August 2008 Filers

[Chris & Mara 0]

Yep Gemmie has been away from her fiance too long.....

[Donna-marie 0]

you have an rfe???? what happened?

[Chris & Mara 0]

Those finacial forms, I think they class as an RFE (request for further evidence), gonna make Chris check on Tuesday when he has his next appointment, if they choose to honor it this time.....

Edited October 31, 2008 by Chris & Mara

[I and S 0]

Happy Halloween everyone!!!

[HappyDancer 7]

No case number but with an RFE??? Man, that blew me away! Mara, keep yourself together. You'll get through this. Oh poor Chris. I wish USCIS would just sober up and stop acting stupid and paranoid!

Gemmie, I love the pics! And the wedding bands - yes will show them to you when they're done.

Maliciant - come to the Philippines and just forget about your petition for now. LOL

Fred, tell Emilia to relax on teh sodas and fatty stuff... Not good for the tummy.

I'm at work now... *pretending to be busy*

[WeAreTogetherNow 2]

hello all together!!!

it's been a week since I arrived in washington! it was pretty easy to get in, only the question who I'm gonna vistit and if he's a us citizen.

so now I'm here in alexandria and I love it. but the best thing is to be with my schatz!!!

the funny thing is, that we still sleep on an airmatress, cause we moved into a new apartment and have to buy everything new, but it's really not easy to find a good bed!

so I hope everybody is doing well and let's look forward, only one moth and maybe we'll all get an awesome christmas present!!!

ps: we got 2 touches, but I guess we only got them, because we changed the adress

[maliciant 7]

That RFE might be your lucky day, it seems like there would have to be some indication of your case number in there somewhere. I know when you get an RFE there is something extra you put on the address to indicate that it's an RFE so it goes directly to where it should, so maybe it's not all bad. Watching igor's though I noticed most NOA2's with an RFE end up a month behind the processing date of those who didn't have any... There is a good chance I'll get an RFE for US Passport style photo's (my fiancees passport style photo's were the dark blue used for filipino passports). I'm hoping to avoid the RFE and just provide the proper white background ones during medical/interview but oh well.

I'd love to go to the philippines, but I pretty much just got back 2 months ago, I can't take that kind of time off from work, and more important... I'm can't afford those $1600 plane tickets too often, I pretty much have to stick to payin my bills, payin down my debts... and expecting to owe a big chunk of change on my credit cards in a few months once an interview date is set. I'll book a flight so I can be there for the interview and ideally be with her on the flight home with visa, it's a LONG trip and having some company would be nice.

The background behind the UPS rape that occured on monday... I bought my fiance a silver necklace, with a pair of pendants, nothing too high in price but nice. One pendant is a bright blue heart and the other is a copper heart with a silver box that says Love, I wanted to get her something that'd make her think of me whenever she saw it, and who's going to say no to jewelry! I picked the blue pendant purely based on my liking the color, but it happens to be her birthstone as well. The day before I was going to send the package, I also started asking her various food preferences, beef or pork, fish or chicken, green or blue, dark chocolate, or light chocolate, comedy or horror... I learned a few things but mostly I just wanted to make sure my suspicion she'd like dark chocolate more was right and didn't want to give away that I was planning anything... After looking at prices of package types and weights online, I came up with sending a package ups or fedex in an envelope was significantly cheaper than any kind of package, and would have plenty of room and weight allowance for what I was sending... except that I'd have to settle for something small and flat for chocolate... so I went with a single hershey's dark chocolate bar, anything more would probably be a problem with package dimensions or weight... so I bought that and created my letter... on one side, was the letter... I had also traced the edges of the hershey bar because I was going to tape it in place and wanted to mark where it'd be... I wrote something in the space under it, but I don't recall exactly now... I should have scanned the letter before sending it... but whatever I wrote I'm sure it was funny, and probably had the word delicious in it (the mosquitos in the philippines thought I was particularly delicious so I found myself saying that a lot as I rubbed the bites on my legs because they itched... anyway... it's almost a catch phrase now). And on the other side of the page I drew a waterfall with a man fishing and a bunch of other little details to fill it in etc... I'm not an artist by any means... but people can generally recognize whatever the heck it is I drew, but basically this was somewhat of a recreation of a homework assignment of her nephew's that she and I had helped with while I was there.

