A short update....

Well, there isn't much to update you on. Our petition has now been with the California Service Centre in Laguna Niguel,CA for 103 days and we are still no closer or further from getting an approval on our petition. Its starting to annoy me. Especially as we had planned to have moved permanently by now. Unfortunately, as we have no idea as to how long this part of the process is going to take, we have no idea when we are going to be in California. So, if anyone knows anyone who works in CSC, put in a good word for us!

The next parts of the process are fairly straightforward, and involve more things instead of just waiting. We have to start sending them money ($450!!!), information about taxes, information about my police record (i don't have one, so that should be easy enough!), etc. And then there is a medical for me, chest xray, that sort of thing, and then an interview in London, which by the time we get to that point should be a pretty short and almost a sure thing, but you never can tell since 9/11 apparently. This part should take approx 6-7 months, but we plan to use some shortcuts to make it a little faster.....

So, because that means we have no more progress, and we both feel like life is basically on hold until we get approval for our petition, we decided that we would visit for Christmas.
Today, we booked fairly cheap tickets with American Airlines to fly in on Sunday 18th December and out again almost 3 weeks later on Friday 6th January. Brittany's friend Calia is getting married in Seattle on 30th December, so we plan to go up there for that too!

At the moment, both of us like our jobs okay, and have made more of an effort recently to have a social life, which seems to be paying off. Im hoping in the next few weeks that we will hear about our petition, but i won't hold my breath. It seems a crazy amount of time, especially since Brittany got her visa to live here in 4 hours! Most of the people who are doing this same visa route are in seperate countries, and when i consider how much i hated computers when Brittany and I were seperated, i could just imagine how much i would hate Immigration services were we seperated whilst this process is going on!

PS Oh, im excited too, because ex NHL legend Theo Fleury has just signed for my local ice hockey team, the Belfast Giants!