Maruska

That was my first thought too :eek:

Congratulations :wubclub:. The house looks lovely.

Shocked to hear that. From what I know of her on this forum, she must have been a lovely person. RIP Munchkinella.

cook/chef?

That`s great Newjez. It takes a long time to recover from chemotherapy but recovery can be complete, our hospital runs a survivor clinic for people who have been in remission at least a year, some of them come after 15 - 20 years, you would never guess they had cancer in the past. I work with oncology patients on a daily basis - almost exclusively, even though our ER sees other patients too - and there is a great difference in their approach. You would see someone who just had been diagnosed, obviously feeling scared to death, family trying to do their best by making the patient do as little as possible. They won`t let him/her walk from the car to the hospital, they buy a wheelchair and push him around everywhere. Patient quits job because he feels he`s too sick to work ( and goes on disability). This attitude isn`t helpful IME. Lots of our patients do their best to stay active, carry on with their lives, enjoy family and friends and they usually have the best outcomes in relation to the disease. It`s OK to take a nap when you`re tired or call in to work if you don`t feel well. You said you work which is great. I hope you feel much better/ less tired soon. I`ve read somewhere - not sure where - a nice thing that about sums it all up: " I have cancer, cancer doesn`t have me! "

I`m afraid of spiders too but I deal with it like an adult :daydreaming:, you know, screaming, running around in circles and passing out :laugh:

If you want to be a chick magnet, borrow a baby :laugh:. That`s what my brother in law does - using my cute 3 year old baby girl :mad: to catch female attention! Works great for him I have to say :wink:

She`s adorable! Looks like she`ll be smart, too.

I don`t know. I don`t like her ( from her TV appearances) but that doesn`t mean she`s guilty.

Congratulations :wubclub:. August babies are fabulous, my daughter was born in August :wink:

Nice cat......

There are benefits to being a permanent resident, especially if you have children ( no school fees, free medical care, you aren`t tied to a job if it turns crappy). You`ll need to start with nursing license first if you want a job without permanent visa. After you do that, you can do a travel assignment to Australia to see how you like it. If you are, however, keen to emigrate as you said then PR visa is the best option ( sponsored visa only lasts 4 years anyway ).

Can`t be proud for myself as I`m not British :wink: but I`m certainly proud of you guys :yes:. Just saw this yesterday, made me cry ..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cByNnKbywyk hope this violence ends soon

My understanding is that this info hasn`t been verified ( and likely we`ll never be sure what really happened). It wouldn`t be surprising though :no:

It would help if I knew what Meringue is, I thought it was a dance :eek:, never mind, google is my friend :biggrin:

Beetroot on anything, yuck! :biggrin: What`s pavlova ?

All that`s needed is on the website : http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/criminal-history-summary-checks there is a fingerprint card template that you can print out and either do it yourself ( they provide instructions) or go to the nearest police station and ask them to do that for you. We had to do both State of Texas and FBI checks and FBI took about 5 weeks ( that was 1.5 years ago). If you`re in the US, you can do it online now, lots of centers everywhere that do online submission and you`ll get your clearance by email in 3 days max. If mailed, it takes about 5 weeks still.

We are moving for the adventure, desire to see and live in more places than just one. It`s not the first move for us, we migrated 8 years ago to the USA. This time it`s a little bit more complicated because we have kids now but they are still little and I believe and hope they will adapt easily. We wanted to move somewhere else for the past 3 years ( Houston is flat, very busy, we saw all the attractions within driving distance multiple times). We looked into moving to the west coast of the US, Australia or New Zealand ( Canada was out, beautiful but freezing). Australia looked the best fit for us - based on our research. We made a quick 2 week visit last year and had a blast.

I`m planning to work as a nurse for the next 2 years or so and have a good look around, considering possible paths. I might want to stay in nursing but advance my degree. Whenever we went diving or on a boat trip, I always though it must be a fantastic job to be a marine biologist :biggrin:but not sure if it could be done as a full-time career or just a kind of a hobby.

Hi John, I was in the same situation as you are now ( our security checks were taking forever and we had to go to Australia to validate nursing license). We got electronic tourist visa ( we informed our CO first). As far as you let him/her know, there won`t be any trouble. And if you`re granted PR after you got your tourist visa, it cancels your tourist visa and you will be validating your PR visa on your trip.

I would take a looks at the reasons why you left last year. Is it a job? Than maybe one of the capital cities would be better. If you left because your wife couldn`t settle ( I guess homesickness, missing family?), it would be the same thing probably wherever you go.

He`s a Texan! :biggrin:

That`s funny, over here it`s very "in" to sound like a posh north -easterner :biggrin:. I myself think it`s OK but nothing to write home about. Some expressions though are so thoroughly southern - we went to a restaurant in Galveston and a waitress wished a "blessed day" to us as we were leaving . I quite liked that, made me feel like we somehow landed 100 years in the past :laugh:

French for me, and Spanish :rolleyes:

Thanks for photos, beautiful!:rolleyes: