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An early Christmas gift . . .

I already got my IELTS result last Tuesday, December 22. Congratulations to me ! ! ! He he he . .. I got an over-all bandscore of 7. I only need a 6.5 as a requirement by the Canadian embassy. I immediately went to Makati after I got the results and sent the IELTS report form to the embassy thru courier. This is indeed a Merry Christmas to me and my family since we are moving closer to our dream. Hopefully, we'll be receiving our medical request by January. I thank God for all the blessings He has given me and family all throughout the year. Happy birthday baby Jesus ! ! !

I'm done . . .

with my IELTS! ! ! Yipee! I had my speak test last Thursday, December 10, at Richmonde Hotel in Ortigas. My schedule was at 1:40 pm so the whole family was with me. We were in Ortigas already by 11:00 am. We still had time to go around Megamall and Shangrila for a while. We let the kids ate first so that they won't get hungry while waiting for me. Hubby and I ate our brunch before we left so we decided just to eat afterwards.

I was already in the Richmonde Business Centre by 12:20 cause examinees were requested to be there at least an hour ahead of the schedule since most of the time the interview is really earlier than the schedule. True enough, I was called at around 1:20pm and I'm thru by 1:35pm. I can say that I did fairly well in the interview. I was able to answer what is asked of me including follow-up questions by the examiner. I just hope I was able to convince the examiner that I am proficient with the language.

Last Saturday, December 12, I had my listening, reading and writing tests at the SMX Convention Center in Mall of Asia. The test was scheduled at 9am so I left home as early as 6:15am so that I'll have enough time just in case there will be some unexpected happenings on my way to MOA. I went alone this time since it's too early for my family to come with me plus they'll have to wait for more than 3 hours if they came along with me. I was already in MOA at around 7:30am but I have to walk for several minutes because SMX was exactly on the opposite side where the jeepney stop is. I was in the testing area at around 8:00am and the test promptly started at exactly 9am.

The exam was exactly the same as how it was done during the review. Actually, the tests are easier as compared to the materials used in the review center. Honestly, I could have taken the exam even without the review. :) But of course, I really appreciate the tips on how to go about the exam. I may not have a 9 on my tests but I'm quite confident that I'll be getting the bandscore I need.

The results will be available on the 22nd so I need to go to 9Niners again then go to Makati on the same day so that I can submit it to the embassy before the Christmas break.

Good thing I was able to accomplish all of these before the 45th day of the request by the embassy. Whew! It was a nerve wracking and stressful 2 weeks. Thanks to my ever supportive family, friends and colleagues at work!

Christmas spirit . . .

can now be felt in our home. Finally, we were able to put up our Christmas decors two weeks ago. But I'm still looking for the Santa decor we bought just last year. I can't remember where I stocked up some of our stuffs. Need to do some cleaning during the Christmas break. he he he . . .

I2C update # 8 . . .

Last week, we have already received another letter from the Canadian embassy. I am requested to submit a proof of my English proficiency from an approved organization. This means that I need to take the IELTS ! ! ! With barely a month to accomplish this, I was quite nervous and paranoid at the same time. Too many questions are cropping on my mind. "Will I pass the exams?" "When will be the next testing date?" "When will I get the results?" Will I make it on time on the deadline given by the embassy?"

Last Friday, I went to 9Niners, the leading IELTS review center, to process my application form to the British Council and to enroll at their crash course at the same time. My testing date is on December 12 and the results will be out by the 22nd. I still need to confirm if I can just pick-up the results or this will still be mailed thru the postal office. Our deadline to submit to the embassy is on the 27th so I really need to verify this with the Bristish Council by tomorrow.

I'm really praying that everything turns out fine. I don't need a take two for this very expensive exam. I know that I am proficient with the English language but I hope I get lucky for the speaking and writing exam since this is subject to the evaluation of the examiner.

Wish me luck folks! ! !

Our timeline . . .

What does our status mean at this point? Hopefully, it means we're barely waiting for a few more months before we finally get our visa ! ! !

Client Application Status

Application for Permanent Residence - Federal Skilled Worker submitted to the Centralized Intake Office (CIO) Sydney, Nova Scotia

This diagram explains each step in the application process.
Status of your application
Explanation

APPLICATION RECEIVED
Application Received by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC)We have received your application. After checking for completeness, a file has been created and the information from the application form was entered.

