Meeting Lily for the 1st Time

My friend Penny just recently adopted a little girl from China. She is the most adorable thing and is a little, wild fire! The past weeks I have been painting a dollhouse that Penny's dad made for her when she was a little girl. I volunteered to take the project on and it was little more work than I anticipated! But tonight I delivered it to her and saw her big, almond shaped eyes grow wide when I brought the dollhouse in. She was lots of fun- I can't wait to spend more time with her!

Marriage Certificate...

Well, this week I finally received a package from our lawyer who married us in Costa Rica! Our marriage certificate has been done and it arrived, after several weeks... they made a little mistake and put my address on the envelope but put the country as 'Costa Rica' instead of 'Canada'! So, who knows what kind of a detour that it took, I am just happy it has finally been done. Now the next step is to get a copy of the certificate to our immigration consultant and then he can send it to Guatamala to add into our application. This will hopefully bring Leo's application to the top of the pile!!!

Meeting new friends!

My friends, Krista and Will traveled from Canada to Costa Rica on vacation for 10 days in March and they were able to meet up with Leo. They spent a couple days in Playa Grande and Leo was able to get a coworker to drive him there and they met for dinner and drinks. He was so happy to meet them and is looking forward to having some fun in Canada with them!

Visa Application Timeline...

The process is not a quick one. We had to apply to the Embassy for Canada in Guatemala (they issue visas to anyone applying from Central America). They are one of the slowest Canadian Embassy visa offices in the world! Of course, it figures I had to wait 37 years to finally find my husband and now I have to wait even longer!

As you can see by the website for Application Processing times, it is a 7-16 month wait for applications being processed by the Canadian Embassy in Guatemala:

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/times/international/05-fc-spouses.asp

So, here is where we are at so far:

- November 22, 2008: Our Application was sent to the visa processing centre in Mississauga, Ontario for me to be approved as a sponsor.

- December 5, 2008: I was approved as a sponsor and Leo's application was sent to Guatemala.

- January 15, 2009: We received notice that Guatemala had received the application package (yes, it took that long for them to receive it!! It apparently is sent by a carried pouch- who knows what that means!). The letter that was sent said that we are not allowed to enquire for 6 months as to what the status of our application is. So June 15, 2009 is the first date we can ask to see where we are at! Our lawyer said we can trick them by adding information if something new comes along that we need to supply for the application.

- March 3, 2009: I received an email from our Lawyer in Costa Rica and they finally received our official marriage certificate. They will be sending it to me (Costa Rican registered mail- so I should have it in about 6 months..lol) and then I can give it to my Immigration Consultant to add to our file in Guatemala. So, this might pull our application from the bottom of the pile to the top!

Christmas in Costa Rica...

I spent Christmas 2008 in Costa Rica with my new husband and his family. It was really great- Leo's sister, Ericka and her husband Vinny came from Connecticut as well and it was the first time that I had met them. Leo was told that he could not have Christmas off from his job so I was expecting to spend Christmas Eve and Day with his family in San Jose and then I was headed to Guanacaste (where he works). He surprised me and showed up around 9:30pm on Christmas Eve! It was great- we were surrounded by lots of family and friends and were even able to get a really great family photo taken.

Tied the Knot...

Well, after my last trip ended and I was back in Canada Leo and I realised that this was it. We wanted a future together and started making plans that, the next time I would travel back to Costa Rica, I would bring my parents to meet him. Then once those plans were made Leo and I decided that we would do a civil ceremony since our parents would be all together and then we could get started on the paperwork for him to move to Canada. On October 10, 2008 a crew of us headed to Costa Rica and on Sunday October 12, 2008 Leo and I were legally married!

Sealed the Deal!

On May 24, 2008 I headed back to Costa Rica to visit with Leo and meet his family. We spent the first week of my trip in San Jose, where Leo's Mom and Dad live and where he grew up.
It was a great week, meeting his parents as well as his brothers and their families. It was a little bit of a challenge, since they all speak Spanish, and I do not! But Leo got his practice as a translator for the week and we got by.

