cars from the other… so within 5 minutes there were like 7 people helping us get the car back on the road! This is Canada…. everybody’s friendly and helpful as if it’s the most normal thing in the world! We felt like stupid tourists (and I didn’t dare to get the camera out to film it), but they said it happens to everybody, and it would happen again! Ok…. well at least we know now what kind of emergency equipment we need to get for the car (shovel, candle to stay warm, blanket) and I’m glad our first encounter with the RCMP was a positive one!

We continued to the lake, but due to the snow there was no visibility at all, so we turned around (safely this time haha, with me getting out of the car to give directions) and went back to the main road… the snowfall was getting heavier so it started to feel a bit eerie to be out there by ourselves with a normal car, helpful Canadians or not. Once we were back on the 38, we decided to drive west, to Archerwill. From there we went north again, to Tisdale, where we stopped to stretch our legs at the Tisdale Mall and to have some lunch at Robin’s. Then we continued east and then south again, until we got back in the park and the cabins. By then I think we had satisfied our need to see real winter and big piles of snow hahaha! On this trip I mostly filmed, so most pics in the gallery of this day (except the 3 from the mall) are just shots taken from the video footage (lesser quality). After supper and some time at the fireplace, we turned in pretty early.

Saturday, March 8

Time to go home again. At first we wanted to stay for a week or so, but this cabin was only available until this Saturday. Instead of looking for another place for a couple of days more, we really wanted to go home, because boy, that day out hadn’t done me and my cold any good! I felt sick, seemed to have had a slight fever again during the night and just wanted to get home. In the car I filmed a lot of the scenery and several times we saw some deer and coyotes! I took some shots from that footage for the photo gallery again. Not as nice a quality, but hey better than nothing

We can’t wait to see how things look up there in the summer, so I’m pretty sure we’ll be visiting the Fisherman’s Cove and their friendly crew again!

album 03/04 - 03/08 Greenwater Lake Provincial Park (119 pictures)

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I got the job at Canada Life!!!! After 3 weeks I finally was called by Alisa from HR to offer me the job. Yay!! I’ll be starting next week (Tuesday) and I’m very excited! Here’s the description from the ad:

A week and a half ago, we went “up north” to the Greenwater Lake Provincial Park for 4 days. It was awesome to see some more real winter, much snow and feel some real cold, before coming back to an already melting Regina. The only bad thing was that I got pretty sick from a bad cold and/or flu and I needed part of last week to recover. But I’m now working on the update for those days, it will be online this week, don’t miss it!

Today is St. Patrick’s Day, an Irish holiday where people like to dress up in green and drink green beer We went to a sportsbar with Cortney and Geneva for some wings and green beers (well, no beer for G of course ) You can view some pics here:

album 03/17 - green beer on St. Patrick’s Day (17 pictures)

and a video:

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Today we went for a drive and left Regina to the east. We drove to Indian Head, then north to the Qu’Appelle valley, to Fort Qu’Appelle and back to Regina. There was a very hard and cold wind blowing (according to the Weathernews Network: -15, felt like -29) and a lot of snow was blown over the road, it sometimes looked like dense fog!

album 03/02 winter prairie Regina-Fort Qu’Appelle (59 pictures)

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Here it is… our ‘new’ (used) car… the biggest, baddest and prettiest car we’ve ever owned: a 2003 Ford Taurus SE! Check out the photo album for more pics!

They call this a mid-sized car, but for us it’s a huge boat!! These specs I just copied that from some website, so I’m not sure if it’s all exactly the same as with our car, I have to add that we do have a CD player in ours:

2003 Ford Taurus Performance

2,982 cc 3 liters 6 V front engine with 88.9 mm bore, 78.7 mm stroke, 9.5 compression ratio, overhead valve and two valves per cylinder
Unleaded fuel
Fuel economy EPA highway (l/100km): 8.4
Multi-point injection fuel system
Main 68 liter unleaded fuel tank
Power: SAE and 116 kW , 155 HP @ 4,900 rpm; 185 ft lb , 251 Nm @ 3,950 rpm

