Official update #2

Well, it's finally happened. Nate and I are living together. I am actually sitting in our new bed, in our new apartment, in Winnipeg, MB. I spent all of last week packing and organizing and cleaning my apartment in Fargo in preparation for coming here.

Prior to the move, at one of his routine border crossings, Nate had asked the immigration officer what I could and couldn't bring with me as a visitor. We were concerned we would have to leave our shiny new microwave and toaster behind.. He was told small appliances would be fine and a general list of what I had with me would be help as well. She also let him know that he should be there when I requested long-term visitor status and we should have our marriage certificate as well. After deciding to sell my car to my sister (one less expense to worry about) Nate planned on coming to Fargo to pick me up.

We packed the car and headed north. This actually was our first time crossing the border together. We both got nervous as we reached the border, not knowing what to expect. Nate handed the guard our passports and explained to him that I was going to be requesting a long-term stay in Canada. The border guard seemed a bit annoyed at this, for what reason I'm not sure since he only had to ask a few extra questions and then tell us to pull into the corral area and go inside. We parked the car and headed into customs and immigration. We were taken back into a room right away with no wait to be interviewed. At first, the immigration officer seemed like he was going to give us a hard time. He asked, sounding sort of like he was going to send us back into the U.S., "what sort of research have you done regarding immigrating to Canada?" We answered with what we knew and then everything went smooth from there. He explained two different ways in which I could work legally in Canada, filled out some paperwork on the computer, joked with us a bit about a few subjects and then printed my fancy looking visa. That was that. I believe we were there no longer than 45 minutes. He didn't even ask what I was bringing with me into Canada and they didn't search our car.

Officially I have to leave on April 28, 2012 but can request another 6 month stay 30 days before the visa expires. And yes, I can still come into the states to visit. So, we will do that.