Our Adventures at the US Consulate

What an adventure it was to to navigate through the jungle of the US Consulate. We were late getting out of the hotel (what a surprise...) so we were rushing to get to our appointment. The consulate is located on the 20th floor of a high rise. You go through security at the bottom and then take an elevator up. Luckily since Landon is a US citizen we didn't have to wait in any lines. :) Problem was that the elevator was broken so a guard takes you from security back outside, and in through the front door and up another elevator and escorted to the second set of security. Down two long hallways, trying not to hit anyone with Collin's car seat due to the lack of walking room between the cubicle walls and the chairs lining the walls. We'd had to book two appointments (one for each child) but luckily the adjudicator agreed to work on both files at the same time. There was a family with children 6 months younger than both of my kids. Emily enjoyed playing with their son. After the first hour the adjudicator told me about a sitting room I could take the kids. (Did I mention that I totally forgot to bring toys and snacks for the kids? Yeah, I know) There were no toys, so Emily climbed. Picture of President Obama and Hilary Clinton almost knocked off the wall. Hmmmm. Not good. Collin tried to use the computer in the room. I won't go into all the things that happened but I will say I barely lasted a half an hour before we went back to Landon. It ends up we are missing two documents but they are going to allow us to mail them in. We waited another half an hour to meet with the consulate guy who had me swear that all the information I had put on the forms was true. I then asked about what kind of visa I should be looking into. After some discussion he sent me to see another person. It was there we received the good news. There was a faster, less expensive way for me to get permanent residency. See we have been married for more than two years (almost 7 years actually) and Landon has been living in Canada legally for more than 18 months (6 1/2 years). So we qualify for an I-130. We would need to fill out three forms, have a list of items (marriage certificate, birth certificates, passports, etc), and file the petition in person on any Friday between 2-3 at the consulate in Vancouver. It just so happened that we already had all the items with us because they were needed for the kids paperwork. At the last minute I had picked up my birth certificate in case I would need it. :) And we had already decided to stay a second night and so we were around Friday afternoon. Originally we had planned to be in Vancouver on Monday and Tuesday but do to exam week we had to go Thursday and Friday. When you trust in the Lord good things do happen!
My parents were able to get us the information we needed by Friday morning so we headed off to the consulate (after shopping at Toys R Us for Emily's new car seat). There was nobody there except two other young families and three other people. Much better than the day before. We made new friends and the kids loved having other children their age to play with. One of the couples is even planning on moving to Salt Lake City. :) We only had to wait an hour and half and received good news from our adjudicator. She told us to expect to hear from Montreal, Quebec in the next two weeks regarding what paperwork we need to send them. Did I mention that Landon and I have to fly out to Montreal for an interview? Yep, a "forced" vacation with no kids... :) The adjudicator told us that we had a pretty straight foreward case so she didn't see any reason why I wouldn't be approved within the next four to six months. Yippee!