2003 Ford Taurus Handling

Two disc brakes including two ventilated discs
Immobilizer
Spacesaver steel rim internal spare wheel
Strut front and rear suspension with stabilizer bar independent with coil springs

2003 Ford Taurus Exterior

Body side molding
Front and rear body color bumpers
Coefficient of drag: 0.3
Driver and passenger power black door mirrors
External dimensions: overall length (mm): 5,019, overall width (mm): 1,854, overall height (mm): 1,425, wheelbase (mm): 2,756, front track (mm): 1,565, rear track (mm): 1,577 and curb to curb turning circle (mm): 12,101
Complex surface lens halogen bulb headlights
Heat reflective glass
Metallic paint , black paint , gloss paint
Fixed rear window
Tinted glass on cabin
Weights: curb weight (kg) 1,516
Windshield wipers with variable intermittent wipe

2003 Ford Taurus Interior

12v power outlet: front
Air conditioning
Fixed mast antenna
Front ashtray
Audio anti-theft protection: integrated in dash
Audio system with AM/FM
Automatic drive indicator on dashboard
Cargo area light
Cargo capacity: all seats in place (liters): 481
Front seats cigar lighter
Clock
Dashboard full console with open storage box , floor partial console with covered storage box
Delayed/fade courtesy lights
Front seats cup holders , rear seats cup holders
Door ajar warning
Door pockets/bins for driver seat, passenger seat and rear seats
Floor covering: carpet in load area
Floor mats
Driver and passenger front airbag with occupant sensors
Split bench seat
3-point reel height adjustable front seat belts on driver seat with pre-tensioners , 3-point reel height adjustable front seat belts on passenger seat with pre-tensioners , lap static front seat belts on center seat
Front seat center armrest
Glove compartment
Height adjustable two head restraints on front seats
Internal dimensions: front headroom (mm): 1,016, rear headroom (mm): 968, front hip room (mm): 1,382, rear hip room (mm): 1,415, front leg room (mm): 1,072, rear leg room (mm): 988, front shoulder room (mm): 1,455, rear shoulder room (mm): 1,438 and interior volume (liters): 2,956
Low fuel level warning
Internal button power locks
Power steering
Front power windows with one one-touch , rear power windows
Front and rear reading lights
3-point reel rear seat belts on driver side, passenger side and center side
Bench fixed three rear seats
Rear view mirror
Electric remote trunk/hatch release
Front seat back storage
Cloth seat upholstery with additional cloth
Seating: six sea
Four speakers
Plastic steering wheel
Tachometer
Driver and passenger vanity mirror
Ventilation system

album 03/01 Ford Taurus 2003 (12 pictures)

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Here the details about our flights to Canada and the first days here in Regina! We don’t have wireless internet here at Tim’s yet, so we’re surfing on a weak signal from somewhere in the neighbourhood, which is often too weak to use for hours though. So our updating, surfing, mailing and chatting is still limited right now, although we can use the upstairs computer every now and then if we really need to. We did get our own phone number (landline) in the basement (mail us if you want it), but we didn’t get cell phones yet.

Anyway, let’s go back to the 18th, after the taxi picked us up in Heerlen: We had a good drive to the airport in Brussels, where we had some breakfast (thanks, Henny!), and the flight to London was fine, but we already got sleepy again. At Heathrow it wasn’t busy and we went through the whole route and all the security in about 40 minutes, so there was still plenty of time to kill on that 5 hour layover. We found an additional seating area with couches, so we could lay down and sleep a bit, it was quiet and relaxing there! The big flight to Edmonton also went well, but the movies weren’t all that (no personal screens and choice of movies this time unfortunately). Not that it mattered… we were so tired, we slept more than we ever did on the plane. At the end of the flight, I got to talk to a German woman who lives in Edmonton now, Anna, she was the first to say “welcome to Canada” to us In Edmonton we had to go to Immigrations to get the actual work permits in our passports. We chose a small airport hoping it wouldn’t be busy.. but there was a line and including all the paperwork and checking in our luggage again afterwards, it took 3 hours!!! But it didn’t matter, as of that moment we were residents of Canada, woohoo!!! We were going to give Sebastiaan (of the Canada emigration forum) a call once we were done (Sebastiaan and Mariska moved to Edmonton last April), but they surprised us by already being there when we finally entered the hall! They took us to Leduc for dinner (thank you!!) and brought us back way in time for the last flight, to Regina. Waaaay in time… we had a 2 hour delay because they had to exchange the airplane. We just couldn’t keep our eyes open and fell asleep wherever we’d sit down! Finally we arrived in Regina at 2am local time, after travelling for 28 hours!! Kudos to Tim for still being there to pick us up

album 02/18 flight to Canada (18 pictures)

