Exciting news...

As most of you know, we'll be in Australia 2 yrs this coming January, which means we can apply for permanent residency. Steve met with the lawyer yesterday and the process has been started! How exciting! There are a lot of papers to get together, police checks to do, doctor visits, blood work, you name it but the lawyer said that at this stage, once you have everything organized, it's only taking about a month for them to approve (or not approve...but I'm thinking positive!) you. It'll be good to have the security that comes with residency and the same rights as an Aussie. You get everything but the right to vote, which only happens once you have citizenship. Medicare will be a big bonus of residency, plus just not having the hassle of visas will be awesome! Steve's company assists with the process, which is great too! Good stuff...fingers crossed that we can *easily* find all the info we need! It'll take us a few months to get it all together but if all goes well, we could have our permanent residency by the middle of next year. Just for the record, it doesn't mean that we lose any of our Canadian rights (I made sure of that!). We can even have dual citizenship, which is fantastic!