Having acquired all of the necessary supporting evidence to make my case for being issued a spousal settlement visa by UK immigration, last week Tuesday James and I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to submit my application online and see if we could make an appointment at the British Consulate in Chicago for Monday morning given that we would be in the vicinity anyway on our way back from a weekend with my family in Iowa. We were able to schedule an appointment for 10:00 on Monday morning, even at such short notice. So at the appointed time we made our way to the Wrigley Building on Michigan Avenue, took the elevator to the 13th floor of the south tower, made our way through security, and sat ourselves down in the rather stark waiting room, listening for our number to be called.

When they called our number, we went up to the window and turned in our packet of evidence, then sat and waited for another 20 minutes or so. We had Martha Stewart for distraction, cooking up some lovely looking cauliflower orrechiette and cucumber salad with her guest chef. (Mmm. Must give those recipes a go…) We were finally summoned for a second time only to be told that everything looked in order but we were too early. They are unable to issue visas for more than three months out which wouldn’t be that much of a problem, but since we’ve been married for fewer than four years, the visa would be a provisional one that would have to be renewed after two years. Thus I’d essentially have two months of a valid visa that I wouldn’t be able to use. I appreciated their desire for me to get as much use out of my provisional visa as possible before having to renew it, but I wish they had been a little more clear about the timing limitations on their website. In any case, we were told that I wouldn’t have to reapply (or pay again, thank goodness, given that the application fee is a hefty USD $520!) but we still need to bring our packet of evidence back to the Chicago consulate in a few months to get the actual visa.

In other happy news, we managed to snag 18th row center seats for The Arcade Fire at the Chicago Theatre on Sunday, May 20th. WOO!!!

It’s official: I’m leaving my job. I turned in my letter of resignation yesterday. There’s a lot of reorganization and movement going on in my department right now, so even though I won’t actually be leaving until May, we’re hoping to hire my replacement within the next couple of months, and HR had to have my letter before they can post the opening. Thus, the submission of my resignation letter four months in advance of my actual departure date. It’s one more thing that makes all of this seem very real and very final. I’m sure that when May rolls around I’ll be more emotional about the whole thing, but for now I’m mostly just excited. Twelve years is long enough to work in one place, I think. I’m ready for something new!

We’re taking steps to get our house ready to sell. It’s so hard to know when to put it on the market, and we’re hoping our realtor will be able to give us some good advice about that next week. When we bought our house in 2004, it had only been on the market for six days when we put in our offer, and we had reason to believe another offer was on its way in. It’s a great house – beautifully decorated, in great shape, new furnace and automatic garage door, great back yard and deck, in a fantastic location with lots (like the Fulton Farmers Market) in easy walking distance, etc., etc. However, the housing market is a lot different now than it was three years ago, and we have no idea how long it will take to sell.

In other news, as James blogged shortly before the holidays, we’ve purchased our first (of many!) flights for our summer around-the-world trip. And last weekend we got fourteen different travel guides out of the library. Lots of reading to do in the next couple of weeks! Thank goodness for GRPL and the online renewal option.

I can hardly believe it, but it’s already time to make plans to go the other way.

Yep, James and I are moving to England. So just a few short years after navigating the UK-to-US immigration labyrinth, we now get to experience the joys of US-to-UK immigration. I’ve been told that it’s not as complicated or time consuming as immigrating to the US (in fact, I was amused that the British Embassy website admonishes applicants to submit one’s application in good time since not all visas are issued on the same day that the application is received), but I guess we’ll see, eh? The application instructions and requirements are, I admit, a little intimidating. But hey – we were successful with James’ US immigration, and that certainly had its intimidating forms and procedures too. Not to mention the hulking guy in the little cubicle at the Detroit immigration office.

So over the next ten months or so we need to get the house ready to sell, decide which furniture and other belongings to take and which to sell or otherwise get rid of, sell our car, find a place to live in the UK, find jobs in the UK, hire an international moving company, and take care of that pesky settlement visa. There will of course be many other details to think about. And to complicate matters, we’re also planning a trip around the world that will take up about six weeks of next summer. Tentative stops include cities in New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. We’ll send our stuff east, and we’ll head west to the other side of the world, meeting back up with our stuff in England sometime in August, of course in time for Greenbelt.

Don’t expect a sudden rash of blogging from me, but over the next year I hope to be cataloguing our onging immigration adventures. And then there will probably be plenty to write about as I adjust to life as an expat.

An advert for the season premiere of the final season of Six Feet Under:

Everyone
Everything
Everywhere
Ends.

