AdamW

This whole thing is a pain in the a$$. No way around it though.

Yes, every time I think about this process it pisses me off for some reason. I was talking the other day about how unfair the entire system is to honest people.

If you are posting or are sharing on an internet forum, expect to get opinions. Also I have read lots of Anya's post over the years and they can be quite helpful.

To be honest just reading what you wrote, first thing I thought was your wifes friend wants to come to the US, and stay. Why would someone quit a decent job, to come to the US with an un-certain future, at some point, the kid is going to be old enough, and she is going to be of little use. I am sure the embassy will think the same thing.

Ok, to be honest, nothing was really thought out. That was some idea we had and I just threw it out. Found out real quick it wasn't going to happen so I let it go. It was not big deal, was brought up several weeks ago and did not know people thought it weird.

+1

Thanks. People are getting ultra sensitive around here. We're all in the same proverbial boat. Anya has been one of the best.

Yes, it is my time of the month. Very sensitive right now.

why would a manager position for a major hotel person wants to become a nanny or even help out in the house? even to help a friend but to quit a job to help a friend with her baby? That's a weird situation IMO.

There are many live-in or live-out nanny, you only need to search in your area. Talk to mom's group in your area for ideas and recommendation. Trying to get someone here for childcare is hard if they are not an aupair. I hardly think there's aupair from Thailand anymore...hardly any Thai aupair goes home after the year end...

Who said anything about coming here to just help out with no pay. You obviously don't know anything about my situation and to say the least my financial situation or personal situation so please leave your "weird situation" comments off the board.

got it, so you will be applying for a b2 visa then? as i'm sure you know tourist visas out of thailand are extremely hard to come by. she will have to prove very very strong ties to home. is your wife's friend an au pair already? if so then that might make things different.

See, that is where I think the problem will come in. I know she will never get a tourist visa and she is not an au pair now. She is a manager for a major hotel there so no experience in child care. I am still researching options but doesn't look like it will be easy.

my SIL was an au pair for a little over a year, she wasn't here in san francicso but was placed in seattle. i can probably answer some questions for you. are you going through an agency or trying to bring a family member over to help?

Thanks for your reply. No, it is not a family member but is a close friend of my wife's. I work away from home (overseas) and need someone home to help her. We are planning the family (kids) so I am pre-planning the help stage LOL I have looked at the agencies but really didn't want to do the stranger au pair so thought about her friend. Thanks.

Anyone had any experiences bringing nanny from Thailand to USA?

I tried like 5 different times using my BoA card online and on the phone. No dice.

That's strange, I used Air Asia Thailand but had to show credit card when I got there but it was out of Bangkok. They are amazing sometimes when it comes to the credit card situation. Good luck.

With Skype-to-go, you don't even need a data plan to make calls to your skype contacts from a cell phone.

You are correct but she uses the Wifi in the house anyway so doesn't eat up the data plan at all. They force you to have some sort of data plan with the Iphone but... anyway, Skype works great for us.

i used voipdiscount for about a year, it was cheap, but not particularly reliable. Luckily we signed up for a skype plan that allows us to call Thailand unlimited for $5.95/month. They don't offer it anymore but we get to keep the plan. Using Skype-To-Go we can (and always do) make our Skye calls via a cell phone. It's ulta-reliable. I tried Vonage a few times. It was too expensive, not reliable, and the customer service sucked. Not sure how they stay in business.

This is what we use, wife uses skype unlimited and just signs into skype on her Iphone and uses her phone as normal by using Skype. Works great and no big phone bill!!

LOL. Yes your results may vary But that's what this thread is for.

On a separate note I now have a list of things that may ease the transition for your loved one when he/she arrives here:

1) Rice Cooker - this is a must. I bought one at Sears for $30 that is working great so far (Mekong Plaza, my closest Asian Grocery Store, wanted $100+).

Same here. Bought ours at Walmart since they wanted over $100 USD at the local Asian market.

2) "Thai Keyboard Stickers with White Lettering on Transparent Background" found on Amazon.com for $5.77 with shipping sold by 4KEYBOARD. This will turn any standard computer keyboard into a Thai keyboard

3) Download the free Thai language pack for Windows XP/Vista (this allows you to switch between Roman and Thai language on the computer by clicking on an arrow on the far right side of your Start Bar in Windows). Unfortunately, if you have Windows 7 you have to upgrade to Windows Ultimate in order to download/install any language packs.

4) Thai Satellite for Thai News/Soap Operas (I mentioned the specifics in an earlier thread and there are alternatives to a satellite dish).

5) "Bidet BB-50: Hand-held bidet with room temperature water and adjustable pressure" offered from Amazon for $45.50 with shipping. This is the popular "Bum Gun" found everywhere in Thailand. It comes with all the necessary hardware to go between the water hookup and your toilet's tank and mounts on the wall. This one has held up well so far for me.

I laughed so hard when I read this one. My wife told me I would hook one of these up ASAP when we got back but so far I have managed to avoid doing this. Explained to her what an errant shot of water does to sheetrock. Did not really go into details that bathrooms had water resistant sheetrock though.