For the first days, we didn’t get much chance to feel the jetlag, besides waking up pretty early. The adrenaline kept us going, mostly to check out malls and stores for a lot of shopping. Sometimes Tim would drive us around, but we have also been driving in Cortney’s car a lot, which was great of course (thanks again, guys!). We got some groceries and small stuff for in the basement and once it’s a bit less messy, we’ll make some pics for you The night after we arrived, there was a metal show at the Exchange (Agonal, Goatwhore, Warbringer, Exodus), which was a great opportunity for us to see some of our friends (and some kickass bands)! The highlight must’ve been when Sped spotted us (who apparently didn’t know yet that we got the permits and all).. you should’ve seen the face, I thought he was gonna pass out haha!

This past weekend, we slept waaaay more, I guess the first adrenaline rush wore off and the fatigue would finally come out. But, no rest for the wicked Thanks to Cortney, I had a job interview yesterday (Tuesday) at Canada Life for a casual job in their US department. They keep records for certain retirement- and pension-related plans and are currently looking for 8 part-time employees for data entry stuff like updating names, addresses etc. It’s 20 hours a week, flexible between Monday-Friday (Saturdays too), 8am-8pm! That means I can adapt my hours to whatever days Nico is working! I won’t have any benefits (but that should be covered well enough once Nico’s benefits become available after 60 workdays), but the pay will be close to 15 bucks an hour. And esp. for a first job I never dreamed of having all this (I expected some job at a store for 6 or 8 bucks)! The typing test and the first interview yesterday went very well, tomorrow I’ll have the interview with the people who are hiring. Wish me luck! Today we’ve done some shopping for office clothes (poor Nico )… you can’t wear jeans and such there

And we are about to buy a car… we’re interested in a certain car that we’ve seen at a dealer here, and we want to go back there with Tim and then see if we can agree on a price. To be continued!

album 02/19 - 02/23 first days in Canada (38 pictures)

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Hello guys!

We’ve been doing really well here in our first week as Canadian residents. We applied for our SIN number and health card and did a lot of shopping (so much to get, so many stores, so much to discover). The weather has been awesome, sunny and freezing up until -25 or so, but the dry frost feels great to me (but we haven’t been outside for long periods of time). Right now it’s getting warmer, only mild frost and the snow is melting a bit in the sun. We’re settling in nicely in the basement suite, but didn’t have much time for the computer stuff yet. I’ve started to type up a detailed report, but I never seem to be able to finish it and stuff gets added all the time, so I better start with a part I, the part about the last days in the Netherlands.

Last days in the Netherlands:

After weeks of packing we were finally done on the 11th. We are going to use World Baggage Services to get the 3 cubic metres of boxes shipped, it was picked up on the 15th and will be shipped on the 25th (to arrive here about a month later if all goes well). Then we had to go through the house, either keeping things that we wanted to take along in our suitcases or tossing stuff out.

On the 14th Nico had his last day at work and it was pretty heavy to say goodbye to his co-workers. As he doesn’t work with all his co-workers every day like I do, a lot of them are going to come over on our walk-in afternoon on Sunday. In the meantime I had my last Cesar gym class, and afterwards we went for an early dinner at one of the members, Milly. She’s partly from Suriname and would cook for us. We had a killer meal and they gave me a Dutch calendar and a Dutch cookbook as farewell presents At night we had another dinner appointment, with Dave and Liz in Aachen.

