frenzyheart

Got his card today! =)

Was just settling in to go to bed when my phone went off.

"On August 8, 2013, we ordered production of your new card. Please allow 30 days for your card to be mailed to you."

YAHOO! I'll update again when we get his card. Good luck everyone!

So.. I tore apart all the papers I have... went through both cars... and I'm freaking out because I can't find it anywhere... and my husband goes "Oh, it might be in my passport."

Guess where it was?

Can I throw something at him now? :|

Either way, we're still set on initial review. Hopefully we get an approval soon, too.

YAY! Congrats!!!! Enjoy your time in Greece!

In other news: I attempted to hunt down my hubby's biometrics letter, and he seems to think they kept it. Either way... we don't have it, so we don't have our case number! GAAAH.

Biometrics: 5/23

NOA! (check still hasn't cashed, but it's okay.) Receipt date: 4/9/13

Carry a passport at all times? LOL...sounds a little extreme to me. I dont think USCIS is that strict, it isn't like he is gonna get pulled over by border patrol for no reason and asked for documentation.

That's what he told us, because if caught "out of status", it can end up getting pretty nasty, because more often than not, they will punish first and ask questions later. It's not just border patrol that can cause issues. Say you get pulled over for whatever reason. They take your ID, find out that you aren't a US citizen, ask to see green card... OH LOOK. You're showing them a green card that is technically expired. Can you prove right there, other than saying it, that you are in the country legally? Nope. And I can guarantee that they aren't going to simply take your word for it, as much as we'd all love for it to be like that. In my opinion, It's NOT a hassle to carry the passport with you, even if just for the sake of knowing that you can 100% prove your status NO MATTER WHAT situation may arise, and even if it never happens... well, you still know. It is always better to be safe than sorry, and given that it was a SUPERVISOR that told us this? Yeah. I think we'll be listening to him. But you go ahead and do what you want if you think you'll be okay.

My check was cashed yesterday.

I have a silly question. What is USCIS Receipt Date? I just noticed it on someone's reply and I am wondering how you can look it up.

Plus, has anyone signed up for status updates on the official website? I have signed up and it did not even ask me for my A# or receipt #. That's strange, right?

I'm assuming you filed at VSC, then? More information so we can add you to the list!!

As for the Receipt Date - that'd be the date on your NOA1 when you get it.

Everyone. Please. I see a LOT of people worried about trips and green card expiry. I will continue to iterate this: if your green card expires and you have NOT received your NOA1 yet (it extends your green card by a year), and it's within 2-3 days of the expiry date (EXAMPLE: it's May 5th, and your green card expires on May 7th) then MAKE AN INFOPASS APPOINTMENT AS SOON AS YOU POSSIBLE CAN. They will give you a stamp in your passport (or should, anyways) that will extend your green card expiry date. My husband got a stamp in his passport today, and it extends his green card for another year. The only downside is that you will HAVE to carry your passport with you at ALL TIMES until you receive your NOA1, and once you get NOA1, then you'll carry that with you until you get your 10 year green card. This is what the guy at our immigration office told my husband and I when we spoke with him, and he was a supervisor, so I'm pretty much betting that we can trust that that's what's needed.

No not yet.. It would be nice just to see the check cleared..

I have to fly out on the middle of June, and my GC expired 10th of May. I don't know if I should make an infopass appointment now or wait till May.

Make the infopass appointment as CLOSE to the expiry date as you can. When we went in last week, they told us that they could extend it for us, but it has to be within a few days of it expiring, so he's going back today to get the extension.

no infopass appointments available for us anyways...guess we gotta just hope she doesnt get asked for it

Just grab an appointment for the closest date you can. If your card expires before that, you can try and go in without an appointment, and maybe they will see you on an emergency basis. Don't hold me to that, because I really don't know, but if you're close enough to the office, it's worth a shot. Better they know you're trying to make sure everything is on the level than for another source to request your now expired card, and thus have all that hassle... you know what I"m saying???

Hello everyone,

I have a question and if anybody could help it will be great! I am trying to make an appointment for info pass next week since my green card expires on 28th but i still haven't gotten anything from USCIS and i want to be on the safe side, but when i go to the page and it asks me what kind of service i want to sign up for, the options are: 1) You need Service on a case that has already been filed; 2)You want to file an application in person; 3)You need information or other services;

4)You need a form and a few other, but honestly i am not sure which one i have to choose? Sorry, if the question is stupid but i am a little confused!