(accompanied by a picture of Claire riding off in her green hearse into the proverbial sunset.)

It’s a great ad anyway, but in the middle of Times Square it took on a particular poignancy.

Brilliant.

Today was the day that James had his Adjustment of Status interview in Detroit (the adjustment being to Legal Permanent Resident). I am happy to report that it all went swimmingly, and eleven months after marrying me (and just over ten months after submitting the application), James is now the possessor of a provisional green card.

We did lots and lots of preparation for this. We assembled all of the paperwork that they said to bring and then some, plus duplicates of everything. My main cause for worry going into it was that I have somehow misplaced the copies of my federal tax returns from 2002 and 2003 – documents that they included in the list of ‘what you should bring’. We were hoping that the fact that we had already submitted them would be sufficient. In the end it was.

Since our appointment was set for 8:00 a.m. in downtown Detroit, we decided to stay overnight in Detroit rather than getting up at 4:00 in the morning to drive there. This worked out well especially since it appeared that the location of the interview was less than two miles from our hotel. As it turned out, we had the wrong location. Note to anyone who is going to Detroit for an interview with Citizenship and Immigration Services: 333 Eliot is NOT the same as 333 Mount Elliott. They are in two completely different parts of the city. We accidentally walked to the first – arriving there promptly at 8:00 to discover that there wasn’t a 333 Eliot. There was in the general vicinity a Hospice of Michigan branch and outside of it was a lovely gentleman who was clearly accustomed to redirecting lost souls who were looking for the Immigration Office. Seeing my distress, he very kindly ushered us inside and asked the receptionist to call us a cab. The cab arrived not soon after and ferried us to 333 Mt. Elliott, getting us there by about 8:15 a.m.

Here’s another tip about going into Federal Buildings: they don’t let you take camera phones inside. Since James had his, we didn’t have a car to put it in, and security guard was not being very helpful about the situation, James walked outside to find a place to store it. Thinking that it might not be a great idea to have the outer security guard spot him hiding a small electronic device outside a federal building, he asked what he should do with it, and they suggested bringing it to a shop across the street and asking if they would hold onto it for him. James reports that the shop owner must do this a lot because he took one look at James’ phone and put it in a drawer.

Since we arrived at the Immigration Office late, we were afraid that we might have a long wait, but in fact it was only about 20-25 minutes of tense anticipation before we heard the name “James Stewart” called out. I had another moment of panic when I saw the rather gruff looking man who had called for us, but it turned out that friendly immigration officer Steve was just dealing with a little morning grogginess as we were his first interview of the day. He walked us back to his cubicle (which immediately reminded me of Bob’s cubicle in The Incredibles – big guy in a tiny, cramped space), sat us down, and I pulled out our piles of well-ordered, well-labeled documents. As it turned out, the only things he ever asked for were James’ passport, state ID, social security card, and employment authorization card. None of the other documents that we had so painstakingly assembled! Sheesh.

Steve had in front of him a thick file folder containing all of the forms and supporting evidence that we had previously submitted. He flipped through that a bit, made notes and checked boxes on some forms, looked through all my federal tax returns (the ones I had freaked out about not being able to find) and nodded approvingly, re-asked James all the questions about whether or not he planned to engage in polygamy, illicit drug sales, or overthrowing the government and stuff like that. After not more than 15-20 minutes of being in Steve’s cubicle, James had his stamp in his passport and strict instructions to remember to file for his permanent green card 90 days before the provisional one expires (which happens on April 18, 2007).

We walked out looking at each other with both great relief and more than a little disbelief. Was it really that easy?? Apparently it was. We walked back to our hotel, got our car, and took the tunnel to Canada to take James’ new stamp for a little test drive. They let us in and even told us where to find some good restaurants for lunch. We ended up at a lovely little cafe called Chanoso’s and had a very nice celebratory lunch. We also observed that Windsor (at least the part we saw of it) is much nicer than downtown Detroit. (Side story: as we were pulling out of the parking garage in Windsor, the attendant exclaimed, “We have a new pope!” She had a little TV on in her booth and saw the white smoke. That’s how we found out about the election of Pope Benedict XVI.)

We are now home, exhausted and relieved to have this part of the process completed. And very much looking forward to arriving in the UK on May 25!

As you may have already read on James’ blog, Calvin hosted the second biennial Festival of Faith and Music this weekend.

