wowswift

ya for airports, austin is smaller than houston or dallas. houston probably is cheaper to live in than dallas though, im not sure since i never wanted to live in either. i guess shop around your options. there's san antionio too, not sure how big their airport is but its a nice city.

Austin area...only cuz its the least "texas like" part of texas.

OK. I see... That's the largest city in Texas, right? And I guess the most expensive one?(that's usually how it works...) I don't care if the rent is more etc , I just want to live in a city that has a lot to offer... (I'm not a small town girl really) Thank you for your comment!

not the largest and i don't think its too expensive to live there, which is why i will be moving there since california is too expensive (i want to buy my own house, way more for you money in austin and surrounding areas). austin's moto is "keep austin weird". i guess its considered weird since there is a good mix of people from all over. There are decent places to live in austin and i found that they pay people good there (i made more when i worked in texas than i ever did in california). of course that also depends on what you do for a living, and obv now the economy issue. and austin doesn't get hurricanes

Austin area...only cuz its the least "texas like" part of texas.

Hehe, these stories are great! I'm amazed at how many of us have accidentally fallen in love with people we've met on video games.

My almost-husband and I are both members of an NHL message board, so we said a few words to each other on the board during the Canucks/Stars playoff series in '07, but that was about it. After the series was over, there was a discussion on the board about video games, and I posted my Xbox Gamertag on there, and I eventually received a friend request from him which said something like 'hey, it's so-and-so from the hockey board', so I accepted it. Then one day we were both on Xbox Live at the same time, so I sent him a message to see if he wanted to try a game of NHL 07. It took forever to get the game servers to cooperate long enough to finish an actual game, but we kept trying. He seemed like a cool guy, and I thought his accent was hilarious, so we had a good time talking while his Dallas Stars were beating the ####### out of my Vancouver Canucks. We'd send each other messages through the hockey board to coordinate game times, and eventually he downloaded MSN messenger and we talked on there occasionally. After a while, we were talking pretty much every day, and eventually exchanged phone numbers and stuff. We both thought there was some kind of a spark, but we tried to be realistic about things and just tried to ignore it, but that didn't work very well. Eventually, last spring, I decided to take a road trip for a few weeks to go see him. I figured that if I got there and it felt weird, I would just drive off somewhere else, enjoy the rest of my vacation, and that would be fine. Disappointing, but fine. But of course it wasn't weird at all, and we had a really amazing time together. It was so hard to drive away!! And now here we are, preparing for our wedding on Friday!

lol mine is almost the same as yours. except we both post on a poker forum and play online. i got an xbox and added friends from the board, he was one of them. We started playing GOW nonstop together, i was obviously a sucker for the accent. I guess the only difference about my visit to meet him the first time, i never drove away and got married and hibernated in canada until we got to go to the US. and yes, we're a bit crazy lol

oh i tried to edit before i got cut off, but don't worry about smog. sounds like your cars are new. my car is old and still passes in one of the hardest parts. smog testing isn't so bad lol.

Can't speak for California, but here are my results for Texas.

1) Crossed the border. They gave me a form and told me to keep it for when I registered later on.

2) Texas inspection/emissions test. They needed insurance in order to do the test. My Canadian insurance was fine. California has way stricter emissions testing than Texas. But a 2008 car will pass no problem. You might not even need an emissions test if it's that new.

3) Registered car with state, got TX plates..... They needed US insurance in order for this to work. Noticed that insurance isn't tied to the license plate here. Signed up for US car insurance even though I still had Canadian license plates. Gave them the form from the border. Gave them a receipt from my inspection/emissions test. A few other forms that they'll tell you you need to fill out. Once that was done, they gave me Texas plates and a sticker. Car was 100% legal at this point.

4) Went and got a Texas driver's license. (I'd have thought this would have been first, but they make you register all your vehicles in TX before you're allowed to get a TX driver's license). California may have different steps for all this stuff. But I don't know.

cali isn't much different than texas. same fiasco, maybe different steps. go online though. DMV for cali is good.

but ya you get a form at the border. i guess they are supposed to make sure you own the car, but where my husband crossed, they didn't bother. They just made sure the car was there (we crossed in maine). but in cali, you gotta have cali insurance before you register....again this is on their website, and they will make you smog it too.

but yeah almost the same as cali, i've done cali and texas lol not much differnet, just easier emmission standards in texas and some parts of california

I was surprised to get my Green Card in the mail today. That took just under 4 weeks.

