bigbigblake

GMAIL most definitely has a spam folder. Make sure you check it.

On the left side it will list your in box and any other tags you have created.

Down at the bottom it will say something like "5 more".

Click on this, then choose spam.

This is why we like GMAIL so much, they have an awesome spam system, but sometimes its to good.

They are extremely rude on the phone and one guy Matt that keeps answering for me just blatantly lies and tells me he cant see any info.

I feel like its pointless to call DOS.

I e-mailed the Montreal-IV line and got a nice pleasant response that I had been approved and it was being processed and printed and should be sent out within a few days. Our interview was on the 15th though, so I am doubting I will have it mailed by Tuesday like I need.

It sounds like your jobs are providing some very bad health plans. You need to tailor your health plan for you. If you very rarely go to the dr, go for a co-pay low deductible. If you have chronic issues or health problems then your better off going for a high co-pay (4000ish) with low to no co-pay. You will quickly pay this off and can not be charged for anything above the deductible. You can even supplement this with a HSA account (health savings). They are usually deducted pre-tax, and must be spent before the end of the year. This would cover deductibles, medicine, everything. If your guaranteed to use it, then its great tax break.

There are tons of options, and sadly it is restricted via your Employer and the choices they make. If they choose to have a shitty insurance provider then you are going to pay for it.

My issue is not with Insurance, but with prescriptions. The cost of prescriptions is just bullshit, and most insurance plans will not cover it. You usually need a seperate plan just for prescriptions if you use them a lot.

Luckily I see a Dr once every year or two, so it doesn't affect me much, but my wife says the service is great compared to Canada.

We stayed at Hotel La Cantile Suites. It was a 3 star or so hotel, fairly old, but nice none the less. It had a kitchen suite, a must have for a week stay.

This place is so old you do still have actual physical keys to the doors, not keycards. I got the biggest kick out of that. There is also no pay-per-view on the tv, which was strangely weird. My wife had a bad feeling about the hotel from day 1, but it seemed fine to me for the price we got it at, around 100 per night.

It was 1 block from metro, 1.3km from Consulate (walkable if you want to skip metro).

We bought 3 day metro passes from the Airport and used the 747 express bus instead of paying for cabs.

We started at one mall. And turned out that mall was connected to another mall, and then another mall. It was shopping overload.

We had kids so we went to the Biodome, and the Biosphere, and Harry Potter. Other then that we ate and just walked around!

The biosphere is right on a large piece of land with a huge park, water complex, and biking routes. They had street concerts at least two of the nights we were there as well.

Its a full on city so Im sure there is a ton more that we missed.

Do they ship these next day air? Or they are sent ground delivery adding another few days to someplace like Winnipeg?

Im shocked they talked to you without your fiance calling in! But good news.

Id rather a Dr in the US then in Canada myself. Especially for an urgent issue that I dont want to play the waiting game on!

Yeah, I think your right about that. But what is the fun in not freaking out?

I have had my wife on my medical coverage since we got married in 2008. No SSN needed. A marriage counts as an "life changing event" and opens the enrollment option on almost any plan. The government plan should be the same, as they are usually pretty decent. I would proceed with your interview, plan the wedding and seek US treatment as soon as possible.

You would not be waiting a month to see a specialist for potentially life threatening nodes on your neck. Canada can be so silly.

Awesome news!

I was really worried about this, so I decided to start calling DOS early. DOS told me to e-mail the consulate as they had "Not approved" our visa yet. That scared me shitty so I e-mailed them, got a blanket responder e-mail saying "we will not tell you anything about the status of your visa." So then I got scared that they were going to yell, but I got a nice little e-mail this morning.

Good Morning,

Your visa has been issued, please allow a few days for us to print it and then send it.

Have you registered for DHL in order to received your passport and visa back? If not, please read the instructions below. If yes, disregard this information, your visa should be on its way very shortly.

We just got back from Montreal. With the metro system everything is close.

We stayed at the Hotel la Cantile, a 3 star hotel or so. We chose it because it had a kitchenette. If you are staying a week long to do your medical, I highly recommend it as the food was expensive as hell there, but my wife says that is just Canada in general.

It was about a 1.3km walk to the consulate, which was a little long, but we didn't want to mess with the subway interview day.

Montreal in general felt 100 percent safe to me. 75 percent of the pretend beggers are just looking for beer money, and I only counted a few true homeless looking chaps. We walked everywhere, even taking a nighttime stroll near an outdoor concert.

I think its a wonderful city overall, minus the food. I was a little angry about some of our servers, but as the trip went on it seems like it is all of Montreal. The waiters will bring you a drink, one drink only, they will get your order, bring the food, and then not come back again. Anytime I wanted another drink I had to flag someone down and beg for it. And usually it had to be water, cause they charge for refills everywhere! I mean, who does that anymore! Then one lady asked us if something was wrong with the restaurant because we didn't tip her enough. That made me mad, but my wife was guilted into giving more money.

Once I got over that things were a bit better but still expensive!

Oh yeah, make sure you give Medisys at least 4 days to do the medical!

Our interview went off without a hitch. We got there first in line, C1 on our ticket. Ended up being the last to leave still though, I don't really understand that.

