Green Card has arrived

After our trip to Alabama, I checked our mail and found my spanking new green card in our mailbox.. Excellent~~

Christmas in July (2009)

Andy's family from his mom's side decided a few years ago that it is way too difficult for everyone to get together during Christmas holidays. The solution is to have our Christmas "mid-year". The last couple of years we all got together during the Memorial Day weekend in Texas. This year, Fourth of July fell on a Saturday and we all decided it'd be fun to do our Christmas on Fourth of July weekend instead.

I took two days off and Andy just finished his project. We rented a car and left town on July 1st, stayed overnight in Salem, Virginia and drove all the way down to Attalla, Alabama. Andy's aunt, Cheryl and her husband just built a new house on a 95-acre land. It was very nice and the yard was large enough they put up a valleyball net and horse shoe game setup. We had lots of Blue Bell ice cream, and stopped at Sonic every single day. I guess family gathering simply means "Lots of Food".

On Fourth of July, we had lunch and we sat downa and did our "Christmas" gift exchange. My sister-in-law, Raeann, got my name and she got me a board game off my Amazon wish list. It is called "Tickets to Ride". I played the game once during our YA retreat, and it was a lot of fun. It is even available on Xbox 360, too. Andy's cousin Hunter got Andy's name and being an artist that he is, he did three pictures based on our glamour shots. Hunter is actually going to New York to study at an art institute. Andy and I both look forward to his moving up north east.

After we all got our presents, of course we will have to do some group picture, and here they are..

On the Fifth, everyone had to leave and go home from the holidays. Andy and I did not leave Attalla until almost 10 in the morning. There was serious thunderstorm going the whole time we were in Alabama. The rain was not as bad when we got to Georgia. When we got to Tennessee, we saw a "Lodge" cast iron store off the highway and decided to stop. Man, what a stupid decision it was. The exit was actually to Pigeon Forge. After we pulled off the highway, we look across and saw the lines of cars waiting to get back on. The store was 4 miles off the highway, and the cars going the other direction was lined up all the way to the store. Andy and I decided since it'd be extremely difficult to get back on the highway, we'd just keep going toward Pigeon Forge and Gaitlinburg and through the Great Smoky National Park and see where that'd take us.

We drove through Gaitlinburg and then Pigeon Forge, and finally into the National Park. It was a lot of fun driving in the fog. It was about 33 miles to drive from Pigeon Forge, TN to Cherokee, NC, but it took us about an hour to get out of the mountain. We stopped in Asheville, NC to get some BBQ at Ed Boudreaux's Bayou Bar-B-Que (16 different types of BBQ sauce). Asheville in general is very interesting. Even though we got there on a Sunday, there were still a lot of people in the downtown area and lots of people with interesting hair and outfits... Just my opinion..

After dinner, we drove on to Johnson City, TN to stop for the night. The "future" I-26 was an interesting highway. Three-lane highway with serious uphill and downhill grade right in the mountains. There are also a couple of "Runaway truck ramps". It was a good thing that I only saw one 18-wheeler the whole time I was driving.

The next morning we got up pretty early and started driving back toward Virginia on I-81. Stopped at Apple House and had some lunch and got back home around 2pm.. We totally enjoyed our road trip, and hopefully next time we can actually do a longer trip, rather than only 5 days.

Removal of Conditions Part 2

Wow.. It's been almost a year since I posted something on this blog. How lazy can I be?

Anyway, since last year, there are some new updates on my "Removal of Conditions" front. I got my biometrics test done and went with Andy to Fredericksburg to get some Sonics.

In February 2009, I got a notice from USCIS that my application for the "removal of conditions" was moved from the Vermont Service Center to the California Service Center. I was totally confused and googled online to see what exactly this is about. One great web site came up, which is Visa Journey. The web site also provide great information on any visa/immigration related issues. In the Forum I found out that a lot of people are going through the same thing as I am. So once I saw the posts of people with similar experience, I relaxed a little bit and started to wait patiently to see what would come up next.

In April 2009, I got a letter from USCIS notifying me the approval of my removal of conditions. That was exciting. Last week, I got an notice that my green card has been ordered and I should get it within 30 days. I just hope that it gets here before my driver's license expires. I am totally not looking forward to another couple of hours sitting in the DMV trying to get my license renewed.

So my next step is to apply for naturalization. How exciting~~