I am still waiting for my Social Security Card. I figured I better just apply for it which I did last week

Sly

lol we keep getting welcome letters, so i figure greencard must be soon, but no SS card. i think we're taking the trip monday to get that

yes you should be able to, of course depending on how long many hours and how long you worked. like tom and tata said, check out the website. or call them

nope

im a psycho worrier lol. he obviously doesn't care. at least they knew how to import a car lol

ok just making sure. thanks

Ok, since we crossed in Maine, the guy that activated our visa never did one before. Anyways, was he supposed to use the red stamp? he used the regular blue one that says "admitted" and then put CR-1 as the class, and under but a year later as the expiration date, and then wrote the A#. But also on the visa, its says "Upon endorsement serves as temporary I-551 evidencing permanent residence for 1 year"

so i guess im just wonder if its ok, or did he need the red stamp?

1 desktop, 2 laptops, 2 xboxes

I used my mom's address and since she was a joint sponsor, I just had her fill out her own I-864 and made it through NVC. As far as domicle, I hit that problem at the interview. I guess since I used my mom's address for everything. Anyways, I did have to prove domicile after the interview and they asked me to get a lease with my mother, which I did, and I sent in all the other stuff that I brought to the interview anyways that they wouldn't look at and was approved after they got everything.

we crossed in houlton, maine and it sounds like the same as trailmix's experience. basically, they didn't know what to do. he went thru the entire brown envelope, just looking at it (yay at least i found out what was in it lol) and then took out the manual and they starred at it for almost an hour then decided to just stamp the visa after having two other people looking over it after him (i did hear him say to the other officer it was his first one he ever did). we had a uhaul, we had a list. so husband filled out a declaration form and he stapled the list to that. they never looked in the uhaul. also, imported a SUV, that seemed more familiar to them and we handed over the compliance letter, and the officer took care of everything and gave us the paperwork and sent us on our way.

I sent from canada thru fedex...there is an address if you use fedex or ups on the info part of the form, and someone will sign for it

Today was moving day, so my husband took a little video of our travels across Newfoundland... (click to watch, about a min. long)

we only made it a little over half way, but the ferry is cancelled tonight so we stopped lol. video is before it got worse too

You don't have to take another tax return, they should have the copy you sent already.

You will also need the canada post envelope - which you probably already have? For them to mail your visa to you.

Good luck

Thank you trailmix. How about some proof of authenticity of our marriage. We did not submit any picture or anything, just a joint bank account details. Thats about it. Should I take some pictures of us together, phone records, flight itineraries , etc etc?

might as well take them. never know if they will ask, but good to have if they do. though, they never saw a single picture of my husband and I together.

they like to reply to emails on mondays it seems.

woooo congrats.

weee my first vent. standard hubby takes the truck in to get some minor things done before move, they recommend scrapping it so now im shopping for a new truck 4 days before we planned on taking off. oh and his passport isn't even here yet, so can't leave anyways lolol. this is fun.

ok I'm bumping this cuz i have a weirdo question. my husband has a leverage loan that pays into RRSP. due to the crappy market, stopping the leverage loan is not an option. I know he has to claim his RRSP in the US in the future, no biggie...but is he even allowed to keep paying into RRSPs as a non-resident? And does this mean he has to file Canadian taxes forever?

Did you ever get an answer to this question?

What I have been told by my financial advisor and accountant is this: You can continue to hold your RSP in Canada as a US resident BUT you cannot make any new purchases into it. I believe this would also include reinvesting dividends if you hold funds that routinely do so. They would just have to go into a cash account to hold. You are also very restricted with regards to switching funds within the same company. It becomes very important then to make sure your holdings are those you are comfortable keeping for the long haul because the option to sell and switch isn't avaiable after you leave. Of course if you want you can withdraw from the RSP and pay the resulting taxes.

Just another thing to make the immigration process so interesting

yeah, i figured that too. i guess the extra money that goes into RRSP's are gonna have to just go straight back to the leverage loan. kinda sucks though, was like free rrsp money lol. i want him to take it out cuz its not a lot but i don't think he knows what to do with it yet. i think its gonna end up sitting

bank statements too, that would help, but what you got is pretty good. i think they hate the visit right after another, seems like you're gonna be out there. but other than that, just prove how you pay the mortgage...i think you should be ok.

Thank you All,

Just posting an update -- 15 business days after submission of the requested paperwork I received notification that the visa has been approved. So now we are just waiting for the passport.

Many thanks once again...

P.S. Just out of curiousity -- how long does it take on average to receive the visa after approval?

its supposed to be 2 days (according to the mailer thing that you gave them) which might be a good average, but this is holiday and bad storms. They sent ours on the 24th...and we're in Newfoundland, haven't gotten it yet. you might get your before hubby does lol