So, we made it very easily. I think I'll make this post in chronological order with what's happened the last couple of days.
So, first, on Monday morning, I left Kristy's house to go grab the Penske truck over in the States. Thank you everyone that suggested Penske over U-Haul, our truck rocked! It only had 5400 miles on it and looked brand new. Had my grandfather follow me over to Kristy's so that he could help me load the few bulky things. Going back over to Canada with the truck, I got sent to secondary, but that took all of 30 seconds, as all they needed to do was open the back and see that it was indeed empty like I said it was.
So, we get packed up and on the road by 3:00pm. She and her daughter drove her '99 Grand Am ahead of me, in the Penske truck. We pulled behind one car, as the crossing was not very busy at all at that time. Kristy handed her passports to the officer and when asked the purpose of the trip, she said, "We're moving over to the States today, we have our K-1 and K-2 visas in the passports there." He looked at them quizically, and sent them over to secondary, of course, but was very friendly, he was just new (which I did confirm when I was chatting with him) and probably hadn't even seen someone activating a visa before. So, I pulled up next with the truck, and basically said that I can look in the back here, or I can send you over. I said, well, I'd rather be sent over, anyway. So, he gave me a yellow slip too and sent me over.
There were three people in line ahead of us, but two or three random NEXUS inspections came in and cut ahead. (NEXUS also gives you front-of-the-line privileges at secondary, but we were hesitant to whip ours out, since we didn't and couldn't use the NEXUS lane since we had a truckload of things to declare and were activating a visa.) We got another new guy inside, as he didn't have any idea what was in the big X-Ray envelope until we told him. So, Kristy had left index, right index, and a picture taken. He also had two supervisors come over to help him out, though. When we got to talking about Advance Parole and such, both the supervisors stated that she could still leave and come back before we got married. Once everything was in order, though, I had to tell him, "psst, this is the part where you say 'Welcome to America'," to which he obliged, and we were on our way home. All told, it took about an hour at immigration.
As a side note, the lady next at us was having a real hard time proving her ties to Canada. She was going to visit her son and her brother in Colorado for an indefinite amount of time, she lived with her parents in Ontario, and is an unemployed artist. She was ahead of us in line, but was still at the counter by the time we left, so I'm not sure what happened. It seemed like they were trying to let her go by rephrasing the questions so she would answer the questions "correctly" but she kept digging her hole deeper, I think.
So, we end up getting the truck unpacked by 8:00pm. I return the Penske truck at 9:00a on Tuesday, and it cost us about $50, including gas (round trip was 18 miles). Our Reverend called us at about 12:30 to ask us when we wanted to get married, as he was available either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Friday. I yell to Kristy, "Hey, honey, do you want to get married tonight?" Who says romance is dead? So, we got married at about 5:30p on Tuesday evening. Oh, if anyone need an officiant to do their wedding in Michigan, PM me; I can highly the one that did ours. Ours wasn't the first time he did a wedding first and then a marriage later for a K-1 visa.
We're piled high in boxes still, and we have to convert some rooms to other uses first and such, and find time to decorate the Christmas tree. But, we are together at last, and it sure feels good.
Everyone have a great Thanksgiving!