Compared to the xmas card, we’ve got a lot more snow now (although the last days were a lot warmer and a bit of it melted)! And as I’m still behind on updating the gallery, I thought I’d post a few of our favorite new pics:

The view from our front window (click the smaller pics to enlarge!) – wildlife in the yard: a white (in the winter only!) jackrabbit and a squirrel

And of course our lovely kitties!

Paperwork
Lately we’ve kept ourselves busy with some paperwork. Last Friday we mailed the application for extension of the work permits to Vegreville. This will probably not be ready before our current visa expire, but luckily the status will automatically be extended until the decision on the extension has been made 🙂 And we also got everything together for the SINP application, we will bring that to their office tomorrow! The SINP is the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program. The idea is that the province looks at our files and nominates us when they want us in their provence. Then the federal government still has to look at some things before they can issue us the permanent resident visa. Going through the province should be a shorter and easier route than applying with the federal government directly, although it’s hard to say how long it will take (would be nice if it would be less than a year and we wouldn’t have to renew the work permit yet another time). Gives us butterflies in the stomach to be busy with this stuff again!

Vacation
Another exciting thing is that my dad, his girlfriend and my brother and his family are planning to come over in July! I hope we can get some time off too, so that when my brother and his family rent a motorhome for a few weeks in the Rockies, we can take dad and Amalia in our car and also stay in the Rockies for a week or so, then drive to Regina until my brother joins us there with the motorhome. Yeeeehaw!