Oh Canada!

 So today was a big day for me.  I took my oath of citizenship and I am now a Canadian!!!  I had some family visiting who were able to watch the kids and Ryan, Helen and the Guerrero's came to see and celebrate with me.

Before becoming a Canadian

My seat

It took over an hour to get all those gaining their citizenship registered and into the room.  I was number 79 of 80 that day being adopted by Canada and out of the 80 there were 34 different countries represented.  Quite the cultural melting pot!  When we were ready to start the clerk introduced the proceedings and how the ceremony would go and then the judge entered.  He spoke about how wonderful Canada was and how excited we should be (which I was!) and our responsibilities as a Canadian - to vote, to volunteer to embrace our new home.  We then all stood and swore (or affirmed, which is the wording I chose) the oath stating our allegiance to Queen Elizabeth the Second.  It had a kind of double meaning for me being British too, I have a great respect for the Queen.  Once that was done we all went to the front and received a certificate, a flag and a pin.  Ryan told me to ask the judge for a hug, so I did and we laughed about it, I didn't think it would be appropriate to follow through! haha.  We then stood and sung 'O Canada', the judge said some final words (going over what he said at the beginning) and that was it.  I am now a Canadian Citizen!  The whole ceremony took less than an hour and I do feel a pride to being able to say I'm Canadian.  I don't feel like my Britishness has been diminished in any way, I just feel like I'm a lucky one to have two countries to call home!

With the Judge

I'm now officially a Canadian Citizen!

My cheering squad!

My goodie bag from Helen - all things Canadian!