Centralized Intake Office Sydney (CIO-S) ELIGIBILITY REVIEW COMPLETE
Centralized Intake Office Sydney (CIO-S) - Eligibility Review CompleteThe review at the CIO-Sydney has been completed. A letter with additional information has been mailed.

RECEIVED BY VISA OFFICE
Received by Visa Office The application and documents have been received by the visa office.

VISA OFFICE ELIGIBILITY REVIEW COMPLETE
Visa Office - Eligibility Review CompleteThe review of the application and supporting documents has been completed at the visa office. A letter with additional information has been mailed.

WITHDRAWN
Application Withdrawn We withdrew your application and your file has been closed.

This is where we are right now . . .

IN PROCESS
In Process Based on review of your complete application package, it has been determined that your application is eligible for processing. Processing has begun.

DECISION MADE (A decision has been made at this point.)

Medical Results Received by CIC We have received your medical results. We will contact you only if additional tests are needed.

Approval Status Determined Your application will be either approved or rejected. We will inform you of the decision in writing.

Permanent Residence Status Determined If your application is approved, we will send you your permanent resident documentation and a letter saying what we need to finalize your permanent residence.

COMPLETE (This is the last step in the processing of your application.)
Applicant Arrives in Canada and is Granted Permanent ResidenceYou will need to meet with an Immigration Officer who will verify your documents and grant you permanent residence if all is in order.

I2C update # 7 . . .

Finally, after three months since we have lodged our full application package to the Manila embassy, our e-cas has changed from "received by visa office"to ïn process". This means we'll be receiving our medical request in a few weeks time. Here's the status of our application:

Client Application Status

Permanent Residence
We received your application for permanent residence on March 31, 2009.

We reviewed your application and sent you a letter on April 21, 2009. Please consider delays in mail delivery before contacting us.

Your application and supporting documents were received by the Manila office. They are pending review.

We transferred your application to the Manila office on April 29, 2009. The Manila office may contact you.

Your application was reviewed and we started processing on November 12, 2009.

A shocking news . . .

came to us Saturday evening. "Friends and colleagues of my sister - Anne, she is now confined at Manila Doctors. She had an Ischemic attack yesterday afternoon. Please pray for her quick recovery". The text came from Anna, my HS bestfriend. I was quite confused the first time I read the message so I asked hubby to read it for me. He immediately called the number to verify what happened. Indeed, it was Anna who suffered the attack and still confined at the hospital. I immediately called or texted the rest of my HS buddies who are still here in the Philippines. Of course we were all worried about her since we don't really know her condition. They were asking me if she's in ICU and other questions which I can't answer myself as well.

Hubby asked me if I wanted to go and visit her right there and then but luckily we were in our right state of mind and decided to go the following day since it's past the hospital's visiting hours already. So the following day, our whole family visited Anna in Manila Doctors Hospital. Honestly, I was quite nervous and I don't know what to expect. Fortunately, Anna is healthy from the outside. Her speech was not affected so we were all laughing while having our usual tsikahans with hubby. It was the left side of her body which was affected. She's still under medication and is undergoing a therapy. Don't know until when she's staying in the hospital but I'm sure it'll take a while before everything gets back to normal. We are all praying for her quick recovery and I hope she remains to be healthy after this incident.

This is another wake up call for us. We are too young for this kind of illness but what happened? It can happen to anyone and at any age for that matter. We are just 33 y/o. Who would have thought that one of us will be inflicted with this illness. It's really important to live a healthy lifestyle and most importantly have a stress free environment.

SJWMS's Children's Day Celebration . . .

St. John's Wort Montessori School had their "Children's Day Celebration" last Saturday, November 14, 2009 from 2pm to 6pm. This replaced their annual trick or treat celebration so the kids were also in costume but no more scary costumes this time. Most of the kids were in their favorite fairy tale character costumes and super hero costumes. Each level prepared their special dance numbers and even the parents and teachers performed this time.

I was a proud mommy to my two little kids who performed well during their respective presentations. Kaila's performance was getting better and better after each of their presentations. She has really built up her self confidence in performing to a big crowd. Click on the link to see her video. For JM, this is just his second time to perform. It was really better than his first performance during their Linggo ng Wika celebration. I really enjoyed watching him. Click on this link to see his performance. See more of the pictures below and see how the kids enjoyed the party:

Ate Kaila in her fairy costume . . .

