Destination Paradise

It has clearly been an eternity since my last post and much has happened. Let's do a quick review for the benefit of those who have been following and wondering, or for those who are new to our story. A lot of this will come from the perspective of my Facebook account. January 2014 Just to recap, our last visa interview was in Seoul in 2012, where we were denied a visa and the opportunity to file a waiver. Since then policy has changed indicating that people in Carlos' situation SHOULD be able to argue for the chance to file a waiver. So that's what we were doing at the start of the year. I finally gathered the necessary documents and shipped them off to our lawyer so she could file our I-601 waiver.  Here's a picture of the stack of evidence of hardship I sent. Keep in mind this is just a portion of the waiver, as our lawyer then proceeded to construct a thick brief to give all of this context. A major undertaking. February 2014 Our lawyer finished con...

Saying goodbye to Daddy's airplane at Incheon airport/Seoul So yeah. It's been awhile. No, the title isn't referring to a new baby, as thankfully our lives are quite full with the two we already had as of my last posting. But in the nine months since I last updated this blog, I guess we've had a lot of eventful moments anyway. Most notably, we said goodbye to Korea. Korea was a gracious host. Certainly not without its challenges (goodness, were there challenges). But it was the one country that offered us visas, a job, a place to live, our son's first school, our daughter's birthplace, and for two years, a home. We made lifelong friends. We gained new food addictions. We discovered just how much we could accomplish all alone, half a world away from our friends and families, with no one to depend on but each other. And we learned just how much we really needed each other. Lucas and his friends take a final stroll through Seoul's historic center ...

South Korean high schoolers' response to North Korea declaring war on the country where we live: Play an elaborate game of playground tag and help the foreign kid build a sand volcano. 04/31/2013 I'm hoping to squeeze this post in during March in an attempt to build some kind of blogging momentum, but then again we all know that working full-time while raising two kids in a foreign country can kind of present some obstacles to that goal. So today I am planning to talk about the everyday South Korean response to North Korea's increasingly threatening rhetoric this past week. But let's start with some good news, shall we!? Just a few weeks ago, the US Department of State very quietly slipped in a new amendment into one of the policy manuals used by immigration officers. It just came to our attention last weekend. Basically, it is providing an exception for the lifetime ban that currently has us exiled from the US, in cases where the intending immigrant was a mino...

a symbol of the vows we took on May 12, 2007 In the days leading up to Valentine's Day, there tend to be lots of events and lively public discussion about marriage. For example, today is National Marriage Day, and there is a growing international movement to make the week surrounding February 14  International Marriage Week , a week to celebrate marriage and promote its health and survival. In fact, last year several Congressmen in the House of Representatives spent 45 minutes reinforcing the benefits of marriage and the need for a National Marriage week. During that time, they said things like the following: "...It should always be our goal to keep that family unit together, and to hold that bedrock of our society together...And this is something that we can build on that will benefit our society." ~Rep. Gregg Harper and this "National leaders should be encouraging stable family formation, not redefining marriage. I call upon Congress to recognize the i...

OK, so it's officially February and I've been working on the following post for over a month now. But I have a pretty good reason for the delay, I think! 2012 was a remarkable year for our family. It's the first calendar year we've spent completely living in Korea, and the first we've spent living together as a family. While 2011 brought the newness and adjustment of being a complete family for the first time, 2012 was a chance to settle in and make this "normal". And although we started 2012 as a family of three, we finished it as a family of four. Welcome to the world, baby Carolina Violetta. Failed passport photo #27. Turns out this is harder to do with a newborn than a 3 month-old.  The day of her birth was a truly remarkable one in every way and totally warrants its own blog post which I'll hopefully get to soon...er...sometime this year.  Suffice it to say it was a major adventure and we're glad it all worked out as well as...

It's November! Chilly weather has officially set in, but it's still lovely. Our family has been quite busy. There have been Halloween festivities (more than I think we've ever done in any country!). Piles of candy in the apartment right now. Lucas had a major Halloween event at school, my school had Halloween festivities that consumed all my energy on the 31st, and yesterday we participated in a Halloween party for expat families in our area which was a ton of fun. Performing with his classmates Lucas and Daddy with the massive bag of candy loot My costume at school Lucas is Iron Man War Machine! Carlos worked to make it look extra cool Two little superheroes decorating mandarin oranges with Jack-o-Lantern faces Demolishing the remains of the Halloween piñata Baby - We're at 34 weeks. Time is flying. Still no name picked out, but we're getting closer to figuring something out. I'm very grateful that this has been a healthy pregnan...

