So Canadians - tell us about yourselves

[neiks 19]

Screen name is my dog's name, Neika aka Neiks.

I was referred to this board by Reba in another board (expate board) back when my now husband and I had been seeing each other for about a year and that it might get serious and need some info on how the heck we would make this work for the future. Thanks Reba!

I've told my story before - so to keep it short we actually met at the border. I had to give him sh$t for not having the right barcodes for his manifest. So let that be a lesson to everyone. Just b/c the BSO gives you a hard time doesn't mean you can't love them later. lol We are people with hearts, too. lol

PS, Autumn, Congratulations on your pregnancy!

Edited October 5, 2007 by neiks

[misa 2]

neiks, I remember you talking about how you met your husband before and it always makes me chuckle... it also usually makes me think of you saying to him, "Sir, you'll have to go to secondary inspection for a strip search". (just kidding)

[Autumnchik 6]

Wow, this has been fascinating reading everyone's stories!!!

Thanks everyone for the baby congrats

And I have to say I LOVE the Weird Al song ... I play it for my husband when I feel like being mean LOL

[misa 2]

One more congrats for you.

[Mephys 2]

Oh yeah, and we just found out I am pregnant!!!!!

wooot!! Congrats!!!!!!

This is the part that makes me slightly embarrassed every time I talk about it... I met my fiance online while playing World of Warcraft.

You should never ever be embarassed to say it!!!! I am not!!

WE MET IN WORLD OF WARCRAFT! With all the emotes in that game, it's easy to understand how real it can feel sometimes!

My now ex (was with him for 7 years) bought me WoW and while playing I met Josh. My toon name was Mephys. You rarely meet respectful and smart people while playing that kind of game, but we had a blast together and quickly started playing together everyday. After few months of in game chatting we really felt a strong connection and started talking on the webcam. My relationship wasn't going anywhere, and he was in a sad marriage. I ended it with my ex and he divorced his ex. We even said "I love you" before we met in person, we knew we loved each other ( I understand you Carla!!!) We met in Niagara Falls after a year of chatting/webcam and we knew it was it! Leaving him behind when coming back to Montreal was worse day of my life! I had never cried to much before!!

He has 3 sons, so it was obivous I would be the one to move down. Then I thought it would be easy....WRONG!!! We found out about the K-1 and we talked to a lawyer about it, but I decided to research more on it or other possibilities because it was too expensive and came accross VJ!!!!!! Been lurking here since April 2006 and I am now waiting for my GC!

The first strong connection we had is funny. One night we he logged in the game I asked him what he made for dinner for his kids, here's the conversation:

Me: what did you make for dinner?

Him: PB cakes

Me: cakes?

Him: peanut butter pancakes

Me: OMG

Him: yeah I know it sounds disgusting

Me: OMG OMG OMG no way!!!!!!!!

Him: what?

Me: My mom, my bro and me are the only ones in the world that eat pancakes with PB on them!!!! We got that from my grandfather, and everybody thinks we are disgusting!!!!

Him: no way!

Me: seriously! I love it!

Him: Marry me!

Me :

That day we realized how 2 people, completely different backgrounds, different countries, different language, can be completely similar and understand each other. I mean the peanut butter thing sounds silly, but that was just the first of hundreds of similarities we found between each other overtime.....We just complete each other perfectly. Since then I believe in soulmates. We had 1 chance in a million to find each other, I could have walked in that game 5 min later and never met him, we could have been in different factions or different servers, or we could have completely ignored each other because they are so many people in there. But it was meant to be.

[MissStacey 1]

I was born in Montreal and my family moved us to Alberta when I was 9.

I met Mel on holiday in New Orleans a few days before the Hurricane. He was born and raised here. I stayed for the storm and got out safely and returned back to Canada. I got back in touch with Mel after he was able to return back to his home and we started talking almost everyday on the phone. He flew me down in January 2006. He had just gotten his Masters degree and wasn't working yet and we spent 6 months together 24/7. We upped and got married on June 15. His mom was coming in that weekend and we wanted to surprise her.

Me and Mel went to Canada to see my family and I had no problems getting back in The US. A few months later I went back to Canada on my own for another visit. This time I was denied re entry and spent the next 10 months in Canada going through the Visa process. I only saw Mel 4 days in that 10 months- when he came for a quick visit.

Mel works for a big company here during the day- analyzing data and such. I'm not exactly sure He also teaches Business classes one night a week. I type up his notes and mark all the exams. He has a 5 year old son that he has 50/50 custody with.