JM in his spiderman costume . . .

The kids while waiting for the program to start . . .

The kids lining up for the parade of costumes . . .

Ate Kaila with Marcus . . .

Kaila with her "new friend"

Kaila's having her butterfly face painting . . .

Here's the final outcome . . .

JM's turn this time . . .

Can you guess what it is?

Of course it's a car!

The kids getting theit loots in the different booths . . .

JM likes her facepainting very much that he asked me to take pictures several times . . .

Another shot of JM's car . . .

42 days . . .

to go before Christmas and I haven't started any preparation. The kids were bugging me to have our Christmas decors put up for the past two weekends and up to now no decors were set up yet. Hopefully, all decors will be set this weekend. I also want to have my gift lists to family members, friends, officemates, relatives and friends of the two kids. I'm not yet sure if we'll go to Divi this weekend to buy some stuffs already. If not, hopefully in the next two weekends so that we won't resort to last minute Christmas shopping. Hubby and I are also looking forward to the St. James Bazaar which we have been regularly visiting for the past 3 or 4 years already. Hope we could find cool items there. Now, I'm beginning to feel Christmassy already. . . (is there such a word?) he he he . . . Hope to post more Christmas updates in the next few days . . .

What if . . .

we do get our visa approval in the next 6 months? What would be our next steps? To be honest, we are really hoping and waiting for this. It has been almost 3 months already since we have lodged our full application to the Canadian embassy and it's 7 months already from the time we have initially submitted our application to CIO in Nova Scotia, Canada. I really pray that their timeline of 9 to 12 months processing would be true for us. This means that Q1 of 2010 would be very crucial to us. I'm really keeping my fingers crossed that we were able to submit all the necessary documents and the visa officer handling our case wouldn't give us a hard time by requiring additional documents for submission.

When mom was here for a visit last month, we were already talking about our future plans. They are really excited for us to be there with them especially the two kids. I'm sure this will lessen the "homesickness"of my dad. We already have plans for work, our careers, education of the two kids as well as our future home there. I hope we could find a real estate broker like Commercial Real Estate Kentucky who would help us get an apartment or townhouse unit just in time when we get there.

Talking about this topic really gets me excited and I hope plans will all be realized in due time. In the meantime, we're just taking things one day at a time and I try not to consciously wait for the "next letter" so that I wouldn't get disappointed. As they say, things happen when you least expected it. I really hope it does in the next few more weeks . . .

Eyeglasses anyone ? ? ?

I've been having some terrible headaches lately. I'm not sure if this is due to stress or I might need to have my eyes checked. I also wonder if my prolonged exposure to the PC causes this headaches. Because of this, I again browsed $8 Prescription Zenni Glasses to look for their new arrivals especially their Holiday Fun Eyeglasses . These eyeglasses are very economical at the same time they are durable and lightweight. I am really considering buying this if in case I would need to have glasses already. You can check out their site for you to see their various designs and I'm sure you'll have you're choice that would fit in to your budget as well.

Our baby is now a lady . . .

Our little princess is now five years old! She's growing to be a fine young lady and we are so proud of her achievement not just in school but as a big sister to her younger brother as well. I wish Mikaila all the best and happiness in life. Mommy and Daddy will always be here for you. We love you very much!

Our beloved Lola Orat . . .

has joined our Creator last September 17, 2009 . . .

She was 90 years old . . .

You'll be missed by your sons and daughter

and your dozens of grandchildren and great grandchildren . . .

May you find the eternal peace and happiness

as you are now with the Father . . .

picture was taken during her 89th birthday celebration in our home in Canlubang . . .

I2C update # 6 . . .

After six months from the time we submitted our immigration application to Canada, here's the status of our application :

March 31, 2009 - Received by CIO in Nova Scotia, Canada
April 21, 2009 - Letter of approval by CIO
May 5, 2009 - We received the letter from CIO
August 12, 2009 - We submitted the complete application package to the Canadian embassy
August 18, 2009 - Acknowledgement of receipt by the Canadian embassy
September 1, 2009 - We received the AOR from the embassy

Right now, we are waiting for the next letter from the embassy. Hopefully, it'll be the medical request already. We are all praying, hoping and believing that we can have our visa before 2009 ends.

