The short of it all is that on December 26th, 2007 I became a Permanent Resident of the United States much to the joy of all concerned. The long of it is the adventure Jenee and I had during the process. I have mentioned before how our final immigration appointment was on the day after Christmas, what follows is the adventure that Jenee and I had on Christmas and Boxing Days.
We initially planned on leaving for Florida at about 10am but decided that we love our family time and Linda and Eugene offered to drive us back and forward from the Airport so we were able to stay with the family for another few hours. Now according to those in the know, Christmas Day is meant to be the quietest traveling day on the calendar. When we arrived in Atlanta (the Worlds busiest airport) it was, no surprise, really busy. We had an hour for our connection so we decided to get some dinner. A quick stop at Chilly's and an encounter with Ken the server who introduced him self as "Ken, as in Ken and Barbie" we had some good food and rushed of to the gate to find that the incoming flight had a sick baby. We had to wait for the paramedics to come, but it was good to see that both Mom and Baby were ok in the end. We got to Jacksonville and rented our car to drive to Gainesville. We decided that we needed some Christmas dessert so we found the only place open (Friday's) and got some cheesecake. Christmas night was spent watching Josie and the Pussycats and playing with the cats who were happy to see us.
We got up early, well I got up early while Jenee slept in for an hour. I went over the files one more time and played with the cats. We had calculated that we needed about 2h 30m to get there allowing for traffic. We got there an hour early (typical Nate over planning) and waited in the parking lot until we could get in. Our appointment was for 1pm, we waited, waited some more and waited and waited. Nobody said anything to us, and the sign on the door said that if we approached any of the interviewers we would be escorted from the building. After nearly 2 hours of waiting, Our interviewer came and got us, apologising for the wait. It turns out that the couple before us were "questionable" and required extra investigation. As we were bing told this, we slapped our 4" / 12cm thick folder of documents on the desk. Seeing this our interviewer proclaimed that we shouldn't be a problem and probably should only take 30 minutes. We ended up taking about an hour. Why? we were having so much fun talking and sharing stories. The intervewier was telling us that some couples submit explicit photographs, descriptive personal letters and even matching tattoo's as evidence of a marriage. The good news is we got all of our questions answered and now I can freely travel in and out of the USA as if I were a US citizen! We are planning for a trip home sometime soon!
After the interview we were so happy that we could barely contain ourselves. We got into the car and headed straight for the airport, hoping that we could catch an early flight home to get back to Christmas. We got the last two seats on an earlier flight (thank you Lord) and took of for Texas. Between Jacksonville, FL and Atlanta Jenee and I were separated and found oursleves engaged in conversations with interesting characters. On the second flight we were able to get seats next to each other, all the way at the back of the plane. As luck would have it, I had someone sitting in front of me who thought she would retract her seat on me. What she didnt realise was that I was on top of things. As she tried to push back she was met by my knees. Apparently annoyed, Big Red turned to face me. I looked at her and informed her that My knees were getting crushed. Irritate she turned around defeated. Big Red continued to be rude to other people, refusing to get out of her seat when the lady at the window seat needed a bathroom visit. Anyway, we got to Texas safely and as I write this I am sitting in our cabin in Angel Fire NM. Its absoultly beautiful here, the snow is white, the sky is blue and we are all loving it.
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