Friday the 15th was my last day at work, and luckily it wasn’t so heavy, it was mostly just heartwarming. Best present was from my co-workers: I got an awesome hoodie saying “bye bye my love, your old team” It was definitely weird to leave the place I knew so well for the last time, after 6 years…
Back home, our rental furnace had been removed, so we’d be spending the last days in a cold house (it was freezing at night and we only had a small heater in the living room). Later that day the boxes were taken away to be shipped (don’t get me started on the annoying driver that complained about everything and esp. WBS).

On Saturday we drove to the garbage disposal park with a borrowed van, three times!, to get rid of the last furniture and other stuff. After hours of hard work, we spent some time at Rob and Vera’s to get a shower and we tried to pack the suitcases for a bit.
At 5.30 Els and Maurice came over, they were going to pick us up to have dinner somewhere, they didn’t tell where. That was arranged months ago. We went to Danas, a Mexican restaurant in Geleen and had a good time (and food) there. Afterwards Els wanted to have a drink at Ed & Rocco’s, a hardrock bar in Geleen, so we went there next. When we entered, I vaguely saw Rob’s face, I thought, that can’t be Rob, must just look like him. Then I saw the next familiar face and the next and the next… and then I realized this was for US! Geez, I don’t know how people managed to keep it a secret, but we really had NO clue whatsoever!!!!! Almost all our neighbours were there, some friends and a lot of my family incl. my dad, Amalia, my brother and nephews!! We had said that we hated goodbye parties, but this one was so cool! Not nearly as much drama as I thought it would be and it was so heartwarming!! We really didn’t need any presents and all, but of course we’re grateful after all for everything we did get anyway, like tons of liquorice, cards and a lot of money. And not to forget the many awesome words and good wishes you had for us. THANK YOU everybody and most of all the best girl in the world for making this surprise party the best present ever, ELS YOU RULE!!

When we got home at 1am, we couldn’t go to bed right away, we were too overwhelmed by all the impressons of the surprise party. The only goodbyes that I really dreaded (my dad and brother) went very well luckily. My dad’s 89, but I just had a very strong feeling that I would see him again, so it was OK.

In the morning I woke up with the throbbing migraine I had been able to keep on a distance for all these weeks. Oh well.. I knew I’d get through it somehow and Canada was getting real close That Sunday we had our own sort-of goodbye party, a walk-in afternoon in our almost-empty house with garden furniture, no heat (brrrrrr) and disposable cups. That was a great succes too, so many people came by! Again we were very impressed by it all! The biggest surprise was probably Marco and Diana stopping by for a moment earlier that morning, on their way home from the hospital, with their newborn daughter Caitlin!! I was very surprised and honoured that they stopped by to show us their little bundle of joy before we left!

After that we reeeeaaaally had to pack our suitcases and clear out the last few things in the house! We had a few kilo’s too much and it took us forever to divide them over the bags. We slept for 2 hours before we got up again at 3am. The shuttle taxi came to get us at 4am and a whole bunch of neighbours got up in the middle of the night to see us off!! We have the best ex-neighbours in the world (or were they just so happy to get rid of us ?)!! We hugged them all several times before finally getting into that taxi, some goodbyes weren’t easy, but funny enough no goodbyes had been as difficult or emotional as I had been afraid of (not even leaving the house), I guess we were just totally ready for it.

album 02/02 - 02/18 last days in the Netherlands (84 pictures)

Updates on our new Canadian life coming up soon!

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Well guys, we are now officially residents of Canada!! After a long travel of around 28 hours (3 flights, long overlays and a delay in Edmonton), we finally arrived in Regina at 2am!! We will fill you in on the details very soon!

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Just a quick hello to say THANK YOU to everybody who we saw in the last days! Our co-workers, family, neighbours and friends have left us heartwarming presents, cards and words and we had a wonderful time on both the SURPRISE party on Saturday that Els organized (we had NO clue!) and the walk-in afternoon today. We can’t thank you all enough, and esp. Els!!! We’re going to get a few hours of sleep in a bit and will be picked up by the shuttle taxi at 4am. Talk to you soon again, from Canada!!!!

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We thought, let’s just pack it up and go! We managed to move a few things forward and booked flights for Monday, February 18th!!