What's up with me?

So many things have happened for the past 3 months already . . . Mostly bad since there were quite a number of deaths in our family, friends and colleagues at work. But of course there are milestones already with our immigration application to Canada. I'll try to post more details on my next post. Kaila's already bugging me since she''ll be playing in our PC.

Bonding time . . .

Last June 20 to 21, we had another family bonding moment in Canyon Cove in Nasugbu, Batangas. This vacation could have been cancelled just a day before if things weren't ironed out by our agent. On June 18th, I received a phone call from Canyon Cove itself asking us if we can have a late check in. And how late is this late check-in? 7pm! ! ! Hello! We are going there to relax and have a good rest with the kids. So, I told them we are not availing of this late check-in. I asked them to call my husband cause I don't want to mediate on these matters. And these were followed by numerous texts and phone calls. It was already Friday evening when we were able to finalize that we are finally pushing through with our short vacation.

We were planning to leave as early as 6am but luckily we were able to leave the house at almost 8am already. We didn't even bother to wake up the kids cause it'll take some time before we could fix them. You'll see in the pictures that the kids are still in their pajamas when we checked-in. We were fortunate enough cause there was no traffic on the way to Nasugbu. We were there past 10am. I was keeping my fingers crossed that we could check in immediately so that hubby won't get mad with my agent cause he promised that he was able to get us a new room not affected by the late check in. True enough we got our room readily available unlike those who checked in earlier than me cause they'll be waiting for the standard check in at 3pm.

We immediately went to our room so that I could unpack our things and get ourselves ready for the swim. Since it was almost noon, we decided to go out first to have our lunch. We just ate in a nearby Andok's restaurant then bought a box of munchkins which we were able to slipped in our room. As soon as we got back, we fixed ourselves for our beach and swimming escapade. The kids were excited to play in the playground so we allowed them to play for a while. Then, we went to the beach and the kids had their first beach experience. The daddy enjoyed the waves as well and Kaila was trying to build her sand castle. JM got scared when a boy released a cupful of hermit crabs so we just decided to just go back to the pool. We all enjoyed the pool until the kids got hungry and we went back to our room to eat first. We then, went to the basketball court and played some shooting first. After a while, we went back to the pool until 6pm. We went back to our room and prepared ourselves for our buffet dinner.

The buffet dinner which costs P600 per head is not satisfying at all. There's nothing special with the food. It was not worth the price. Anyway, we won't eat there again when we go back there. After dinner, we went for a stroll and played badminton in the basketball area. It was really a bonding experience and I was able to do things which I haven't done for quite sometime already. We called it a night at around 10pm. We just stayed in the room and the kids watched a Mr. Bean marathon in the Disney Channel.

The next morning, hubby and I had our breakfast buffet while the kids are still asleep. We just opened the tv and tuned it in to Disney channel so that when the kids wake up they won't go elsewhere. True enough, when we got back Kaila was already awaked and was watching Disney Channel already. When both kids were awake, we fixed ourselves to have our final swim in the beach and in the pool. We stayed there until 11am and got back to our hotel room to fix ourselves so that we could check out already. Since it was a Sunday, we can avail of a late check out though we were ready by 1pm already.

I can say that this was another bonding moment for our family since it was only the four of us. We enjoyed the time we spent with each other and we enjoyed the whole experience. We are looking forward for our next visit to Canyon Cove already. Please see some of our pictures :

Our room . . . ( it can accommodate up to 6 adults )

The kids still in their pajamas . . .

View from our room . . .

Kaila in her favorite pose . . .

Mommy, dirty feet ko!

Kaila loves to pose . . .

JM enjoying his mini boat . . .

Kaila nakaproject pa rin . . .

Father's Day portrait . . .

Kaila & JM's first beach experience . . .

JM still enjoying the waves . . .

Still complaining with his dirty feet . . .

Kaila enjoying the swing this time . . .

JM knows how to keep the swing moving . . .

The daddy enjoying his moments with the kids . . .

JM's turn this time . . .

New swimsuit on the 2nd day . . .

Still in the mood to do more poses . . .

Mommy & JM enjoying the strong waves . . .

Sino mas pogi?

Our lifeguard forever . . .

JM looking at the girls in the pool . . .

Final shots of Canyon Cove . . .

Some more . . .

See that naughty look on his face . . .