Erik

It is the red number

Excellent, thank you!!!

The date stamped on the I-94.

excellent, just wanted to make sure.

Also, where it asks for the K1 Visa number... is the K1 Visa number the red number on the botton right hand corner of the Visa? Or do they want the Control Number at the top?

Hey all,

On question 1 of the I-485 form, the very last box asks for "Expires On". What are they looking for here? The expiration date of the I-94 or of the K1 Visa itself?

Thanks!

She made Pave by the way... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

We found some in our grocery store as well, same as the picture above. Table Cream... never had heard of it before.

Excellent news! Congrats!

Hey everyone,

My fiancee and I are trying to gather up the ingredients to making a desert her Aunt makes over there in Brasil. She needs to get some "Creme de Leite" and for the life of me, I can not find the equiv. of what that would be here in the US. Or do they sell this stuff in the US?

I know it translates into Cream of Milk... but I'm clueless about cooking... help please

A week ago at my fiances interview, they only looked at a few pictures of us together, scanned over a couple hand written letters and that was it.

I really wanted to go to the interview as well, however after seeing how easy it was for her, they money saved can be used much better here now that she has arrived.

If your case is straight forward, and your documents are all correct, there shouldn't be any problems. My fiance said it was an extremely easy experience (of course, my #######-ness about paperwork being done properly probably helped a little )

There have been some in the Military that have been approved, however I haven't seen many others. We may be able to give you a better idea if we knew the situation, but of course that is not something you need to reveal.

Worse you can do, is try... just don't be shocked if they deny your request.

Best of Luck

Erik will rotten his fiancee! Good to hear all is well with you two and that she's home and safe!

Thanks everyone. Those that asked, Ananda's interview was Tuesday morning, and she had her Visa in hand on Thursday (around 3pm). She stayed in Rio for the week, so she just went back to the Consulate to pick it up. There was no problems at all.

Hi Eveyone!

Thanks for all the great advice! So, Ananda has been here for 2 days now, and I really do not know how I lived without her for so long. Everything has been incredible. It was a VERY long 2 days to get her here however.

I went to work Friday morninig at 6am, left at 3:30pm. Headed for O'Hare straight after work... my flight to Atlanta was at 9:00pm. O'Hare is about 27 miles from my work place... it took me 3 1/2 hours to get there!!! We were in the middle of a huge lightning & thunder storm... it was nasty (I'm sure Bill & Eulalia know). I got to the airport, and had to walk for what seemed like forever from the parking lot, to the terminal... so now, I am completely drenched... head to toe... fun.

After being there for about an hour, the started canceling flights... great, just what I needed. There was 5 flights from O'hare to Atlanta, 4 of them were canceled... by the grace of god, mine was the only flight that made it out that night... it was delayed for over 2 hours however.

So, I get to Atlanta at 1am, Saturday morning... Ananda is due to arrive at 5:40am. Finally 5:00 rolls around... I look at the flight board, and the flight from Rio de Janeiro is no longer listed... great... what now? Finally after 15 minutes, they rebooted they're system, and Rio was back up there... only now they were an hour behind... so ok... 6:40 it is.

The plane lands (accourding to the board), so I stand at the stairway and wait... and wait... and wait... and wait.... and.. well you get the picture. I stood there for 2 1/2 hours waiting for her to come up the stairs from Customs. I finally called Customs and asked what was going on, he told me that because of the flight delay, 3 International Flights had landed at the same time... so there was over 1,000 people being processed through Immigrations at the same time. He said, Ananda had just finished, and she should be up stairs in a few minutes. Finally, my beautiful fiancee came up those stairs.

Ok, so I had booked us a flight out of Atlanta at 10:00am... figured, hey... 5 hours should be enough of a lay over... well, I was wrong... very wrong. We went to get her back, a HUGE bright pink bag... I think you can guess what happened next... yep, they lost it. So, now it is 9:00am, only 1 hour to catch our flight back home. I told the lady to take my address, and send the bags to the Milwaukee airport when they found them, we didn't have time to wait.

So, we ran to get our tickets, go through security, and get to the Gate. We got there exactly when they were boarding... well... when they were suppose to board. The flight back to Chicago was now delayed, because of the fiasco at O'Hare the night before... so we waited another hour... finally we got on our flight, and headed home. Then, we drive the hour home from O'Hare. I had not slept the whole time... I was dead.

We drove up to Milwaukee last night at picked up her bags... so all is good now. She's already connected with a good friend of mine, and my friend is going to try to learn Portuguese, so she can understand Ananda. But, they went on just fine for 5 hours last night. They are going shopping next weekend, and were going there for Turkey Day, and X-mas.

My family is heavily involved with Ananda. My mother is already spoiling her to death. Box, after box of "surprises" and presents have been showing up at our door. Mostly from my mother and grandmother... and accourding to them, there is already many more on they're way. This morning, we were woken up to a door bell... my mother sent Ananda a huge vase with a dozen red roses, and a whole bunch of red, white and blue balloons... with a card that said, "Welcome home, we all love you very much".... I had no idea my mother was doing any of this. She also made a huge scrap book, all of pictures of me and my family throughout my life, and sent it here for Ananda. Ananda hasn't stopped smiling and singing since she's been here, so I am extremely happy she feels so comfortable.

I took the day off today, and made her Eggs, Bacon, and Toast for breakfast.. then made her some home made Chili, and Chocolate Chip Cookies this afternoon She's on the couch listening to her new iPod, singing away.... god I love this woman.

