US Immigration from Poland

My wife entered on a K-1 and we married and filed AoS within 1 month of her arrival. That was 26 months ago. We still have not had an interview. (however, that is not the topic here please).

We do anticipate getting an interview soon and getting her GC (my understanding is it will be an unconditional one since we have been married for more than 2 years).

Our AoS took more than a year longer than pretty much all of the couples that were in our cohort of K-1's we stay in touch with.

My question is does the citizenship clock only start when she gets here GC?

(Or does it start when she started living in the USA back when she entered on her K-1 or when we married or when we filed for AoS?)

(my fear/understanding is that it only starts when you get the GC, so the past 2+ years of married living together in the USA don't count at all towards the 3 years rule for citizenship? So our long wait vs. our peers will also cause us to get her citizenship later than all of them too?)

My wife (the immigrant) needs to travel back to her home country later this month, in fact she wants to travel to Europe the day after our interview.

I have searched the web without success trying to find out if this is allowed and also what the implications and concerns are of doing so...(since she won't know if she was approved or denied until she is out of the country and wouldn't have her GC if approved before she returns - so she would return on the EAD/AP combo card and her foreign passport).

She has her EAD/AP combo card (and its valid until late this year). Her trip to Europe would be 3 weeks.

Anyone have experience with this and/or know where I should look for guidance or regulations about this?

Thanks.

Hi, if you re coming to the US after receiving your K1 visa, is it ok to come in via Toronto, given they ve been handling US immigration there since the 50s?

Or should we just make sure to come in via a mainland US city?

Thanks!

Our NOA2 has a validity period as:

Notice Type: Approval Notice Valid from 01/19/2023 to 05/18/2023

our embassy interview date is 5/24. Should we be concerned?

thanks!

Is anyone seeing this error when trying to upload your photo through the ustraveldocs DS-160 online application process?

503 (indicates that the server is not ready to handle the request. Common causes are a server that is down for maintenance or that is overloaded)