Oh, Canada!

Well, it's about time, right? I can't keep putting this off. I need to get into the habit of blogging again. Today is the day to start the habit.

As most of you know, the Stephens' family has moved to Canada! What an adventure this is! I am learning all kinds of new things. I'm learning how to get out of supporting the Canada Post system by figuring out how to pay some bills electronically. I have many bills that I pay online, and have for several years. However, there are some that I have still written checks for and mailed them through the USPS. I was informed at the Canada Post that it is $1 to mail things to the US. WHAT!?!?! You've got to be kidding me! And, it's $0.57 per stamp to mail within Canada. So no more complaining amongst you Americans about the postage going up! Here in Canada we don't even get door-to-door mail delivery service! Because Scott's paycheck is in American dollars, we had to keep our American Bank Center chequing (learning a new way to spell too!) account open as DU is unable to direct deposit his "cheques" into a Canadian account. With our chequing account, we have a free service and can write electronic checks (I'm not going to get used to spelling words the Canada way!) and the bank will mail them to the address that I enter. So far, that is working swell. So, I will contiue to boycott the Canada Post for as long as possible! (Well, at least for mailing bills to the US) I can't completely boycott them, as I do enjoy getting mail. Even though it's much more sparse than usual at this point.

Another thing I am learning, is that they just don't have all of the choices in the grocery stores here, as we had in the states. I am not much of an adventurer, when it comes to the kitchen, so this is going to be hard to get used to. One thing that I cannot seem to find here, so far, are Great Northern Beans. At least not in the can. I've never used raw beans before, but I suppose it's time I figured out how to do that. If we want to continue having white chili, the way we are used to it. They don't have all the bean choices I want for regular chili either. :(

I figured Gage and Emma would be the only ones learning French. Well, I am also learning some french, by default. Everything in the grocery store, with labels, has English and French writing. We'll see how much French I can pick up in this manner.

The weather here isn't much different than what we're used to in North Dakota. We are still seeing lots of snow and bitter cold temps. Although, I can't really tell you what the exact temperature is, because it's recorded in Celsius here. I have finally figured out how to convert Celsius to Farenheit, and discovered how important that is to know when you need to read your thermostat and decide if your furnace has quit working or not! The math to do that; however, is about too much for my little brain. Maybe I'll figure it out. Maybe I won't? Time will tell.

Skype has become my communication of choice. It's free! However, I am going to have to get my hair cut soon, as it's looking pretty awful. Who'd ever think you would have to fix your hair in order to have a conversation with someone long distance!?