Brussel - Londen LHR - AC 6663 - 18/02 - 07:25 07:40
Londen LHR - Edmonton - AC 899 - 18/02 - 12:35 14:40
Edmonton - Regina - AC 8488 - 18/02 - 21:30 23:40

These next two weeks will be very hectic, we’re still packing, we still have to work most days and get a few more things done. We have a few moments to get together with friends, and instead of a big goodbye party (that we really don’t like), we do have a sort of walk-in afternoon for our neighbours and friends that would still like to stop by before we leave, with some coffee, tea, drinks, cake etc. on Sunday the 17th between 11am and 5pm (after that we have a dinner appointment). So if you are a friend, you are welcome haha! Mind you… the house will be empty (we’ll only have some garden furniture and disposable cups) and bring a sweater, because our furnace is a rental and it will be removed two days earlier and we don’t know if our small electric fan will be warm enough. A good preparation for the Canadian winter (see the right column for weather buttons where you can compare the weather in Regina with Amsterdam )! And please, we really don’t need any gifts (there will be no space left in our suitcases), just bring your good mood and a warm heart, because that is what we will take with us in our hearts (and we’ll film you with our camcorder haha)!

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YEEEEEAAAHOOOOOOOOWWWW! We got the letter we’ve nervously been waiting for, THE letter, the mother of all letters: the letter from the Canadian Embassy that says our application for the work permits (for both of us) have been approved and we can now travel to Canada!! WOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!

Tomorrow we’ll go book the flights so we’ll have a date (probably February 25th) and can finalize our stuff here. My last day at work is February 15th and for Nico the 18th. WEIRD, haha!

We’ve already done a lot of packing and such, and maybe I can finish most of it next weekend, it’s a long weekend for me because it’s Carnaval over here. My boss gives us two extra days of leave, which is always nice, even if I don’t participate in the Carnaval festivities anymore

Happy packing to meeeeeeee!

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We wish everybody a happy, healthy and safe 2008!!! Here’s a bit of video from last night’s fireworks in our neighbourhood… I’m gonna miss that in Regina! I also uploaded an album with pictures in the gallery.

album 12/14 - 01/01 Xmas lights & New Year’s Eve fireworks (26 pictures)

I’ve got a couple of updates, mostly small, but one is BIG! WE HAVE A PLACE TO STAY in Regina for the first months, until we are able to buy a house! And so close to home… actually IN the only home we know over there: at Tim and Cortney’s!! Their basement suite will be available again, and we can move in there!! WOOOHOOOO!!! We are so lucky to have friends like them, although “friends” doesn’t even describe the bond we feel… they are family!

The smaller updates:

I also made a few pics on the 23rd, when we went to see Roadkill and Vengeance in the Nieuwe Nor here in Heerlen. Must’ve been the first time we went to a gig walking!! It was a great night, seemed like a big reunion. Besides local friends, we were happy to see our old palls Bardo of Roadkill and Barend of Vengeance (see pics) once more before we leave the continent!

Xmas was good, on the 24th and 25th we just enjoyed ourselves at home, with emailing xmas cards, copying old videos to dvd, watching movies and stuff like that. On the 26th my dad and his gf Amalia came by and we had a great meal, cooking our own things on a gourmet grill thingie (something like an electric table-top raclette grill with a griddle on top and little pans to cook on top or to grill below).

After that I worked on the new Brainstorm website for a few days non-stop until deep into the night, and I finished it last weekend: http://www.brainstorm-web.net

And last night we celebrated New Year’s Eve by ourselves, drinking beer and sekt (sparkling wine), eating too much and watching the third Lord Of The Rings movie. At midnight we went outside to spend some time with all the neighbours, watching the fireworks. A few neighbours also came in to have a drink with us.

And now it’s 2008… this is going to be OUR year!!!

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Here’s our xmas (email) message of this year! Happy holidays!

This past year has been the year of working towards the emigration, even though we didn’t move just yet. We hope to leave in the last week of February, if we get the work permit in time!

