CAC Card

Not too much is new and our weekend flew by even though it seems like we didn't do too much.

First of all, my sister and I got a flight booked for December 6th thru 23rd for me to go out to see her and Bob in Denver when (hopefully all the timing will work out) she has her baby. Mom and Dad are going out for Thanksgiving and will stay in the SW until the baby is born so I should manage to be out there while they're out there too. Also, maybe David will be around at some point so we can have a mini family reunion which hardly ever happens. Other than Dina's wedding last summer, I can't even remember when we had all been together last.

I'm trying to get the rest of our documents ready to get our permanent resident application mailed in. I have to go back over to the town hall a block away to get two more copies notarized and then we'll be almost ready. We may need to request one more document so that all the dates are current. This has been the worst part of moving to Canada. Plus, it costs $550/person for this so it isn't cheap. Jeremy's job should reimburse us, but we have to have the money upfront. It's hard being on a tight budget while I don't have a job.

Our biggest part of the weekend was getting our CAC (community access cards) cards. This allows us access to all the CFB (Canadian Forces Base - military) recreational programs. We decided to try it for a month to make sure we use it. We joined as a family and with Jeremy's corporate discount, since he works for AECL, it was $81 for the both of us. It's nice that the military allows civilian members access to their resources, of course for a fee. So, we went Sat and biked for 20 min before doing some arm workouts. We're both a bit sore now. We went back yesterday to the open skate (for free) and skated for an hour. I'm trying to learn how to stop. I'm used to roller blades and it's a bit different. Afterwards, we went next door to the gym and did some leg exercises. We'll see how this works out during the week and how busy it is in the evenings. I'm hoping we'll keep this up and I can get into great shape for a marathon in the spring. I need to pull out all my training books and do a major revamp of my traning schedule now.

We also decided to try one more batch of wine this week. We got some strawberries yesterday so tonight we can mix it up. This will be another ~1/4 batch. Our 1/4 batch grape wine looks great. A lot of it has cleared up really well. I can see right thru the jug. We're worried our ~3 gal of raspberry might not turn out very well as it's having a hard time clearing, but we'll have to see. Jeremy got a couple of butchering books at the library Sat and he's planning on stopping at a butcher's on his way home today to get some good meat. He's hoping to make some sausage so I'll keep updates on that as well.

One other thing I keep forgetting to mention. Gas is now down to $0.835/liter ($3.16/gal)! When we first moved, it was $1.26/liter which translates to $4.77/gal. I keep forgetting to ask what it is in the US, but thankfully it's down a bit. It's been dropping each week a little. Although and unfortunately, the US $ has dropped again. When we came it was about equal, $1 US to $1CA. Now, it's about $0.84 US to $1CA and for a little bit it was $0.75US to $1CA. This means each time Jeremy's been sending his CA money back to pay stuff off, he's loosing about 20% of his money which is rather depressing, but what can you do?