Halloween. Festive Season 2 of 3

Once October hits, it seems like there is festive season after festive season. Thanksgiving, Halloween, then Christmas. There are decorations and everything that goes with each of these events. It's full on! In Canada, the gap between Halloween and Christmas is the biggest. Conveniently this is the biggest change over, as many houses go all out for both events.

Just a giant evil cat watching some ladies! Me trying to be Kate Moss. Failing.

The weekend before Halloween, we went to a house party that has the sweetest Halloween set up you've ever seen. Interior and exterior was wild! I can't really do it justice trying to explain it, you'll have to take my work for it that it was impressive.

<1% of the decorations!

For actual Halloween we took it pretty easy and had a dinner at our house for fellow friends that didn't want to deal with trick or treaters. Living in a Condo and down a long driveway is beneficial if you don't want to hand out chocolates. Once again we bough a giant box of chocolates "just in case", but have since eaten the majority of them ourselves. Win, win! We didn't carve our pumpkins until Halloween night this year. This prevented the soggy faces that we experienced on October the 31st last year.

Guess which is mine, and which is O'Hara's. You can tell we don't have stencils!

That weekend Kamloops had its first snowfall! Finally. I think the best way to describe my (un-ladylike) excitement for the snowboardings season is "frothing"? I'll have to check with the baby brother if I've used that word correctly in a sentence. I can't wait. 3 weeks!

Take selfie with snow in hair. Check

Spring Time is Tax Time

We've been keeping a low profile recently, when O'Hara has had days off we've just been going up to Sun Peaks and chilling in Kamloops. We've been meaning to head to Banff for about 2 months but are terrible friends and haven't made it. The one positive, we've doubled the days needed to pay off our seasons pass. You'd think we'd be epic snowboarders by now, but sadly no.

One thing that has been nice about hanging around Kamloops has been the weather. I think I've acclimatised to some extent as I'm not nearly as cold as I was when I arrived last year. I haven't needed gloves or a beanie for at least a month. We've also seen double digits over the last few days which has been awesome. I'm starting to get super smug about the fact we're going into summer (suckers). While Australians were posting their wonderful sunshine photos, here it was cold and dark and I was homesick. Now that daylight savings has started, payback is about to commence. Be prepared southern hemisphere, it's going to be brutal!

Here comes Spring suckers!

Sadly, this means it's tax time here for us. As we only submitted our Australian one about a month ago I'm feeling a little ripped off. ALL tax returns are due here on the 30th of April, so no slacking off for us unfortunately.

Taxes here are confusing for us. As far as I can find on the internet, Canada and the US are the only countries that have completely separate taxes in each province/state. This also means (as far as I can find) these are the two countries where taxes aren't included in any sales prices. I think everyone has that awkward moment when they first travel to the US or Canada when they have the cash for their purchase, only to be told at the register they're 5-15% short. It's almost impossible to get rid of small change.

I've learnt to appreciate that paying Employee Insurance (in case you can't get a job or go on mat leave) and Canadian Pension Plan (forced payment but not like super) could benefit us. If I get pregnant here I can claim maternity leave even though I'm not a permanent resident or citizen. It's dead money for O'Hara and any expats on a work permit, as you are required to be working at the place specified on you visa. Luckily we opted for me to be a spouse visa rather than my own work permit, WIN!

While I find it pretty annoying that EI and CPP are separated out and Canada claims it has really low "taxes", in Australia you pay for the same things in the overall tax rate but expats on a 457 visa are not entitled to any of the same things you are here. Canada, you win this round. We've just got to get pregnant and have a baby while we're here and get our EI back!

One thing that is a total scam however, is the fact that everything that the company pays for as a "benefit" (gym, healthcare etc.) gets added to your taxable income. So you pay nearly 50% anyway. BUT when your claiming deductions, you only get 10% back.... shady!

This is not a pregnancy announcement. Repeat, this is NOT a pregnancy announcement!

Our first first snowfall!

This morning, it snowed in Kamloops! The first of the season, and the first time we've experienced the first snowfall magic. The silence, the mist and the little gingerbread houses before it all turns to mush. Lying in bed watching the snow>>getting up early for work.

I'm glad O'Hara decided to drive to work, rather than ride his bike this morning! Unfortunately it's not very cold, so it's unlikely to last long. But now I'm inspired for the ski season to start in just under a month!!

Hello to Autumn

Today is the the first day of Autumn (or Fall, if you don't know the correct names for seasons). I can't work out if I'm excited or completely terrified.

I'm excited because:

• I like Autumn clothes
• Scarves
• Pumpkin spice flavoured EVERYTHING
• Pumpkins in general
• Halloween (bursting!)
• We're closer to being able to use our snowboards
• The sun doesn't wake me up at 5am
• Ice Hockey has started
• Gumboots
• You can buy this seasons apples (Australia take note!!)

And terrified because:

• Will I freeze to death?
• I don't have enough socks
• Boot camp will have to go inside
• Driving. Uggghhhhh
• I need warm boots
• Power bills
• My skin is peeling off. My elbow actually bled the other day. HOW!?
• People keep BOASTING about warm weather in Australia. Go. Away