I need a letter from Neil so I can take Aliza without any trouble (single parent on one way ticket is a red flag for kidnapping!)

Luckily it seems that notaries in England work quite similarly to how they do in the US when it comes to witnessing signatures (one notary even lists "permission to take children out of the country" under services). Or at least, they're the people to see; they might have a standard form used. The difference is that in the US, a notary public is basically just a professional witness. In the UK, they're all lawyers (and consequently there are far fewer of them--in the US, my old pharmacist was a notary public!)

1) Letter was not from embassy;

2) Embassy was phoned. DS-230 was received and processed without incident (but they didn't until 11 June!) and Neil should be getting his interview date soon. Phew.

3) Our Internet connection was down all day. The Bangalore Muppets refused to believe it wasn't our router until Neil found another one (for some reason we have a 2nd) and had the same problem. They finally admitted it was a line call after a total of about 90 minutes on the phone. It just came back half an hour ago. BT suck royally.

Bleh. Got all the visa paperwork done now, I think. The US wants to know that the applicant (ie Neil) is:

1) who he claims to be;
2) married to the person sponsoring him;
3) not a criminal;
4) not a threat to public health;
5) not a threat to the public purse.

Large numbers of forms, with supporting evidence, must be filled out to demonstrate this. (Plus the medical exam, jabs, etc.)

Now we wait for an interview.

Aliza is showing early signs of TV addiction. She yells when I turn it off. Oh dear.

latest funny thing: when she sees dogs, she points and shouts "da! da!!" only does that for dogs so maybe she's got a new word! She also has "ba" for bath. (for you non-parents, this isn't wishful thinking--toddlers don't get the whole word at first. it's the consistency with associating sound to object that's important.)

Neil's watching the Champions League tonight so I made veggie lasagna. Aliza ate a bit, then threw it. gotta love toddlers. (She's eaten it before so it's just a mood.)

first line:

"Notice of approval of relative immigrant visa petition"

YAY!!!

"As of April 2, 2008, we are processing petitions filed on January 7, 2008."

You've been stuck on the same petitions for over 2 weeks now?? Has the entire visa section gone on holiday?

I came home yesterday to a card saying that there had been a delivery attempt.

I just went to re-book and the website says they do US Embassy stuff. Now I'm worried that our application is being returned for some reason :( I double checked everything...

(it can't have been approved so quickly, the embassy website says they're processing petitions from November.)

OTOH they charged us the fee...

And I'll have to wait till tomorrow for redelivery to see what it is! It could be a parcel, I guess, but I've never had anything from this company--usually just Parcelforce.

We've had a nice week at Neil's parents. Aliza got a bunch of presents. Not sure there's much else to say about that. Oh, my Christmas present was a photo printer. I had fun printing photos for everyone. I think my family will appreciate this, since I can now send them prints without having to go to Snappy Snaps!

More importantly we had an absolute explosion of new skills! It was like she was waiting for an audience. Or maybe just that bit of stimulation to put her over the edge. She's now happily feeding herself (finally!) - she can't really manage a spoon, but she loves things she can pick up. Yorkshire pudding crust was the favourite, I think ;) She's also copying everyone (this makes for fun games) and let go of the sofa briefly the other day. Her babble is increasing (but still no mama), and I can't remember what else. She's getting really good at making her opinions known.

I do wish she'd acquire a means of getting to sleep other than 1) movement (stroller or car) or 2) mommy. We're trying, but it's hard. Cry-it-out is not an option (not least because she's one of those babies that will cry and cry and ramp it up until they're sick--we had this on the M5 on the way down. We couldn't stop and she just got worse and worse until we finally got to the services.)

Aliza now has her big girl carseat! I'm feeling all teary. She likes it. We ended up with a Maxi-Cosi Priori XP--I would have preferred the PrioriFix which has a leg, but figured it wasn't worth spending £230 when she'll only be in it a few months and we don't drive that often. I'll splash out on a Britax Boulevard when we move. (yes, we're doing it... filling out the visa application. Ouch!)

Photos are at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/arosoff/sets/72157603573766418/

Also, a Skoda Octavia is only just large enough to fit all 3 of us and our crap for a week. Ugh.