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Archive for April, 2007

Sunday, April 1st, 2007

April

April 2007 – We are the Hobden family and we emigrated to the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Our journey started in 2001 when we came to visit Darren’s sister who lives in Vancouver. We enjoyed the environment, the scenery, the atmosphere, the standard of living, the people and the positive attitude and when we went on a short visit to Vancouver Island we all fell in love with the place and said “this is where we want to live!” We started our emigration application in July 2002, had our medicals in October 2003, received our visa Christmas 2003 and finally arrived here in April 2004. We used the services of Stuart Bennett from Hand In Hand Immigration and found his service really useful. We stayed with Darren’s sister and her family for a week, bought a van (people carrier) and then travelled across by ferry to the Island.

We rented a lakefront house for a month so that we could have a short holiday and have a base for house and job hunting. We found a house we wanted to buy and moved in exactly three weeks after putting in our offer, a little bit faster than the UK system. Some of the groundwork we had to do when we arrived was to obtain our SIN Cards (Social Insurance Number Cards) and apply for Medicare (you have to wait 90 days before you qualify). Driving tests came next (you can drive for 90 days in BC before you need to take a test) and both of us passed. Daniel and Anja started school and quickly made lots of friends. Then it was time to sign up for soccer (football), basketball and dance. There seems to be a lot more opportunities and clubs for the children here plus the different Summer camps that they go on. Both have done well in their chosen activities. Anja has performed in dance shows in the Cowichan Valley, Victoria and Nanaimo and Daniels soccer team won the Vancouver Island Championship last year. In basketball he played for the grade 10’s even though he is a grade 9 and they won the Vancouver Island Championship this year and came fourth in the Provincial Championship, their second highest finish ever. We have now been here 3 years and last April we moved house. It is about a 5 minute drive from where we lived before.

We now have three and a half acres of land with a barn and a swimming pool. We could never have afforded anything like this in England. Well, till next month Eh! (Canadian expression)