Visa chit chat

It's a well known fact that this little blog has suffered some over the last year. I was doing so well in blog land for around 2 years and then I guess the 3 year slump hit me, hit me real hard. So here I am, starting again, hoping I can do better this year. I'll be honest, blogging started to become a chore when I didn't have as many exciting things to discuss. So I kind of disappeared because I just didn't know where to take this space. But now it's 2016, a new year, a BIG year and I feel like I have some pretty big things to share with blog land. So let's hop to it!

I'll start with a little thing called a Fiancé Visa. So back in September, i think, Tom and I started a little journey. A journey I sort of talked about via this blog but I honestly didn't go into much detail. I had my reasons for holding back but now I feel like it's a good time to really share what's all been going on with the visa situation. I explained that a few visa options failed us so we swiftly moved onto the most basic visa for getting your significant other to America, The Fiancé Visa. If you've ever watched 90 day Fiancé on TLC then you'll know where I'm going with this. The Fiancé visa is used for couples who plan to marry within 90 days of the significant other arriving in the USA. That's where Tom comes in, he's the significant other, obviously. So once we'd locked down which visa we were going to go after we jumped on it as fast as we could. These visa's are not known for being quick when it comes to processing so we wanted to get started straight away. The first step was to fill out some forms, pay some money...around $400...and gather evidence of our relationship. It took me about a week to get everything pulled together. I put a nice binder together and mailed it off to the USCIS...super official government office somewhere that handles these cases.

Thankfully we had quite a lot of evidence supporting our relationship. This blog was a big chunk of that since I've basically blogged about our relationship from the beginning. We also used instagram posts, texts, emails, flight itineraries and more. I sent the binder off knowing that it would take a while before it was accepted. The timeline for this portion was well over 3 months...longer if it stayed in Texas. Luckily our case was transferred to California. California had a shorter wait time but we still thought it would take a few months to hear anything. One month after I sent the binder off

I got a letter in the mail from the USCIS. I wasn't expecting anything so soon so I was terrified I'd filled out a form wrong and I'd have to do it over again. But that was not the case, I opened the letter and it was a Notice of Action 2 document. This is the document we thought we'd be waiting months for. But instead it only took ONE MONTH!! How amazing is that!!! The NOA2 meant that the US government was happy with what I gave them so they would now send the case overseas to the American Embassy in London which is where Tom will go to have his interview when the time comes.

So let me break it down a little...what was meant to take 3-5 months only took 1. Our case began it's trek overseas in November and now we're at the stage where we're just waiting on Tom to get his medical done as well as the Interview. As soon as those things get done he will have his visa and be able to come over and we can get married and start this next phase of life. Crazy right?? 

It's possible that Tom will have the Visa locked down by February, but that doesn't mean that
Tom will be headed here straight after he get's the visa. There are a few things that have to happen before Tom comes over. I need to be working full time at my job (hopefully that happens soon..) I also need to get an apartment.. That's not all though..Tom's sister is getting married in Jamaica in April. Tom is only allowed to Enter the USA on his visa once. So we're going to wait until after the Jamaica wedding for him to fly over here. He'll probably fly straight over from Jamaica and from there we'll have our wedding and just go for it!!

On January 21st we will have been apart for 6 months. This is the longest that we've been apart and thinking about staying apart until April is so hard. We have around 3 more months to be apart before things really start rolling. I wish we didn't have to wait but we both know that we need to get some things pulled together before he gets here so I'll definitely use this time wisely. I mean there's a wedding to plan as well as an apartment to get and lots of other things. And I have around 3 months to do it all.

It's laughable but also very possible to get all of that done in such a short amount of time ;)

Ok that's all for now, hope everyone is having a wonderful new year!!

Can't wait to share all of the wonderful things to come.