Next week we start the English learning, and she wants to start at a Gym.

Her interview was extremely easy she said. They only asked her a hand full of questions, the same ones as normal. They looked at a few pictures, and that was it. She was in and out of the Consulate pretty quickly. Thanks to everyone here, it went as smoothly as it possibly could have.

Ok, sorry for the long post, I'm a boy in love, couldn't help it.

Sorry to hear this Joedog...

How about moving to the Ukraine?

Congrats!!!

Thanks everyone, we are just overjoyed right now

Ananda said she met another VJ member at the Consulate, and they were also approved!

waiting for the news, Erik

APPROVED!!!!

Ananda emailed me this morning and told me that her interview was a success, she was approved.

She did not get into great detail (poor thing was dead tired) but I will try to post something about her interview experience after I speak with her tonight. From what I can tell, it seems to have gone very smoothly, and quite fast. I think she was only there for 2 hours or so.

There were a few other people from VJ going for they're interviews today, I can't wait to here from them today as well!

Thanks again to everyone that has helped us through this journey. It is greatly appreciated, and I'm sure saved us a lot of heartache.

She will be home on Saturday morning

Ok, trying not to panic here.

I'm speaking to my fiance right now, both form DS-156's they sent her were in Portuguese... she did not get any DS-156 forms in English. I had her check the dates on the papers, and they are dated 09/30/2007, the same as the new ones... so they aren't out of date.

My only concern is that they say on the site now, that these papers must be done in English, but if they only sent her copies in Portuguese, and she answered them in Portuguese what are we to do?

Hopefully they will take them as they are, seeing how they sent them to her like that.

Wait a minute, my fiances interview is in the morning in Rio, and we did not get any notification of this from the Consulte. She has the paper they sent her in the mail

What the hell are we suppose to do?

Thanks everyone, she was able to get everything done with only 30 minutes left to spare. She's burnt out, but ready to get this finished tomorrow.

I'll def. let you all know as soon as I find out.

Yesterday Ananda arrived in Rio, as she was getting out of the Taxi in front of her Hotel, a man ran by and grabbed one of her bags and threw her on the ground. Thank god, she is alright. Apparently the guy was standing at the corner of the street, waiting for a "tourist" to show up so he could make his move, because she said it happened so quick... some god damn people.

She then told me he grabbed her "little" bag... this little bag was the bag/case she always kept all our paperwork, her passport etc. I just about fell on the floor.

Then she told me it was a different bag, and she had all her paperwork. She lost some personally items, and half the money I sent her there with. This was a small problem, as she had her Medical Exam today, and went to pay for the Visa today. She no longer had enough money to pay for both.

I Western Unioned her some money first thing this morning, and by the grace of god she was able to get everything complete that she needed to today.

So, 8:00am tomorrow it's interview time...

Needless to say, I haven't slept in over a day now, and my nerves are completely shot. I can't even begin to think what I would have done if something had happened to her, or if he grabbed the bag with all our paperwork...

The advice was given by me, Laura, not Luis, as he wouldn't know how to help since he's the USC. You seem to be going the right way, and I am sure she'll appreciate all that you're doing for her. It seems like a great start. Hopefully she'll make friends and be busy enough to not feel down too much.

Oh yeah I figured, I just used the first name of the screen name... sorry about that

Thanks Luis

I will certainly never be upset when she gets depressed, or homesick. I completely understand what she is giving up (I can't say I understand what she is feeling, because I've never been in the situation). I am an extremely patient person, and have already told her not to fear, we will get through her adjustment day by day together.

She has never driven (well not a car), so I guess I'm the lucky one that gets to show her how (oh lordy, my poor clutch). She does want to work, but understands that could be awhile.

I've already got the Gym thing lined up for her, and shortly after she's here I'm going to get her into English Classes. She's almost as much of a music lover as I am, so concerts will be a great thing for us to go do. There are so many bands she's always dreamt of seeing live, but never was able to. I did surprise her recently by telling her I got tickets to see her favorite band of all time (Guns 'n' Roses) at the end of November.

I've already scoped out all the Brasilian restaurants in the area, and also found a little Brasilian store were you can buy authentic Brasilian ingredients. There is also Brasilian Cultural Center here that I'm hoping we can get involved in.

So, I've been trying to think of as much as possible... but figured someone actually going through it, would know much better than I. Even if it's something small... just anything to make her a little more comfortable (for example, she listens to music just about 24x7, so I bought her an iPod Nano, and loaded all her favorite bands albums on it for her, so she can use it to work out, or when she goes for walks, or whenever). Little things like that I guess...

To all the ladies from Brasil that have recently arrived in the US, I was just wondering how the adjustment was coming along?

I'm trying to think of as many things as possible to do before Ananda arrives to make her as comfortable as possible, I know it will be a huge change for her. Any suggestions or anything that helped you a little with the adjustment? (or beginning of the adjustment).

Does anyone know if a drug screening is a part of the medical exam that is conducted for the K1 Visa?

They do blood tests... so I would say yes

Ananda will be on a plane at 5:25am on her way to Rio. She'll have her Medical Exam on Monday, then the big Interview day on Tuesday. If all goes well, she'll finally be back in my arms Saturday morning.

What a long strange trip it's been... god willing, this part of the journey will be coming to an end in 2 days.

Thanks to everyone here for all the help, it has been invaluable.