I am a hairdresser by trade, but still unsure what kind of work I will do when I get my EAD. Mel expects me to only work part time because I take Max to school and pick him up, and do all the cleaning and cooking.

Edited October 5, 2007 by Stacey33

[Mephys 2]

Oh, I forgot to say, I was born and raised in Montreal, 100% French canadian (And I like canada!) and he is from Michigan, travelled to Illinois to study and work, and now we are both staying in Illinois to stay close to the kids.

[misa 2]

I am a hairdresser by trade, but still unsure what kind of work I will do when I get my EAD.

If you ever find yourself in central VA, you can come and cut my hair! I need to find a hairdresser and it's hard because I stuck with my old one in Toronto for like 6 years.

[vnoe 0]

I was in the military option of Katimavik program and flew with the Air Force in an Aurora....it was fantastic and being 18, I thought the crew were "hot". At one point in my life I figured the military was the life for me....

Flames9 of course comes from the worlds greatest hockey team, and 9 is my favorite #, as well always liked Lanny McDonald!!

We met playing crib on yahoo!! Met 1 night, chatted, and left. And by fluke we came upon each other again, and I believe we have never missed a day chatting since then (June 2001) We didn't meet until nearly a year later. She flew to Seattle, and I drove down from Victoria. And pretty much from then on, one of us traveled each month to see each other. Yes the airlines loved us. She was in DC. and I soon moved to Winnipeg and then eventually NS. I think the longest we were apart was 5 weeks, and that was because I was in Italy for a month. But I got up at god awful times just so we could chat! Our visa process went extremely well, around 6 months from start to finish for the Cr-1! She did work at State Dept, but none of her connections were much help,lol The process seemed to be a lot faster back then. She no longer works at State Dept, gone on to bigger and better, and I'm a RN student. Never in my life did I figure to be a Nurse,lol Oh ya, I have 2 tattoos, 1 is a Canadian flag. I got that prior to heading over to Croatia for a United nations Peacekeeping mission in 1993. And another is one I'm sort of embarrassed of--a teddy bear on a anchor!! i was drunk in San diego!! lol So yes, some shops will tattoo you if ur drunk,lol Proud to say I served in all 3 branches of the Canadian Armed Forces; Infantrymen in the Army Reserves. Transferred over to the regular Force navy, and then got applied for and got selected to transfer over to the Air Force as an Airborne Electronics sensor operator (AES op) flying on the Cp 140 Aurora. Best job I will probably ever have.

[vnoe 0]

Oh yeah, and we just found out I am pregnant!!!!!

Congrats to you both!!!!!!!!!!!

[SonoranSongbird 3]

I'm the USC, my charming wonderful sweetie is the Canadian. We did not meet on line, but I did meet the mutual friend who introduced us on a travel website.

That's the short version: we met through a mutual friend, whom I originally met on line. The longer version is this:

Our mutual friend organized a meeting of posters from that site (most of whom I'd already met at other meet-ups, which is actually a little embarrassing--I've met 94 posters from that site, which may mean I have no life...). I had a plane ticket from St Louis to Calgary and Edmonton to St Louis for a trip to the Rockies I had planned to take that very week that fell through, so I changed it to a round trip ticket to Edmonton for the long weekend and got to meet a very charming and appealing man. Alas, I assumed I would never see him again and that the feeling was not mutual, so I flew back home and went about my life as usual.

Turned out that a board he used to post on had recently imploded and he was looking for a new place to post, so he registered a handle on the travel board. We chatted some there. I made a post announcing that I was going to Stockbridge, Massachussetts, home of Alice's Restaurant, for the 4th of July Weekend and asked if anyone wanted a post card. He sent me a PM asking for one and giving me his address. From then on we exchanged post cards and Christmas cards, but still remained just casual acquaintances.

Flash forward to August 2006. I went to Edmonton again. I was planning a trip to New Zealand for my 40th birthday at the time, and of course I felt the need to boast incessantly about it. Apparently my now-fiance, who is 10 years older than me, thought I was even younger than I am (grrrr!!) until I mentioned that I had a 40th birthday coming up, so unbeknownst to me, this rekindled his interest in me.

I and one other poster on the travel site organize an annual pilgrimmage to the Twin Cities in the dead of winter. Yes, you read that right. My sweetie flew down for the 2007 one--mainly to see me, though I did not know this at the time. He and I were the only people who had flown in for the weekend, so we spent the entire day alone together that Sunday. Our first kiss was in the parking lot of a motel in Roseville, Minnesota! The next month we went on vacation together in the Caribbean and fell totally and completely in love.

