Relief

A little over a week ago, I posted that my husband's passport had expired but we didn't discover it until shortly after he'd purchased a ticket to go home for a visit. Luckily, his new passport arrived today. This makes it clear that the original statement that it might take 3 weeks was the very outside margin of what is possible or that the people will expedite the process if you tell them it's important. Either way, we're very grateful that the U.S. embassy did this so rapidly.

Pictured above are my husband's new passport, his old one, and my current one (opened to the visas so those who have never gotten one can see what they look like). When you get a new passport, they punch holes along the side of the old one but they don't transfer the current visa into the new one so my husband's new passport is completely empty. I'm not sure how this works but the cautious thing to do is carry around both until a current visa is stamped into the new one. I'm guessing this issue will be addressed in some fashion when my husband heads off to the immigration office in a few days to get a re-entry permit.

My work visas are both marked as "used" because my status was changed to "dependent spouse" after I quit my job. The orange stamp has the new bar codes that are replacing the older style ones in the previous visas. It's kind of ironic how much time, effort, and money goes into acquiring those little stamps. In terms of my time, it takes about 6-9 hours (not including about 4 hours of travel time) and in terms of expense, it takes $33 to buy a stamp when you make the application and another $15-$20 in travel expenses. It seems like a lot of effort for very little but it's oh, so important.

Thanks to everyone who wished us well and sent positive energy out there toward a quick resolution. I'm sure it helped.