In the first months of the year, the (very detailed) information of Nico’s nursing education has been assessed by the Saskatchewan Registered Nurses Association (he also had to gather some documents and pass an academic English test for this) and after they approved, we went to Regina for two weeks in June, where Nico wrote the Canadian Registered Nurses Exam on the 6th. In July he heard he had passed the test (which he didn’t expect), so that was party time! After that, the employer in Regina could start with the official joboffer (August), they had to get the approval that they could hire a foreign worker for the job (October), and with that (and some more documents) we could apply for the actual work permit (November) at the Canadian Embassy in Berlin. In the meantime we sold our house to the first viewers (wow!) and we can stay until February 28th at the latest. Statistics say it could take 2-3 months before we hear something from the Canadian Embassy, but when Nico had the medical examination for the application, the doc said it usually takes 4 weeks after that - which would mean we could hear something in January. That would be great for our planning!

Although just last week we lost another loved one in Regina who we will miss terribly (our friend Tim’s dad Jack) I don’t want to end this Xmas letter as sad as I ended last year’s letter. Right now we are grieving for Jack and we still miss Dave and Danny so much, but a lot of good has come out of it: from what originally started as a tribute to Dave and Danny, Band of Brothers Inc. has evolved into a non-profit organization committed to raising funds to assist families with costs associated with recovering from cancer that are not covered by Saskatchewan Health Services. I’m sure that the guys could not be any prouder!

When we were in Regina in June, Nico got a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant that said: “Focus on your long-term goal. Your wish will be granted next year.” He kept it in his wallet all this time. And here we are, about to end this year and start the next with selling furniture, wrapping up things over here, trying to prepare some stuff over there, quitting our jobs, packing the rest of our things to be sent by seafreight and then… hopefully finally move to Regina!! Follow us on our weblog www.wobben.org or email us on marlies (at) wobben.org or nico (at) wobben.org. All our @home.nl addresses (and my truemetal.org one) have been or will be deleted, so please save the wobben.org ones

Have a great holiday, stay safe and healthy and may 2008 bring you all you hope it will bring!

x Nico & Marlies
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Last Sunday we got the shocking news that Saturday Tim’s dad Jack Roth (74) passed away after a very very short battle (few weeks) with stomach cancer. We will miss him terribly, even though we aren’t even living in Regina yet. We were hoping to be able to count on his experience, knowledge and good judgement once we’d move to Regina. I can’t believe he’s gone so suddenly. We will miss him so much, which is of course only a fraction of how Jennie, Tim and Cortney and Jason must be feeling. Again I’m so sorry we can’t be there yet

We will never forget this fantastic man, his generosity, sense of humor and good advice. Cortney made these beautiful pictures of Jack and Jennie only a week and a half ago… You can view Jack’s obituary HERE.

We also have pretty good news: things are looking good for our emigration planning. Last Monday, Nico and I went to Maastricht for his medical examination. To the doc for a bloodtest form, at 2pm to a health center for the x-ray, then to the hospital for the bloodtest, then at 4.30pm we were expected back at the doctor’s (dr. van Well). The doctor didn’t expect any problems and told us you’d normally hear from the embassy after appr. 4 weeks. That would mean we could get the permit by the end of January already! Of course there are no guarantees, but we’ll go ahead with our planning to leave at the end of February (though we will wait with booking flights until we actually get the papers

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Yesterday, Nico received the papers for the medical examination from the Canadian Embassy. This morning he made the appointments for next Monday: first to the doctor in Maastricht to pick up a form for the bloodtest, then at 2pm he has to be at the GGD for the x-ray, then he has to go to the Academic Hospital for the bloodtest and then back to the doctor by 4pm for the medical itself Exciting!

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Little over a week ago, we finally sent in the applications for our work permits. Yes, WE… even though the employer (read: Nico’s contact at the Human Resources department) had said before they would take care of the work permit on their end, it turned out to be a misunderstanding. When they received the Labour Market Opinion (= the permission to hire a foreign worker) on October 17th, we heard we had to apply for the permit ourselves, which is by the way standard. On itself not a problem, but had we known, we would’ve already done the paperwork. Now we had to apply for Police Certificates (Certificate of Good Conduct), which took a few weeks, and then we found out our passes already need to be valid for the whole duration of the work permit. We have asked for 2 year permits and thought we could extend our passport over there. So we figured we better go for new passports as well and after all this delay we finally sent in the applications (for Nico’s job + an open spousal work permit for me) on November 24th! Let (again) the waiting begin (or continue?) - Nico should get papers for a medical fairly soon and we hope to hear the final word in January or February…