For my husband's, I just did #3. It will take you to a page that says "We'd rather you use our website" blah blah blah... but down below that, it will say something along the lines of "If you still need an appointment, click here", and then it will take you through the appointment set up. Once you've got it set up, just print out the confirmation page (you HAVE to have it) and make sure you take your passport and photo ID with you. We were in and out in less than 20 minutes. (Times may vary; we're from Des Moines... very small. LOL.)

A quick glance around various forums here shows that CSC has apparently taken a coffee break - not just for us ROC'ers, but K1, too... hopefully it's not an extended one.

Also, while they might count from the day they receive the application, it's still better to have legal documentation of your status in the US. 99.9% of officials will jump first and ask questions later. If you're stopped for whatever reason, and you can't prove your status right away, it will cause you a whole lot of unnecessary issues, time, and stress for everyone involved. Always front load, always have documentation, and always be safe rather than sorry. Make an infopass appointment as close to the date as you can, and get that stamp, because we have NO CLUE how long this coffee break at CSC will last, and I'd hate for there to be any problems. You might not have been asked for it in the past, but that doesn't mean it can't (or won't) happen. Like I stated previously: SAFE rather than SORRY.

Well, we had our infopass appointment this morning. Hubby missed out on 3 hours of work just to find out that, while they CAN and WILL give him an extension stamp, it has to be closer to the expiry date. So pretty much, if we don't hear anything by the 24th, we have to make ANOTHER appointment for the 26th, and his GC expires on the 28th. It would have been pretty nice if the lady I talked to at the National Service Center would have told us that little tidbit of knowledge. Money is pretty tight as it is, and losing 3 hours for nothing doesn't tickle either of our fancies. We also found out that they haven't even put it in the computer yet... so it's just sitting on someone's desk at CSC while they take a coffee break, lol.

Blaaaah. You know... we didn't have any issues with K1 or AOS... I should have figured ROC would bunk it all up, lol...

I sent my I 751 last week too. I will add mine to the list too.

My check is not cashed yet until today, 4/16/13. I am really starting to get worried.

We are in the same boat, they received application on monday 8th, no Noa1 or check cashed. But on my AOS i sent on march 26th and got Noa1 on 22nd April, so im hopeful we will all here something soon

THIS makes me feel LOADS better, actually. I'm not the only one! Welcome to the waiting boat, LOL. (I hate this boat.)

Did you send your package with a tracking number (i.e. do you know when it was received?)

The date on my NOA1 was 4/3 (the same day when it was received, according to USPS tracking), but our check wasn't cashed until 4/8.

Yeah, they got it. I got the card in the mail a few days ago. We went ahead and set up an infopass appointment for Thursday since it's so close to his expiry date.

Still waiting for my check to be cashed... and still waiting for NOA1. Hopefully we hear something this week, because if we don't, we're going to have to make an infopass appointment or something to see about an extension as his green card expires on the 26th of this month. :|

Adding Frenzyheart to the list. I assumed you filed with CSC if you're in Iowa.

Yeah, I am. I thought I had put that. Sorry! LOL. (Super tired when I wrote the post... lol)

Just adding my name to the list. Mailed off on 04/04; delivered 04/08.

I cross once a month from Michigan to Ontario at Port Huron to visit my fiance and its pretty painless. They ask "Where are you going? Why are you going there? When will you come back? Do you have a job? Where do you work?" things like that. I'd definitely bring marriage cert and as long as the Canadian Citizen has AP I think you're good to go.

Good luck! And have a great trip!

P.S. When I came back from Canada on Canada Day this past time they asked why I was visiting Canada. I said was visiting my fiance. They asked if I was bringing him home with me. I laughed and said no and he said have a good day. Quickest border crossing ever!!!

Yeah, we've crossed there before (it's our main crossing area) but we haven't done it in so long that I didn't know if anything major had changed!

They asked me my status in the US and that was about it. Once they asked to see my GC which I thought was curious since they were the Cdn dudes

Otherwise nothing major.

PS - I wouldn't worry about your passport not matching your state id - all you need is the marriage license like you said, no biggie

Yay! Thank you so much for your help! Yeah, I figure we won't have many, if any, issues going into Canada, (we've only been pulled into secondary on the Canadian side once, and that was due to my student visa, lol) but still better to err on the side of caution than anything.

Well, it's been almost 2 years to date since my husband (Canadian) and I(USC) crossed back into the US and got married, and we're FINALLY visiting Ontario again, making our usual journey through Michigan and crossing at Sarnia/Port Huron. I'm curious though, and want to ask: to those that have crossed there recently - anything new or different? We're already batting a thousand because my passport is still in my maiden name, but we're taking our marriage license and IDs and all that fun stuff to prove the name change, so I'm hoping we won't have too many problems. But yeah.. I heard something back about them asking new questions or something about his status in the US (permanent resident, obviously) so I figured I'd go ahead and ask to play it safe!