So here goes Part II in my rapid-fire blogging spurt to catch up to the present... Summer 2012 kicked off with Carlos taking part in his country's political process for the first time, sending in his absentee ballot to vote for Mexico's next president. Although there was widespread discontent and distrust in Mexico over the general management and final result of the election, at least we know Carlos did his part. From Summer 2012 in Korea Carlos and Lucas got to spend Father's Day together for the first time, I believe. :) From Summer 2012 in Korea Baby G #2 started growing and making her presence known From Summer 2012 in Korea Although it took another ultrasound to really confirm her gender, this one was pretty cool, if you're into ultrasounds: In a later post, I'll write about the experience of being pregnant and getting medical care in Korea, as I have plenty of things to say on the subject (mostly positive!).  In early August, I final...

Today is a day of conflict for many families like mine. On the one hand, we're surrounded by parades, festivals, flags and all the symbolism reminding us to be proud of and celebrate our great country. On the other hand, we're weary from the daily and very undignified struggle of having our nuclear family unit split up into different countries as a result of our our own country's policies and legal values. Our families are put through exceptionally miserable challenges due to unjust laws that were passed, after all, by legislative representatives of the American people. And more recently, various elected officials have started passing legislation that is not only questionable under the constitution, but thoroughly misguided and fundamentally based in racism and xenophobia. Finally, many news sources spread a huge amount of rhetoric that really does have its base in hate, ignorance, willful misinformation, and lies. This is the stuff that gets the most attention, becaus...

This post is dedicated to all the people who wonder how we separated spouses do it, and to all those who know exactly how we do it because they live it every day. I get asked all the time how it's possible to survive this long in a separate country from my husband, while raising our child. Honestly, it's a very absurd concept to ponder: maintaining a life separated by more than a thousand miles from the person you love and swore to stand by for the rest of your life. But in practice, it's actually not so extraordinary. See, when you have no other choice, you do what you must. Obviously the simplest solution would be to eat a lot of ice cream, crawl under the covers, curl up in a ball, and try to never come out. And I'm not gonna lie: I've tried it. But then Lucas came along and that was no longer an option because as much as I'd like to stay in a sugar-induced state of self-pity in bed every morning, I have a child who not only needs me but literally grabs...

So maybe I exaggerated when I said the blog re-design was just about ready to be rolled out.  Sometimes I think I'm more capable of awesomeness than I truly am.  And sometimes I wonder why I insist on doing things myself, and having them come out *JUST PERFECT*, and waiting until that elusive standard of perfection is achieved before I release my project to the world.  This statement applies to my approach to our immigration battle, by the way, and I think it's unfortunate. I'm not sure where things changed.  I remember a time when I was a lot less concerned about things.  Let's start with Barcelona, where Carlos and I discovered that our original goal was not going to be attainable.  So we said, "Hey, let's explore Europe and then move to Mexico."  I actually remember the moment when we had that conversation, sitting on an ancient Roman wall in the Barri Gòtic, watching some backpacker slink by, shoeless and slouchy-shouldered.  "Could we end u...

I'd love to have posted on all the fun and interesting moments that transpired since the last post. Unfortunately, due to my slacker nature, I'm now forced to jump straight to the very important and not so pleasant news that defines my family's reality. Where to begin? As you all know, or for those who don't, last October Carlos and I received the final word from the US Consulate in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. He is not eligible for a visa to live in the US as my spouse, and he also isn't eligible for the hardship waiver that US citizen spouses usually get to file when their loved one isn't eligible for a visa. All this because of one unfortunate day when he was 16, when he was forced by a parent to seek entry to the US using a relative's US birth certificate instead of the visitor's visa he already possessed. Under immigration law -- INA 212 A 6 C ii to be specific -- a false claim of US citizenship carries a lifetime ban with no waiver. Still, the ...

Oops. It's been over a month since I was in Mexico and I still haven't posted most of the photos. I'll add them in a second. An update on immigration: our amazing attorney is now filing a separate appeal that will go to a completely different office. So she's basically working from two angles, and if either is successful, we're looking at a brand new chance! So we just need prayers that we'll get quick and favorable responses. Now, back to the trip. Aside from the absolute insanity of our experience with immigration, we had a good time together. Here are some highlights: Carlos bought me a slice of German Chocolate Cake for my birthday! Baby G and I both enjoyed it. We went to this huge market/strip mall, "Los Cabacitos". Several food vendors make stuff that's so good, this place is known all over the city. These gorditas are one example: picadillo con papas (ground beef with potatoes) is the top one, and calabacitas (squ...