While I was there, Leo applied to the Canadian Embassy to try and attain a Visitors Visa to come and visit me and meet my family in Canada. We went through a lot of hoops to get everything that he needed and he went through a 3 hour appointment at the Canadian Embassy. The week later, we found out they had declined him which was very disheartening. We found out, through an immigration consultant, that this visa is very difficult to attain unless you have strong ties (ie. a job that you have had for 10 years, wife, children, lots of money in the bank, properties and business that you own) to the country you are from. It makes it almost impossible for anyone to visit because the Canadian government feels that if you do not have those ties to your own country, you will come to Canada and never leave.

Well, the rest of my visit was fun... we rented a house at the beach and had a visit from one of Leo's brothers and his family for a few days. We traveled around to some local beaches and just had a nice time being together. We also got to celebrate my birthday together, which was really nice.

Unfortunately, while I was there it was rainy season and Costa Rica experienced very untypical rain storms. There was flooding in some areas and it was very wet which meant that we were going in and out of the heat and air conditioning and getting soaking wet, and of course.. I got sick. And then... Leo got sick. We spent the last two days of my trip sleeping, with fevers and swollen glands, sore throats... the whole nine yards. Luckily in Costa Rica, you can go to a pharmacy and get over the counter antibiotics so we both were able to get something. I had to delay my flight home since we were both so ill, and this is when we saw eachother at our worst. I found out once I got back to Canada, I had bronchitis and an ear infection and we were both sick for a few weeks afterwards.

After that experience, we both still felt like we had an amazing time together... even after all the obstacles and things that did not go our way. This is when we realised that we want to be together for a long time... for better or worse!

When Leo and I met...

Leonardo and I met when I traveled to Costa Rica, on February 7 2008, on vacation with my friend Darlene.

After battling one of the biggest snow storms of the century to get to the airport (a 6 hour drive to Belleville to pick up Darlene and a 4 hour drive back to the airport in Toronto), encountering flight delays and then finding out our resort that we orginally booked had been closed by the Costa Rican government... Darlene and I found our way to a little hotel called the Monarch Resort.

One of the very first people that I met when I arrived was Leonardo and little did I know that moment would change my life...

After our first day in Costa Rica, Darlene approached Leonardo and said "Hey, my friend thinks you are cute!" Leo invited us to come meet him after work out on the beach to hear him play his guitar and watch the sunset. The three of us had a great time and hit it off immediately.
The rest of the week was filled with adventures! We toured around in our four wheel drive vehicle, getting lost but always having fun. Leo brought his guitar in the car and sang to us while we drove and saw some of Costa Rica. We spent one of our last days out on a boat with a few of Leo's friends and got to see some really beautiful beaches and of course the famous sunset...

The last day that we were in Costa Rica, was Valentines Day. Darlene and I met up with Leo to do some last minute souvenier shopping and made our way back to the hotel to pack up our luggage and wait for the shuttle to the airport. I went into my room and found a gorgeous flower arrangement with red roses and tropical flowers (Leo had gotten a coworker to come into my room while we were out and leave them for me)! It was such a nice surprise but I was not going to be able to enjoy them since we were leaving. I had an idea I would take out all the roses and put them in a plastic bag in the centre of my luggage. I wasn't sure that they would survive but I gave it a try!

Well, the week came to end and Leo and I had to say goodbye. We really had an amazing week getting to know one another and, as I sat on the plane on the way home, I knew that it was not going to be the last time that I saw Leo.

When we landed in Toronto, I drove Darlene back to Belleville and then headed home and I received a call on my cell phone. My heart jumped when I heard Leo's voice... I was barely home and so excited to hear from him.

I got home and unpacked and was so surprised when I pulled out the roses, that Leo had given me, and saw that they were alive and still were so beautiful! I put them in a vase and it did not look like they had just traveled for almost 24 hours back from Costa Rica and squished in a plastic bag in the middle of my luggage with no water!

We spent the next few months talking on the phone, emailing, chatting on msn messenger and talking over the internet. Not a day went by that we did not talk (I have the phone bills to prove it!) and we already started to make plans for another visit.

The countdown began... we counted the weeks, days and hours that I would come to visit again!