Thanks so much, in advance! Hope you all are well! <3

"A WILD FRENZYHEART APPEARS!" ….

I now bring you all …. the longest update post known to mankind!

The last time I posted, we were amidst all the issues with our house catching on fire, and everything that came with that. The fire happened on June 6th, and we spent the rest of June and all of July with absolutely NO power, and the first part of August with little power. We were living in our home, and temperatures were roughly 100-110 degrees, with the heat index shooting up to around 130 degrees on any given day. I am literally not joking when I say that I never, ever want to visit a desert. The reason we were without power for so long? The electrical company that was chosen by our county to do the work decided that we weren't important enough to fix right away, despite that, by county contract, they have 30 days from the day they win the contract to finish the work. Not only did they go way over their 30 days, but they did a crappy job to boot. It just BARELY passed city inspection regulations, and they had to come back in and fix some of the ####### they did! At first, they refused to do the work -- if I recall, the excuse they gave was "What does it matter to them anyways? They didn't pay for it. Besides, look at the neighborhood they live in." or something very close to that. The county (who was ready to pull their contract at that point) told them that we raised over half of the funds in order to get the repairs done, and it shouldn't matter where we live -- they were paid to do a job, and they should do it right, and if they continued to refuse to come back and correct things, then they just wouldn't get paid at all. Lo and behold, they suddenly decided to come back and fix it. The county also pulled another contractor in to fix the gaping hole in the wall where they installed the new electrical box… because we had SNAKES poking their heads in on every side at any given time. YES, SNAKES. Now, the basement is currently my husband and I's living area… so SNAKES INSIDE ARE BAD. Things are finally resembling how they were before, though my parent's bedroom is still needing to be finished up (they have a whole wall that's just being held in place by their bed) and there is still a gaping hole in the ceiling of the hallway that the firefighters tore out -- but on the positive side, my mother FINALLY found a couch to replace our old one (we've been using a futon in our living room since we had to toss our couch out) so her living room is finally "back to normal". She was so happy when she brought it home, too… I could have cried.

Outside of the fire… well, things have been busy with me. I'm almost done with schooling -- at least at this school. I finally decided I'm going to transfer to a 4 year university and get my bachelor's degree in mass communication (emphasis on photography) and hopefully something will come from that. I've been doing random photo shoots for family, though I haven't really been getting paid for them. I was working at Walmart full time, but due to the distance and such, I ended up quitting. Matt's job has been going WONDERFULLY. He's just wrapping up the summer season, so we're getting into all the fun stuff with deciding whether he'll do some other kind of job or just take unemployment until the spring. Luckily, unemployment isn't considered a "charge" -- his isn't because he lost his job, either. He just doesn't work during the winter! We keep joking about moving somewhere where he will work all year long, down south or something like that. The only thing that's really stopping us is money, my schooling, and the fact that he doesn't really want to learn lawn care all over again (things are different in different places -- he got lucky between Ontario and Iowa because they are relatively the same, landscape/grass/etc wise). He's advancing pretty well, too. We're hoping they will promote him to a higher position when work resumes next Spring. It's been nice not having to worry about money issues, too! He usually works between 55-65 hours a week, and gets paid weekly. We've had little to no money problems! (Relief!!!!)

We recently celebrated our one year anniversary, too! We were planning to go to Minnesota, but ended up not being able to. We did, however, go out to dinner (Applebees, LOL. It's where we went on our wedding day) and I got him some Manga that he wanted, and he got me the most beautiful necklace… EEK. I don't even know, lol. Things are amazing!!! We are still living at my parents, but we are MOVING(!!!) finally at the beginning of February. SUPER excited about that!!! It will be nice to have some PRIVACY and just live by ourselves! No babies yet, but for us, that's a good thing. We aren't ready to be parents, nor do we want to be at this time. We want to get me through school and get through the final stages of his immigration stuff, so we're not looking to try having a baby until we're at least 32 or so. Seems a little old, but that's okay -- we only want one, lol. I'm still working on losing weight, too. Can't say I've been too successful, but at least I'm trying.