Oh yeah. Neither of us has any tattoos or human children, but we have a very wonderful dog. I used to live in Tucson, Arizona, in the Sonoran Desert, and I love music, hence the screen name.

[Reba 2]

Screen name is my dog's name, Neika aka Neiks.

I was referred to this board by Reba in another board (expate board) back when my now husband and I had been seeing each other for about a year and that it might get serious and need some info on how the heck we would make this work for the future. Thanks Reba!

My pleasure, and you're welcome

I too was referred here by a previous member of VJ, whom I no longer speak to because she came here the US under false pretences and just used my hubby's friend to get a green card. If I ever see her, I'll poke her eyes out with a spoon. And she probably knows that She's in Arizona now, trying to adjust status no longer based on marriage. Hopefully she'll be deported and banned from re-entry so she can't do it again to someone else. beeyotch.

Anyhoo...James and I met in September 1999 on a Lord of the Rings fansite forum (which we now own, how's that for geeky? We also have a Harry Potter site). We chatted for a couple of months, then he drove up to Toronto on Valentine's weekend in 2000 and we were dating exclusively from that point onward. I will mention that I had never even seen a photo of him nor spoke to him (he didn't have a phone at the time), so when he showed up on my doorstep was the first time I saw what he looked like. And the sneak that he is, he showed up 3 hours early

Originally the plan was for him to move to Canada, but that fell through after more than a year and a half of fighting paperwork with CIC. They suck. Have I mentioned that before? We finally gave up on that and tried to start the US process in March of 2003 with a lawyer here in NC. We handed over all our paperwork, and promptly did not hear back from her until about 6 months later when her office sent a letter to us saying that she had "retired due to health problems" and had never even started our petitions. So, despite my protestations, James went to a second lawyer, who proceded to not only send our petitions to the wrong office (he sent it to Charlotte district office rather than the service centre ) his secretary couldn't even type the forms correctly. When we finally got them back rejected, I noticed not only several typos, but incorrect information on most of the forms! buncha eejits I tell ya!

By this time I was in the US "on sabbatical" as I'd been laid off my job in Toronto and figured I'd come down for the winter and by the time my 6 months were up, we'd be done the petition process and I could just come back for my interview and that'd be it! WRONG! My 6 months expired and back to Ontario I went. For 7 months. That's how much longer it took.

So, after we had been married nearly 3 years, I finally had my visa and was able to move south. That was 3 years ago as of next week. At the end of the month we will be celebrating our 6 year wedding anniversary.

We have two Saint Bernards and 7 tattoos between us. We both hope to have more of each when money allows. At the moment we're flat broke and wondering where in this country we can move to so that we're closer to my family in southern Ontario and still be able to afford to live and find decent jobs (he's been unemployed since January of this year. Thankfully I got my 10 year GC in February of last year!). As far as we know, he is still inadmissable to Canada, and the paperwork required would still take more money than we have at our disposal and about 5 years to complete, unless we can convince them that the statute of limitations should allow him re-entry now.

Have I mentioned that CIC sucks?

autumn chick, congrats!

[LadyJane 1]

Yay! More people who like Peanut Butter on their pancakes!!!

Yum!

[~Nini~ 2]

We had 1 chance in a million to find each other, I could have walked in that game 5 min later and never met him, we could have been in different factions or different servers, or we could have completely ignored each other because they are so many people in there. But it was meant to be.

Exactly my sentiments. You worded it really well for me

While I don't like peanut butter on my pancakes, I do like peanut butter and honey sandwiches... does that count?

Edited October 5, 2007 by Nini & Bee

[vanee 13]

My fiance and I met on a forum. I felt drawn to him because of how he expressed himself and interacted with other people. We were in contact by PM and email about some things, and it progressed to IM, where we became friends. I developed feelings for him, but I was never going to say anything to him about that. After all, we were from different countries, and the feelings probably couldn't go anywhere.

It turned out that he'd had feelings for me for a long time too. After months of chatting online, he told me about his feelings for me. To his surprise, he found out that they were mutual. We began talking by Skype or phone every day.

We met in person several months later, and the connection we felt was even better in person. We knew that we were serious about being together. I spent 2 months with him later, and after that, we sent in our I-129F. I've spent more time with him on different visits since then. Our K-1 was approved last month, and I'm moving to be with him this month.

My username comes from my city and marital status: Vancouver fiancee. Both will change soon, but I think I'll keep the username. It shows where I'm from and how I got here, and that will always be a part of me.