Besides being a wonderful weekend of music, conversation, community, challenge, encouragement, celebration, etc., it was especially significant for me in that it marked two years since James and I met at the very first Festival of Faith and Music. What made it particularly special was that so many of the people who were there that fateful weekend in March 2003, were back this year – Steve Stockman, Dave Dark, Dave Bazan, Ralston Bowles, and Nick Purdy and Josh Jackson from Paste among others. Two years ago I was meeting most of them for the first time. This year it was a grand reunion of friends.

Two thoughts occur to me:

So much can happen in the span of two years!!

and…

The Spirit works in mysterious ways, and I sure am glad she does.

We had eight weddings on the docket last summer/fall (including our own) and this year is shaping up to be just as full of weddings…

We got phone calls today from both my sister Dana and James’ best man John sharing with us the happy news that they had each gotten engaged this weekend (Dana to Pete – a very welcome addition to our family – and John to the wonderful Emma). Both of them are looking at dates in September, which is looking to be a very busy month for us. If you’re thinking about scheduling a wedding for this year, could you avoid September please? Thanks. 🙂

Congrats to Dana & Pete and John & Emma!

As James has already blogged, we at long last have a Permanent Residency interview date!

The very quick processing of James’ Employment Authorization got our hopes up that the Permanent Residency process would also be expedient. Our receipt letter had stated that Permanent Residency processing was taking 120-180 days. In actuality, from the time they received our petition (June 29, 2004) to the day we got our Notice of Action letter (February 3, 2005), it took 219 days. Our interview will be on April 19 (another 75 days). And there’s no telling how long after that we’ll have to wait to get the actual green card. A Permanent Residency petitioner used to get an “Approved” passport stamp at the interview which allowed for travel out of the country in the intervening time while waiting for the actual green card to arrive. We’re not exactly sure what the procedure is now, and at the rate things in this racket change, even if we knew how they were doing things now, there’s no guarantee that they would still happen that way in 2 1/2 months.

Still, we’re better off than our friends Jenna and Trevor in Nashville who are looking at more than 2 1/2 half years wait for their permanent residency interview. The fact that processing times in different states vary by that much is absolutely indefensible. Trevor and Jenna are working with their congressman and starting a letter writing campaign. If you’re interested in helping out, let me know and I can get you in touch with them.

James and I are now considering a trip to England in late May but much depends on finances (i.e. what kind of work James can get … need someone to do web development??) and also whether we’re up for taking the risk of purchasing flights before the permanent residency interview.

As always, stay tuned and we’ll keep you posted. Maybe.

Some people (Martin) rag on me for not blogging very often, but really it’s kind of a liability of a ‘theme blog’ – James is in the US, the wedding is done, and the wait for the green card continues. No new news in that department. Unfortunately, the lack of green card means that our planned March trip to England will most likely need to be postponed. Stay tuned for more details on that one.

I thought several times in the past few months of blogging about the holidays – our first as a married couple, and James’ first personal experience of American Thanksgiving. (His previous impressions were mostly derived from American TV shows like Friends, so he knew about the turkey and football but had no idea that people go to church on Thanksgiving.) But I couldn’t come up with enough interesting things to say about it, and it seemed rather self-indulgent. Besides, although it was our first Christmas as a married couple, it wasn’t our first Christmas together and it didn’t feel remarkably different from last year. Oh yeah – we got a tree this year. Benefit of waiting until Dec. 18th to buy the tree: we got a big, beautiful one for $10. Go us.

Anyway, the main reason I decided to blog today – for the first time in nearly two months – was that James just put up a list of his favorite CDs from 2004, and I just wanted to note that I pretty much agree with his list, and will add two more:

Innocence Mission – Now the Day is Over – I only just got it last week so haven’t listened to it more than twice, but I know that it’s one I will be listening to frequently because hey – it’s the Innocence Mission. And, as James said, “Over the Rainbow was made for Karen Peris’ voice.” (Incidentally, all of the profits from sales of the CD are being given to children’s charities such as Catholic Relief Services so if you are an IM fan and haven’t bought this one, now’s the time!)

Hem – Eveningland – It’s more produced and therefore not quite as charming as Rabbit Songs, but the more I listen to it, the more it grows on me. Sally Ellyson’s voice is still gorgeous, and there are some great love songs there.

Regarding James’ picks, I credit him for introducing me to Lambchop, Arcade Fire, Nick Cave, and the Polyphonic Spree and for enhancing my appreciation of David Byrne, Sam Phillips and Sufjan Stevens – all of whose 2004 releases are flippin’ brilliant and continue to get a lot of play in our house.