Anyways, I'm so sorry that I haven't updated lately. I hope you all are doing well!!! If I disappear again, you can usually message me on here and I'll get the email. (That's what brought me here tonight -- survey or something! lol)

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take care everyone!!!!! <3

Well, we did it once before when we were waiting for NOA2s and I guess we can do it again. Alright, everyone! Fingers and toes to the electricians for Frenzy, pronto!

We got ya covered.

<3 <3 Thanks, Kayla. (and everyone else, too)

Frenzy, my attic too did the same thing 3 years ago and until this day I'm still paranoid every time I hear the smoke detector go off. I low exactly what you're going through and I pray that it will be resolved ASAP! In the mean time just remember your blessings.

I've learned so much about the strength I have within in the past few weeks, that I can't even begin to explain it. I am constantly counting my blessings. It could have been worse, but it wasn't... and I think that's what is getting me through.

Frenzy I'm so sorry to hear about what's going on with your house. That kind of thing absolutely terrifies me but I'm glad you have a wonderful group of friends and family that were able to raise the money for you. Hopefully by now you have power and everything has worked out.

Wish I could say we have power .... but we don't. We're a bit closer, sure... but the electricians haven't even come out here and started yet... so how close we truly are is unknown. :/

Others may pipe in and correct me if I'm wrong... or add to what I say, but I believe you can file for AOS to get your green card. I'd think that, so long as you have co-mingled your assets and have loads of proof that you're in a legitimate marriage, then it should be no issue!

Again, I welcome anyone to add or correct me, please! (Hopefully I'm not giving advice that's too far off.... lol)

My last post caused the lock! Oops. Haha. Guess it had to happen. Not sure if anyone even got the chance to catch it, so I will go ahead and copy/paste it... along with my update on the whole situation:

First off, I'd love to congratulate Krystle on her little one!! Glad to hear that you all are doing well. I would LOVE to see pics eventually! I'm sure he's totally adorable!!!

I hope all of your preparations are helpful, Kayla!! I know you want to be a momma, and I pray it all works for you.

Things are going well with everyone else, too, it would seem.... I hate to be the one that drags it all down, but alas....

Things were going super awesome. Matt loves his job and the pay is way better than we could have even imagined. I was actually being optimistic for once, and had even started dieting again - with positive results!!! It was all great....until June 7th. We've been living without power since then because old wiring in our attic decided it didn't like being old anymore, and ignited. Luckily, we were all home at the time and my mom (having the almost paranoid -in a good way- keen sense of smell) got the fire department out here just in time. We didn't lose the house to the fire, but there is a lot of smoke damage and, of course, the lack of electricity, and our hallway/stairway/attic were completely torn out by the fire department. Half hour more, and the house would have been gone. My parents went to the county to try and get some help for the electrical repairs (they certainly don't have it, and neither do Matt and I) and are now trying to raise the necessary funding to coincide with the amount they can help us with. (the bid was $5,100, and they can only give us $1,190...) Matt's family has branched out to all of their friends asking to help, and we've had friends on WoW donate - it's been almost unreal. More strangers have helped us in the past week and a half than some of our own family members. So that's where we stand at this point. We are trying to raise as much as we can by Monday, and the county inspector guy will talk to his supervisor and see if they can't just give us the rest of it. If they can, then the electrical guys will be in on Tuesday to fix it all, but if they can't, work won't start until we raise the rest of the necessary funding. We raised $440 in less than 24 hours, which is definitely helpful, but I doubt we are going to raise the rest, or even break 1k, so we have our fingers crossed that we get that "directors exception" and that they help with the rest of it. We've been without power for 12 days now....and I gotta say - IT SUCKS, lol.

Anyways, sorry to drag you all down, but I was just hoping that in telling you, you all could keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Maybe the more we have, the more likely that good things will happen!

Take care everyone, and I will update you all again soon.

And now... for the update!

We are, unfortunately, still without power (2 weeks and counting now), but we are a bit closer to getting it back. Our family and friends have raised over $1500 now, and we are just waiting to find out if we are going to get the whole "director's exception" for the rest of it. I want to be optimistic and say that we should have power by Sunday evening... buuuut, I'm going to be reasonable and say that we are HOPING to have it back by next Wednesday. I'm getting to a breaking point, though; my boredom is slowly eating away at my mind. I don't really have anything else to do, so I've been playing The Sims whenever we have the power generator up.... but even that is getting boring, lol. Not too much longer, though... hopefully. FINGERS CROSSED! Once the power is back, then we can start repairing all the damage. My mom's room has to be completely gutted and re-done because of all the smoke damage... so things should be interesting for awhile.

Anyways, I hope you all are doing well, and hopefully life's little happenings are staying good for you all!