I was hoping to be out by 9, but it was 11:30 or so when we finally left. Kids weren't to excited about that.

Interview was her asking the kids how they felt about moving to Texas, asking my wife how long I worked at my current job (weird question since I didn't even remember when I started very well) and me standing in background while she punched numbers.

She asked about my wife's 2 year stay in Texas which we figured would be reason enough for them to deny us, but all they asked was if we had any problems with the border and if she had been ordered to leave via immigration judge.

I even brought my research on Duration of Stay visa's and the memo to Montreal regarding them, but didn't need them, or any proof of the marriage.

Glad its over with, now we just get to sit and wait for our visa's to be delivered. I hope to drive up and pick them up on the 28th, hoping thats enough time to get them delivered.

Ok, so passed the interview and got our welcome to the us "Letter." Cant say it was much of a letter as it was a photocopied piece of paper. Approved on a Friday, I'm hoping that we have the DHL packet shipped by next Friday? I tentatively took off the 27,28,29th to help move, but not sure if that was enough time. Hopefully so!

102 bucks? Wow. Thats insane.

My wife just got her Honda compliance letter. They provided it one day after faxing details for free.

GM sucks!

Im going to start The Game of Thrones after HBO made me care about it.

Picking it up for my plane rides.

Its been a while since I read new sadly.

Allright. Ill make sure to have everyone pack some nice clothes! The shoes will impair on my room in my carry on luggage though! Trying to keep from having to spend an extra 25 bucks to check a damn bag. God I hate airline companies.

Or I could just sleep in and skip the interview and make them go alone, but I figured that's kinda mean.

Ok so we have our interview in one week, next friday.

I am in final preparations mode.

I have documents ready I think. Original Passports, Birth Certificates, Police Check, Death certificate for childrens father, vaccine info for Medical, passport photos.

I also have my AOS support info, need to double check that but I for sure have tax transcripts packed, and copies of everything I sent in electronically. Most of it was all sent online and there are no true "originals" for paystubs, w2's, etc. Should be ok.

Medical is on Monday, vacation till Friday and have interview followed by celebration at Harry Potter finale with all the dressed up weirdos!

One big question, do you dress up for the interview? Or is our standard shorts, t-shirts, and sandals good enough?

It really depends where you apply. Winnipeg (where I'm from) told me 4-6 weeks but you can go to a smaller town and get it straight away. Try to go to the 'off the beaten path' type places. Pick a smaller town outside Calgary, some do require you to have ties to the town though.

Ex: I lived in Winnipeg, I went to Selkirk (30 mins north) because I worked there. Same day service.

Man, I've been to Selkirk. My wife lives in Tyndall currently and went to Bousejour for her police check I think.

My wife's in Winnipeg and they were able to print it while she stood there.

That seems a bit extreme!

GOOD NEWS!!! SIF and CC!!!! FINALLY!!!!! :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance:

We are so happy to finally get it!! My husband spoke to a very nice supervisor yesterday (day 15 of supervisor review and we still hadn't heard a word), who said she would personally track down the person reviewing our case and get it sorted out as soon as she could. Guess at least one person at the NVC does what they say they will......24hours later we have our SIF and CC!

We think the problem had something to do with the fact that we were married in Texas....and Texas doesn't issue marriage 'certificates'. The license, once signed by the judge/priest/whoever and then filed with the county clerk's office, becomes the official proof of the marriage. They were having issues with the word 'license' and not 'certificate' like they are used to. Still don't know how they wouldn't have known that in the first place - we can't have been the first people to have been married in Texas and sent in the 'license' as proof of marriage!

Of course I got the whole 'the NVC only schedules interviews in the second week of the month' script, and they can't guarantee me an August interview....but I'm not thinking about that right at this moment - I'm still just so happy we finally got the CC!

Man, they are so wierd. They accepted my certified copy scan of a marriage license with no problem. Never said a word on it.

2 more weeks for me. Its so very exciting! Its like its almost real!

Question for yall people tracking your packages from NVC to Embassy. Is this just a "im bored and want to know where it is thing"?

I read about that in very beginning but cant really see the point of it.

Hi Saylin, we sent Iv packet and AOS packet this week to NVC,what is the next step?

Thanks in advance for your response

Please wait 20 days for the NVC to process your paperwork.

Hell, I'm debating on leaving Colorado to move to Texas. Actually my relatives are in Dallas and Austin and I have friends in College Station and San Antonio and stuff. The only thing I don't like about it is the humidity in the summer. Dry heat is fine with me and I'm great when it's over 100, but the damn humidity sucks.

And yes I agree with Hell Paso and Houston being ick.

But really Texas is so big and there's so much to do and so different depending on which part you're in...

I would never in my life leave Colorado for Texas. Flat, no mountains, the heat. Just plain ugly compared to Colorado!

But if you want to trade ill give ya my job and apartment in DFW!

And most of the time its Dry Heat. But we have had some crappy humidity lately. It doesn't have anything on the humidity in Louisiana though, that place sucks.

I thought the video games were designed to get you a Canadian wife? It worked for me.