Proposal!

  I'm a little late in updating this, but now is as good a time as any to start this. :D The end of July, the Fella flew over to the US on holiday to visit friends of his and to visit me. He flew into JFK, then down to Charlotte, NC to visit a friend there for a few days before flying back to NYC to head over to Pennsylvania to visit a few friends there. A few days after he arrived in PA, I flew into NYC, we explored the city for a few days, then headed out to PA to hang out with his friends there for a week. :D After that week was up, we flew out to Nebraska so he could spend about 3 weeks with me! :)

   Part of the plan when he visited was the we'd head up to Montana to visit my parents over Labor Day weekend. We did that (so nice to not have to make the 10 hour or so trip by myself) and he got to meet my parents, siblings, and grandparents. The morning we were leaving my parents' house he proposed to me! :D Now we're onto the next part of our journey together...
 
   With him being a German citizen and myself a US citizen we have a bit more of a hurdle when it comes to getting married. We have to decide what country we're wanting to live in, the pros and cons of both countries, how it'll affect our families (mostly the one moving), etc.

• He's been wanting to move to the US for awhile anyway, so that decision was pretty easy. We still looked into what it'd take for me to move to Germany if we went that route and decided that'd be harder.
• There are a lot of good points to both countries. Major deciding factors is that if I immigrate to Germany, I have to show a certain amount of proficiency in German, have to go through their driving school and retake my driving exam--practical and written, he has to show that his home is large enough for both of us. However, the wait time on the visa isn't as long and the visa fees are way cheaper. The other stuff is nowhere near as cheap though. If he immigrates to the US, visa and immigration fees are higher and take longer and we have to file a work authorization form after we marry so he can work. It usually takes 5-8 months to approve the K-1 (fiance) visa and about 3-6 months to approve the work authorization form.
• All my family (excepting 2 of my cousins) live in the US. All his family lives in Germany. Needless to say, both sides are affected on that and affected just as much.

   As I said, we'd decided on him immigrating to the US. So now we're getting finances in order and figuring out different things (like what possessions to keep or get rid of) so that we can start getting paperwork for the K-1 visa put together and we can file. It'll be a bit before we get to that point, but I'll update when we're there. :)

   So now you know what's up. It'll be interesting to see what happens from here!