In 2018 Seth & I (with 2 and a half year old Paisley) decided it was time for a new adventure. I had mentioned a few times, prior to this, my desire to visit Canada (and how lovely it must be to live here).

One day, out of the blue, Seth said to me - "let's move to Canada". I remember it was mid-May and it was a beautiful sunny Autumn day. So, that same weekend, I did my research and found an immigration law firm based in Canada to help us with the process.

The proccess wasn't an easy one and there were many hoops we had to jump through. We had to sell our house first and that took 9 month to wrap up. During this time we also completed all the necessary tests and documents needed for our application. However, once that was done, it was only a few months before we submitted our entries to the express entry pool and the same week we were invited to apply for your permanent residency visa. After our application was submitted, we then waited about 8 months to hear whether we had been granted permanent residency.

Once our application was approved, it was only 2 months until we left South Africa and little did we know the application process was the easy part! We flew into Vancouver on February 28th 2020 and less than a week in Canada announced its Country wide lockdown. Seth was yet to find a job and Paisley only managed one full week of school before schools closed for a few months. In many ways this was a blessing in disguise as Seth was able to spend a few amazing months being a stay at home dad and looking after Paisley whilst I continued to work full time from home.