6) Some kind of clothes drying rack or setup some clothes lines. Mimi is not a fan of clothes drying machines (I don't think they're popular in Thailand but someone can correct me if I'm wrong). My socks and underwear are OK in the dryer but for the more delicate stuff she prefers the old fashioned method.

Told my wife that the homeowners does not allow this (they don't outside) but asked her the other day why she doesn't handwash her undies anymore and dry them and she just laughed. So apparently my wife does not care about not being "HISO" so both my dryer and dishwasher get used. LOL

I'm sure there is something I'm forgetting but I think that covers the important stuff. Obviously you don't HAVE to buy this stuff but I think it will make for a much easier transition for your significant other.

Mike

Does anyone know if a student loan has to be paid off before a person can emigrate? My fiance has an outstanding student loan balance to the Thai Government of approximately $5,600 (170,000 Thai baht). She currently pays about $67 (2,000 baht) a month, which will take about another 7 years to pay off at this rate. I'm going to help her pay it off eventually, but cannot come up with the total outstanding balance at this time. I know it's not part of the I129f package but does the topic of unpaid student loans come up at any time during the Visa process?

1st post here so if it's in the wrong section can someone help me move it.

Thanks

Never comes up in the visa process. Don't worry about it.

I have lived in 7 European countries before I came to the US. First I lived for a while in Florida, then after going back to Europe and visiting India, I moved to Southern California.

The main reason why I'm where I am -- close to Santa Barbara -- is the weather. My house is built in 1938 and I can walk to the beach in less than 5 minutes. I can ride my bicycle all year long along the bike path to work, or drive any of my classic cars and motorcycles any day without having to worry about rain. We have about 20 to 30 days of rain per year, mostly in the wintertime. The rest of the years it's just nice; due to the close proximity to the beach that means never really hot and never really cold. My house does not have air conditioning and I don't need it. The heater I turn only on during the winter months.

Anyway, two years ago one of my wife's sisters moved from California to Laramie, Wyoming. We visited them shortly after Christmas 2008, which meant a road trip from Cailfornia through Nevada and Utah to Wyoming.

In the 53 years I'm alive, I've never been this miserable. Cold, snow, blizzards, and in Laramie there's really nothing to see or to do, not even a Starbucks which I need to visit at least once a day.

I told my sister in law and my wife that I would rather be hit by a train than live there, and I meant that. That's not the USA, that's a hellhole!

Meanwhile my sister-in-law and her husband (who is an English professor) moved back to San Diego. The house in Laramie is for sale.

Why am I telling you this? Because you need to understand that life's too short, too valuable to be tortured, to live with somebody you absolutely hate or who is abusive to you, and to live in Wyoming.

Get out of there as soon as you can and see what the US has to offer. There's really no comparison of Wyoming to anything in France, but if you think Santa Barbara, think Cote d'Azure or, better yet, Monaco.

We have schools here too, you know . . .

DITTO!! You could not pay me to live in the eastern part of Wyoming.

hello everyone, i hope all is well, after reading a very interesting recent post i have to say i am as nervous as a long tailed cat in a rocking chair factory!!! I am totally in love with my nida and i want to be the best i can be for her, so when i heard talk of supporting the family left behind i see i needto learn more. here it seems a woman can be called a gold digger for similar actions dealing with money like i recently read. my fiancee has mentioned nothing of the subject of supporting her family once she arrives, is this a given? without even having a need to discuss it? do others study american traditions and prepare for them? my fiancee is a sensitive woman and i must be careful how i address this subject to her, so any tips or advice will be welcome! god bless everyone!

my thoughts to you is bring all your concerns up before she comes here. We westerners do not have the same attitude toward family so please talk about all your concerns prior.

Ok, finally found everybody. Been on here one year and have overlooked this forum. Thanks for the point in right direction Daboyz.

I know this is a K1 forum but it seems like the place where all of us "Thai" people hang out. Just for general knowledge, wife entered Houston Sept. 25th, received SSN 9 days later, and today (22nd) received her Green Card. Thought that was pretty quick for government business after the long protracted wait of the initial visa.

I know some of this info has been mentioned before but I thought I would post anyway for those who have recently married or will soon. I wanted to have Thai TV available in my home so I did some research. Not so much for Mimi because she can understand most American TV (they do talk too fast sometimes but if I turn on English subtitles she'll be OK), but for my visiting soon to be Mother-In-Law since she speaks very little English. I tried a few web sites but even with a high speed internet connection the streams were horrible (they paused every five seconds).

I ended up buying a fixed dish satellite system from Galaxy-Marketing.com for $218.65 with shipping. I paid a local satellite guy $150 to install it so I'm out about $370 but it's all free-to-air broadcasting so there is no monthly bill. They have about seven Thai stations, mostly American produced but Thai speaking broadcasts, on the Galaxy 19 satellite. One of the channels is TGN which is the exact same broadcast as in Thailand (I called her while watching a cooking show to verify it was the same). I noticed there is a new station called "Lakorn Thai" which means it is a station dedicated to broadcasting Thai Soap Operas - it's sure to make Mimi's mom happy...LOL.