One day later we were at a small “metal market” (in Weert) where we rented a table to try and sell most of our vinyl albums, videos and a few CDs. It wasn’t extremely busy, but we sold most of our stuff to the other dealers anyway haha! Anyway, it was a success and a fun day

Some older stuff:

Recently, Nico has been tested for sleeping disorders such as snoring and apneu. Twice he had to sleep with a device strapped to his body with numerous wires attached to his head, body and finger. It made him look like a pretty scary terrorist!! I said if he had gone on a bus like that, he’d be gunned down The tests showed his sleep suffered from his snoring and hypopneus (less breathing, not a total stop as with apneus) and he will receive a MRA soon, a device that he has to put on his teeth at night and adjust it so the lower jaw will be brought forward a bit. This should keep the airways open and give the sleeper better sleep.. once he gets used to said device of course.

On October 15th Nico celebrated his 47th birthday and a bit later our friend Thorsten came to visit for a weekend, with his new girlfriend Katrin. We had a good time, visited Valkenburg and the Terworm castle in Heerlen, went out for dinner and just chilled. You can see the pics here:

album 10/27 - 10/28 Thorsten & Katrin’s visit (74 pictures)

And last month we made some silly pics on two occasions, a concert in Weert and the 25th wedding anniversary of our neighbours (two doors down) Christel and Leendert:

album 11/16 Fates Warning & Pagan’s Mind in Weert (36 pictures)

album 11/17 party Christel & Leendert (20 pictures)

And closing down on a sadder note:
Last Saturday I’ve been to the funeral of a co-worker that committed suicide. We didn’t see that coming and I will miss him for sure. He was always very interested in our Canada plans and I will surely think of him every now and then when we are there! He leaves behind a wife and three daughters, 1 handicapped. RIP Paul Scholtes…

And recently it was the first anniversary of Danny’s passing and I still miss him terribly… we have raised a glass to his memory. RIP Danny…

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And.. house sold!! Well, we still have to sign the contract and all, but the first viewers did a bid and we have come to an agreement! And we can stay here until the end of February at the latest. Wow… 4 appointments in one week and sold to the first viewers - more than we dared to hope for! Although I KNEW all along it would go like this. I did! But I thought it was wishful thinking or maybe because we were the first viewers back when we bought it… but no… it was once again my impeccable female intuition, HA!

Last weekend we were at our beloved ProgPower festival in Baarlo. It was awesome to see the whole PP “family” again (Dutch, Swedes, Germans - you know who you are). A slight migraine kept me from going indoors a lot, so I sat outside with a soda for the most part, chatting, but that was no punishment with the beautiful weather! I did see Meyvn’s whole show on Sunday and the 2nd band I really wanted to see was the last band, Jon Oliva’s Pain. My migraine seemed to disappear during that show and I was able to attend the afterparty and finally have some beers - we rolled out of the venue with organizer René when they closed down at 5.30am! What a party!! Thanks René for the goodbye speech!
We will miss all these people a lot, for the organization, crew and the international visitors grew into a pretty unique and tight-knit family over the years and I hope we can afford to come back every now and then once we live in Canada! WE LOVE YOU ALL!

Check back soon for pictures!!

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Awaiting Nico’s workpermit (we’ll probably have to wait several months), we already put our house up for sale. We made a lot of great pics in and outside of the house with sunny weather and the realtor loved to use those, didn’t even make some of his own. Since last Friday we have a sign in the front yard!

album 09/22 - 09/24 our house (44 pictures)

Links to the ads for the house: Aquina (our realtor) and Funda (main website for NVM realtors)

Last weekend our friends and fellow Canada lovers Carin and Janneke from Arnhem visited us, with their dogs Luna and Dink. We had a GREAT time! On Saturday we just chilled, chatted and watched videos of last year’s trip to Canada - on Sunday we went for a walk on the Brunssummerheide where we took some pics:

album 09/30 Brunssummerheide with Carin & Janneke (37 pictures)

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