Saturday, June 09, 2007
London Calling!
Several months ago we applied for Lotus Maria’s U.S. Passport and I have to give the US passport agency big props. We applied just after the passport regulations changed which meant that everyone traveling to Mexico and Canada now needed a passport. Thus a lot more people were applying for passports and the applications for US citizens born in another country were getting thoroughly scrutinized and often the applicants were requested to supply additional paperwork. A few weeks after we sent in Lotus’ application we got a letter stating that her application was incomplete and we needed to supply additional information. I headed down to the passport agency with Lotus’ adoption file in hand and a very nice woman took some of the my most prized possessions, Lotus’ Guatemalan passport, her original birth certificate and many of her adoption documents. Lotus’ name is different on every single one of these pieces of paper and I can barely keep it straight. I begged her to make copies and let me keep the originals, she smiled very nicely, told me not to worry they would keep it all straight and return it with her US passport. Having great trust issues with government agencies I doubted ever word she said and decided that since she was so nice was she had to be completely incompetent.
I came home and told Nate that not only would Lotus never get a passport, but also every piece of paper proving that she was a citizen was out of my possession, and in all likelihood gone forever. I followed up with some calls, but since Lotus didn’t have a social security number yet there was no way to track her file. Then one glorious morning the FedEx man delivered a package and in it was Lotus’ passport and all of her paperwork. So I say US passport Agency you rock!
As they say have passport will travel, so we traveled.
The end of April we hopped a flight to London to visit my very good friends Andrea and Glen and their new adorable kiddo Logan. Lotus was awesome of the flight to London. She didn’t make a peep; she played with her new toys and slept for a good portion of the 10 ½ hour trip. Though our little one is a seat hog and took up all her seat and most of ours as well.
We arrived in London and were blessed with several days of amazing weather. Thank god global warming is paying off somewhere. We chilled in Andrea and Glen’s amazing yard and went to their nearby park. Lotus was great with baby Logan (or Bay-bee as she called him). And Lotus immediately fell in love with Andrea and Glen, though I think in all fairness Glen is her new favorite person on the planet.