2004 will be noteworthy as the year that U2 were displaced as my favorite band. That honor now goes to Wilco who I couldn’t get enough of, at least in the latter half of the year. Jeff Tweedy is a genious.

Finally, as James said, if you – for whatever reason – want to know more about what I’m listening to, check out Audiocrobbler … and then sign up yourself if you haven’t already so I can find out what you’re listening to!

Here’s the wedding update. I know it’s three and half weeks late. What can I say – we’ve been sick and busy. Unfortunately too often we’ve been both at the same time. In any case…

Overall October 22 – and the days leading up to it – went very well. It was really, really fun to have James’ friends and family here from England. Most of them arrived Wednesday evening, so we got to spend most of Thursday with them which was so much fun! We just had a great time. Friday the 22nd was cloudy but relatively warm and no rain. Hallelujah! We had fun decorating the barn (for the reception) with my family in the morning.

The ceremony was lovely. The parents and attendants walked down the aisle to Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto: Adagio (a piece that appears in the movie Greencard) and James and I walked down the aisle together to the wedding march from the Sound of Music. My brother Jeff and his girlfriend Elyce played trumpet and French Horn respectively on that, and Jeff’s roommate Jeremy played clarinet on the Mozart piece. We had Emily Loeks, James’ sister Susan, and James’ friend Matt do the readings which included Frederick Buechner’s “Grace” from his book Wishful Thinking, Isaiah 61, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 and Matthew 5:1-15 (the Beatitudes and “You are the light of the world”). James’ dad gave a great message about marriage being more than a choice that two people make but as those two people are part of a community, it becomes an avenue of grace by which God brings about his shalom. Our friends Sarah Dark, and Julie Lee sang one of my favorite songs, “We Are A Beginning” which Sarah wrote for her own wedding. It gave me chills. After my father introduced us as “Mr. James and Mrs. Kari Stewart”, we walked out to Over the Rhine’s “When You Say Love” (over the sound system).

Immediately after the ceremony, James and I jumped in our “getaway vehicle” – Henry DeMoor’s Ford Explorer, and Henry and Ina brought us over to Celebration Cinema. Our photograher Ben followed us and took some shots of us walking around the lobby, eating popcorn, etc. We got lots of funny looks a few well-wishes. 🙂

After photos at the cinema we headed out to the Post Family Farm in Hudsonville for the reception. It looked so beautiful inside with all of the white lights, tulle, and autumn leaf garlands! My mom called it an Autumn Wonderland. We didn’t even turn on the barn ceiling lights at all – all the strands of white Christmas lights provided enough light and the perfect ambience. The food and drink was great – we had catering by Pita House (gyro sandwiches, hummus, babaganoush, tabbouleh and fatoush), dessert bars baked by my mom and grandma, beer from Bell’s and Founder’s, and Charles Shaw wine. I didn’t actually get to eat that much, but we got a lot of compliments on our choice of catering. We didn’t have much of a formal program at the reception. My uncle Ken welcomed people and opened in prayer and then later on got up to give answers to the “James and Kari Quiz” that we had on each table. Our friends Craic Wisely played Irish pub songs late into the night. It was fun to see so many of our friends and family enjoying themselves so much. We’ve gotten lots of comments in the past couple of weeks about what a fun event it was and that it was all very “James and Kari” which, of course, is exactly what we were going for.

Our friend Brandon put up a “review” on his blog which you can read here.

And James’ best man John has some pictures up on his blog.

As soon as we get the “official” photos, we’ll get those up online as well. We’re also planning to put up a page listing all the music from the wedding and reception.

Our honeymoon week was nice but would have been nicer if we hadn’t gotten sick. :-p We had a lovely little cottage in Bellaire. The main disadvantage of it was that it was at least a 45 minute drive to get anywhere else. Monday ended up being the only sunny day all week, and it was the day we went to Mackinac Island, so at least we had a nice day there. We both came down with colds on Monday night. Despite our colds, we still managed to go to Traverse City, Petoskey, Charlevoix and Harbor Springs. Most of the places were pretty deserted already with quite a few shops and restaurants closed for the season. Getting sick actually forced us to slow down more than we might have otherwise, so we spent a lot of time lying around and watching DVDs which ended up being a good thing after all.

We’ve started making plans for a reception in England on March 19 and a few days in Barcelona the following week. We can’t book anything that requires payment until James’ greencard comes through – which could be any day now. You can pray with us that it comes sooner rather than later! But it’s been fun reading up about Barcelona and looking into possible hotels. I can’t wait to go!

Links to more pictures coming soon. Well, as soon as I get around to it…