Now for the actual rape part, when I got to the UPS store it turns out that because it's international, it had to be shipped in a package, not an envelope... in retrospect I am pretty sure that isn't right, it might have been because it wasn't just papers in there and wouldn't have been as flat, I'm not really sure, he said it just like it was a policy for international shipping that you can't send an envelope (the UPS envelopes, not a regular mail envelope), that's not what the ups website said since I had used it to check prices, so I don't know, I just know it raised the price of postage about $30 to 83.25... of course now if I had a bigger box of fancier/better chocolates, I had room for them, but I didn't want to go hunting those down at this point and goof up the package... so they made me pay for a lot of extra shipping I didn't need... this is a surprise letter I was sending and UPS got me again when they had to call to ask for directions, my fiancee was at work and they also said that the package was a high value item so she had to sign for it or have some authorization thing for someone else to sign for it, so she found out that the package was being sent the day before she'd get it... even more torture though is she'd be at work when they tried to delivery again so her mom would sign for it, so she had to know it was being delivered and wait two days anticipating it, and of course now UPS saying it's a high value item raises the expectation a little... she got the package today and all is well. I actually found an online site for a store based in manila that could have gotten a similar necklace and the same chocolate! and not had the huge UPS shipping cost... but on the other hand the carefully hand crafted letter wouldn't be with it, and as it turns out that is her favorite part of the whole package, the necklace and chocolate a close second (turns out she has some ear rings and bracelets that match). Also the necklace fit well, I was worried it might have been too tight, I'm very stocky and she's petite so it's hard for me to gauge things like that. Anyway, this is either the most boring dribble you'll read all day (seriously, who needed all the details I provided lol), but it meant a lot to me to get to send her something nice while while waiting for the noa2.

Anyway, on the plus side the delivery time to the philippines was pretty good, it's just really expensive, if it weren't for the signature thing, it'd have been a 2 day mailing basically, I was hoping that having that shipment to watch would distract me more from igors... no luck haha.

[HappyDancer 7]

Awww maliciant, that's very sweet of you. I am pretty sure your fiancee was delighted - no matter how much the surprise was spoiled.

I remember the time when my SO sent me flowers last July 21... It was the best thing to greet me at work on a Monday. I loved it! Hang in there though. We are in this together, this whole waiting game. We will not give up!

[HappyDancer 7]

BeTogetherSoon - I am so glad that you made it! Oh wow, this must be the best thing that's happened to you in a long time. Kiss Uncle Sam for me! And, post pictures!

hello all together!!!

it's been a week since I arrived in washington! it was pretty easy to get in, only the question who I'm gonna vistit and if he's a us citizen.

so now I'm here in alexandria and I love it. but the best thing is to be with my schatz!!!

the funny thing is, that we still sleep on an airmatress, cause we moved into a new apartment and have to buy everything new, but it's really not easy to find a good bed!

so I hope everybody is doing well and let's look forward, only one moth and maybe we'll all get an awesome christmas present!!!

ps: we got 2 touches, but I guess we only got them, because we changed the adress

[maliciant 7]

Oops, I said I got back 2 months ago... it's 3 months... I thought 2 was wrong when I said it... my k-1 was filed about 2 months ago.

[Fred N Emilia 0]

I'm ready for my vacation! officially less than 2 months from now! ohhhhhhh man!

[HappyDancer 7]

Fred, I am 10 days ahead of you! I can hardly wait for my SO to be here!!!

[luvhasnoborders 0]

Good Evening All,

Did everyone see the approvals on Igor's List for today and yesterday? They have now moved into July...although there are still some June's waiting.

I read this thread often but don't know when to pop in and comment......you guys are really funny.

Also, I think I broke the VJ posting "etiquette".......I somehow tapped into the June filers thread and posted a comment or two........from what I've read in this post......I now will smell of June......what to do, what to do?????

[maliciant 7]

I don't think that the june filers will care that you posted there, unfortunately smelling like june won't get your NOA2 any sooner... otherwise I'd have been hanging out with those feb filers months ago! Nothing can get the stench of june off you now though... except maybe halloween candy, or maybe a shower or something, no one knows for sure....

I was actually coming to post that I saw two new VSC july filer approvals, CSC is not far behind even though it's consistantly had poor noa2's lately, either way, it makes me happy to see approvals for one month ahead of us starting to roll in more. It's still early and usually there have been a large number of noa2's posted on igor on friday's so who knows, also being halloween in the US... might cause a slight slowdown in the noa2 postings (I don't care what holiday it is when I get mine, I'm postin it right away haha).

[Bulgarican 0]

Thank you Mara and HD now you made me feel ashamed for not being here lately

I've been busy, with my school after the semester we start our tests and i had to study well...

i've also had my ups and downs, good and bad days, the whole process of this waiting is "eating"

all my patience, Chris feels the same, its unbearable anymore...oh well we still wait....

In Bulgaria we don't celebrate Halloween, we are not Catholics, but in some part they do celebrate it

with pumpkin pie and parties

How i wish i was with my love for Thanksgiving, maybe this month we all get approved,

we are approaching 3 months soon....

Even i didnt post i was following the forum here, someone has been spying on me

Yes i confess i have been visiting the site Mara you caught me

by the way i read today some people got approved from CSC and looks like they didnt get

any emails or something...we should just keep looking inside our accounts in uscis...and who

knows maybe one day you'll get up and see something in your mailbox while waiting for it online

I missed you too, i'll be back soon here...

Take care all and keep smiling, our waiting is coming to an end

Bye bye