From Miss to Mrs.

   Long time, no post! Lots of stuff has been going on and I think it just might have settled down...maybe. Time to play catch up.
   The Fella had his interview June 11, 2013 and all went well and ended with an approval! :D It took a bit of time for him to sort through his stuff, sell some, store some, put in notice that he was quitting, notifying people, etc., but he got it done and flew over here September 4th. YAY! While he was getting his stuff in order, I was getting my stuff and some of the wedding stuff taken care of. Once he got here, there was more wedding stuff to take care of, getting his social security number, adding him to the bank account, lease, and a few other things, and some other miscellaneous stuff that I can't recall. LOL. Everything worked out and we got married September 27th...then honeymooned in Vegas for a week. Whee!
   Since then we've been working on getting my name changed on stuff which is taking a bit since the government was shutdown and I had to wait to change my name on my social security card, hence delaying some stuff. Whee? We've definitely been enjoying the married thing though. Something about it is just...wonderful. Not sure what makes it different, but it is. Huh. Anyway, we filed for the Adjustment of Status, Employment Authorization Document, and Advanced Parole last week and got the text stating they received our crap. Now we're back to the waiting game. Fun times.
  Other than that, that's pretty much it. Been keeping entertained at work and such, but nothing overly exciting. Well, nothing I want to post about online anyway. LOL. As usual life happens and sometimes the stuff in life isn't fun to deal with, but you kinda have to. :)

Approval!

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   This morning I woke up to a text on my phone telling me that my case status had been updated! I checked out the uscis.gov website and I found out that the USCIS approved The Fella's visa! YAY! We still have a lot of stuff to do yet, but at least we're over the "worst" bit of it. :D Now I have to send a copy of the initial application packet and some other paperwork to him. :D The US Embassy over in Frankfurt will send him a packet stating some stuff that he needs to gather and some paperwork that he needs to fill out. There's more than that, but I don't want to bore you with all the gritty details. LOL. Still, this is a *big* step forward.
   I was really surprised to see this notice though. Right now, California Service Center (the center our paperwork was sent to) is horribly backlogged. So backlogged in fact, that they're still working on visas from July. Freaking. July. Very little of August and September have been touched as well. They're supposed to be doing these applications in the order they're received and while I am extremely grateful that we have our approval, there should be no reason whatsoever that a bunch of people from late November and beginning of December have gotten approvals while people from July are being told that USCIS is doing what they can and they'll just have to wait. It's bullcrap. So anyone with a K1 visa from before November, I'm sorry you're waiting. :( You should have had this long before now and I really hope you get your visas approved soon!

K1 Visa Paperwork!

   Thursday November 15, I sent in a good sized box of paperwork (US medium flat rate mailer box) to the USCIS. Tracking number shows they received it Nov. 17...then we didn't hear anything for awhile...until Sunday Nov. 25, 2012! Woohoo! When you send in all the paperwork, there's a form you can include that allows them to reach you by email, text, or both, rather than just by mailing you a hard copy. We sent that for in, and last night we got both a text and email saying that they got the paperwork, assigned us a case number, and let us know what service center (California or Vermont) was going to process the paperwork. :D Talk about a happy moment!
   Now, we have to wait for awhile, and if we don't receive any RFEs (Request for Evidence), we should get another text, email, and hard copy stating that they want my financial info. Whee! The ball is finally rolling!

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!