Last night, at around 3.30 am Dutch time, I woke up to a sound which I usually hear when I have to wake up to go to work. I opened up my eyes and the first thing I noticed was that it was still dark, I looked at my alarm clock and it turned out it was still the middle of the night. I then went to look on my laptop and found out it was my laptop which woke me up because I received an email from the US customs & immigration service for which I had set an alarm if I would receive an email from them.

I read the subject of the email which was ‘Case Status Information for Receipt Number: WACXXXXXXXXXX‘ and I was totally awake in an instance. “Could this be it?”, I thought to myself, while I knew as well that it might also be a notice that we received a request for more evidence. I opened the email and read the following:

‘On June 5, 2008, we mailed you a notice that we have approved this I129F PETITION FOR FIANCE(E). Please follow any instructions on the notice. If you move before you receive the notice, call customer service.’

 This actually meant we received the 2nd Notice of Action and that we got through the first round of the whole visa process without any problem!!

With that, I called Michelle instantly with a message like ’something has happened…’, on which she reacted ‘what happened?’ I guess I was driving her a bit crazy with that message so I told her what really happened and, of course, she was as happy as I was.

I can tell you, I got more and more nervous about the whole process lately.. the longer it took for us to get the approval, the more I became stressed about the wait. “Do they still have our petition?” was one of the thoughts which ran through my mind a lot.

I am really happy we got our approval for this part of the visa process. Next the application will be send to the NVC (National Visa Center) in Portsmouth, NH from which it will be send to the Amsterdam consulate, who then sends me a package of forms which I have to fill in. After that has been done, I will have to make an appointment for a medical exam and X-rays, and I will receive an invitation for the final interview at the Amsterdam consulate. In the meantime, Michelle will have to send me another package of forms, documents and such which I have to provide the consulate in Amsterdam with. 

I think this remainder of our visa process will take up to about 2 to 3 months in total after which we will receive the visa (or not, but I hope we will).

Luckily I wont have to be affraid for the medical exam as I recently have had a few medical tests (like a HIV test and such) and they were all good, so I have no worries there anymore There’s only the interview itself left to worry about :/

I have been smiling a lot today, even though I am quite tired because of the lack of sleep of last night but oh well, we will survive that for sure!

I will update again when there is more news (or when I feel like writing again hehe).

Welcome to the first post in our new blog!

I am a bit unsure if this remains to be the first post, though. I used to have another website with a blog where I posted some things like my holiday in China in 2006 and I am wondering if I should repeat post those postings in here (with the old dates and images) so it will look like they were posted here before. That’s something I got to look into and think about later on. If you have thoughts on it, just let me know through the comment system

As you could have read in the about section of this site, the future posts will be mainly about our lives together (that is Michelle and me) on a little rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean: Oahu, Hawaii. And since I kind of want to post a few images on the site already, here are some random ones of the Island I made (well obviously I didn’t make the first picture ) when I was on Oahu before:

As you can see on the first of the above pictures, the islands of Hawaii are really in the middle of nowhere (yes, there is no land underneath the blown up part either lol). More pictures will, of course, follow later on

Anyways, at the moment we’re waiting for our visa so we can marry and live together and I can tell you, the process is LONG.. There are basically two service centers (the California Service Center (CSC) and the Vermont Service Center (VSC)) where you can file your petition and, of course, we had to file at the one which takes the longest to process. We filed in January of this year at CSC and while we’re waiting to finish this first part of our journey (which is just the approval at CSC, after that it will be send to the National Visa Center in Portsmouth, NH from where it will go to the Dutch consulate in Amsterdam, which add another 2-3 months time span), people who have filed at VSC, at the same time as us, already have their visas. I know the current approvals are very near our file date but just not yet.. It could happen every day now but it currently looks like they’re on a holiday at CSC (I know they will be soon though, memorial day and such).

I think you can imagine the wait is driving me crazy at times and our case is actually still very well within limits. When I look at some other people, there are people who are still waiting for their first approval while they filed their petition in September last year. At times I am scared this will happen to us as well, especially at times when there are hardly any approvals coming out of CSC. The whole process makes me go :S at times but oh well, it’s all for the best in the end.. I can’t wait

I’ll keep you updated when there’s more news!