I know that there is an argument to be made for total English immersion upon arrival but I think that your significant other would really appreciate having some connection to Thailand in their new home - even if just for Thai news. I know how much I appreciated just being able to watch a little BBC or any English news broadcast while I was in Thailand.

Mike

Good info!! Just ordered one.

Good to hear, thanks!

He got that done as well. So just submitting the letter and the 3 years of tax transcripts is good? Just wondering if we should include 6 months of pay stubs and W-2s as well....

No need for the W-2's or pay stubs.I used the EZ and 3 years of transcripts with no problems.

Sounds as if the author is a bitter woman from what I can take with her sarcastic tones and snide remarks. I can't really see 15% of marriages as she says. She does sound very bitter for some reason in this article.

Hi all,

So, my fiancee's interview date is coming closer and closer (October 19). I'm concerned about 1 thing. When she went into the hospital to get her vaccinations they said that Hepatitis A/B were not required. She did get shots for HPV, Tetanus and diptheria, and possibly one more, I can't remember. But I was actually in Thailand and went to the hospital with her on her second round of vaccinations. And I personally spoke to the doctor, and he said that she did not need them at her age (she is 26). I didn't know that age was a factor at all for hepatitis. I'm just concerned that we meet all of the requirements at the time of the interview. I think my concerns can't possibly be valid because I trust the doctor knew what he was doing. It was an extremely professional hospital. I can't remember the name of the hospital, but was told it was Bangkok's best.

But, I can't help but worry...

Anybody have any experience or information on this?

Thanks.

Hepatitus A/B is only required for certain countries. For example, I was given it but I work in Indonesia and the company wanted me to have it. The Dr. there I am sure gave her the ones that were required. Oh, one more thing, the second round is not required either just to get visa, my wife received her visa and we are going tomorrow here in the USA to finish up second rounds.

i am glad that Teaw is settling in her new environment in terms of myself i am a nervous wreck my fiancee Gif is supposed to have her visa interview this thursday sept 30th i am very worried of the unknown factor,i would have really wanted to be there with her getting her ready but my sister passed away unexpectedly last thursday so it has truley been a tough week for me.For all those who have gone through getting their visa approved for the loved ones can i ask you all if there is a place were Gif can leave her cellphone cos i know they dont allow yhem inside the embassy i really wanted to know the result of her interview as soon as she is done cos i know i wont be able to sleep all night worrying.The other silly question i would like to ask is that will customs allow us to bring in some spices from Thailand or they wont allow them just want to prepare ahead of time.

We just went through POE at Houston Saturday, she brought in some homemade chili powder and they never asked about it and I of course did not mention it. I have tried to explain you can get the same here in Houston but to no avail. I took her yesterday to buy food and she was amazed that the same things are sold here. Needless to say, I left market with grocery basket full of fish sauce, oyster sauce, etc....She is happy now. Walmart is on the agenda today. :help:

Kinda funny. It's getting chilly in Texas.

Wife walked outside this morning and almost had a stroke. She has a parka on as we speak in the house and I am sweating since my Air con is not longer under my control.

What happened? Everyone is so QUIET in this thread now!! All the honeys in the USA so nobody is writing? LOL!! Teaw has discovered the Science Fiction channel (SYFY) and has been watching that all weekend now.

We will do the deed this Friday and then see about applying for her SSI card.

I've been too busy preparing my house so a woman can live in it!! We got home last night finally and all is well in Texas. Only bought 2 car loads of Asian spices and food today to stock the house. All I had in here when I left was Beer.

I'm happy to say that Five's dad went to the embassy today and picked up her visa. Now we can start making preparations for her to come to Utah.

Super congratulations!! I guess it wasn't anything after all.

Examiner interview me only 5 minutes and 4 question I just wondered why it was so easy I prepared for 40 question at least for myself LOL, Did you go to pick up visa with your wife today ?

No, I am currently in Indonesia working so was unable to go with her today. I'm headed back to Thailand Wednesday to pick her up and then go to Texas. One piece of advice when you go back to pick up visa, don't go too early. She got there several hours early and had to wait till about 40 mintutes after 3:00 to pick up visa. They had told her to be there at 3:00. Good luck to you in your travels.

Congratulations!!! I see your huge evidence pile did the trick!! By the way, my wife just picked her visa up from the embassy as well.

Just talked to the wife. She left embassy today with visa in hand and the all important package to be opened at POE. I guess it didn't sink in till she actually had this in hand. So glad now and thanks to everyone for the information that has been shared in this forum.

Well, Teaw and I are finally back in North Carolina after our aborted stay in Thailand due to my father's death, flying back to NC and then the next morning out to Calif for the funeral and to help my mom

get some stuff straightened out. My daughter was a champ and took care of all the funeral stuff for my mom so she didn't have to do it. But flights delayed coming home tonight (Sat) through Chicago so we got

back a little later than we had hoped. Now after meeting my family by what I call baptism by fire she can settle in now and get used to the US.

Sorry to hear about your father and your loss but congrats on getting both of you back home. I can't wait till next Saturday when we are finally back in Texas.