In response to the Point Roberts suggestion. I spend time in Point Roberts and I'm not sure that I'd want to raise a family (even though I like the community). Once the kids get a little older they have to get shuttled to "the mainland for school." The guards are great (both US and Canadian) and it is by far the best border crossing experience I've ever had and I have a Nexus card. The International Market is a fine grocery store, but you find yourself quickly wanting to run to Bellingham for better quality meats, etc. or worse eyeballing the contraband Canadian lamb from the great market in Tswassen and saying "no." You'll also need a Canadian cell phone plan. US phone service stinks in Point Roberts. Verizon is talking about putting up a tower, but it has been moving slowly. Also a massive am radio tower is being built near where the Verizon cell tower is going and it could easily muck things up. If I was living there and could afford it, I'd look at sending my kids to the South Pointe Academy in Tsawwassen. It is private, the visa for children to go there would be simple, and it is BC's number one ranked school. There are no doctor's offices in Point Roberts. There is a clinic with a nurse. Americans living in Point Roberts by air evacuation insurance and are taken by air to Bellingham in an emergency. There is ambulance service in Point Roberts and they will happily take Canadians to a Canadian hospital, but if you are a Yank without evacuation insurance you will be taken through two border crossings to the mainland for treatment.
Cell Phones. You are already going to need a Canadian cell phone plan. Canadian roaming plans are a mixed bag. On ATT, I pay $20 more a month on my family plan for voice service in Canada, but that doesn't include text messaging or data. 100 gigs of Canadian data costs you $25 a month with ATT. Even worse at least with ATT, my phone clings to a completely unusable ATT signal giving me effectively no service. For example at the Tswassen Ferry Terminal my phone sees a signal from San Juans or Bellingham which it can't use but makes my phone unusable. (No it is not from Point Roberts -- ATT doesn't have a tower there).
Whatever you do, don't use an iPhone. I love my iPhone, but Apple gave the carriers the ability to disable manual carrier selection which you absolutely need. Samsung has a Galaxy S4 (Mini and Regular) with a dual SIM option. You give up 4g but can have a US and Canadian SIM in the phone. You'll probably need it. By the way, the cheaper carriers don't work in Delta. Wind and Mobilicity have really bad coverage in this part of the GVA. Surrey is covered, but Delta is roaming.
On the Blaine side, no one has good ratings on cellular coverage either. Look how low all US carriers are rated here:
Blaine, WA Cell Towers & Reception Map | CellReception.com
TMobile gives you unlimited but throttled data in Canada and unlimited text messaging but calls are $0.20 a minute and they have no Canadian voice buckets.
Even commuting you may need some catastrophic insurance in Canada. You work there and I don't know that the visitor's coverage that most policies have may not apply if you work there on a daily basis. My wife is a border commuter and her company has a special policy to cover her in Canada added on. She works there one week a month and it was necessary.
Surrey is picking up. It certainly has some crap neighborhoods by the over-heated Vancouver real estate market has helped Surrey (together with better policing). Delta is nice. By the way, Tsawwassen and Ladner are part of Delta legally even though people talk about them as being separate and they feel that way. White Rock is a city which is fully surrounded by Surrey (except for the water side).
I like Tsawwassen a lot and Point Roberts is very handy. The problem is that it is pricey for owning a home in. Point Roberts means that you can get US groceries (Point Robert grocery stores clearly mark which produce and groceries can't go back to Canada) and gas. It also means Amazon.com deliveries and daily U.S. mail. Again, the problem is the price of real estate. I looked at 1,000 square foot model home in a new development and it was $450,000.
I could go on for pages more, but I'm on Eastern time and getting tired. Good luck.
Stu
PS: Whichever side of the border you land, get your entire family a Nexus card. You will be crossing all the time. Also get one of the border wait apps from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
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