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...

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...

I kind of dropped out of the blogging game for awhile. Lots of things have happened since my last post, virtually all of them good. But I think most importantly, I finally started to feel like life was usual. Nothing extraordinary to blog about, and that is a good sign. But I was reminded that there are lots of people thinking of and praying for us on a regular basis, people who like to check the blog, people who have reminded me that 6 months is probably a bit long to go without posting. So I'm going to try to update slowly this week, one season at a time, starting with Spring! Let's see what happened in Spring...(I had to consult Facebook Timeline to remember some of this. See! It's not such a bad concept, people!) Well, first of all, Lucas settled in at school. You can click these images to see more of that detailed in photos if you want: From Lucas at School The Avengers came out in theaters! It was released more than a week ahead of the US, which means Lucas ...

Today's blog is about a belief that I often hear repeated in US culture, a belief that was recently re-affirmed by Honda CR-V commercials like this one. The premise is this: Once you get married or have a baby, that's it. Your bucket list is basically dead. So make sure to pack it all in before you take the plunge. Also, buy a CR-V to help accomplish it all. A fabulous high school friend who is a mom of two pointed out the absurdity of these commercials on Facebook and it really struck me. Nothing against the CR-V, but what a terrible message, that marriage or parenthood changes your life so much that you no longer get to do the things you dreamed of beforehand! Add to this the recent viral video parody, " We're Not Young ", which mourns the loss of the younger, vibrant days when we had goals and enthusiasm for life. This makes me sad because I believe that marriage, or even having kids, is no death sentence for adventure or accomplishing yo...

I have to admit that I prepared for this to be a difficult Christmas. Obviously after spending 4 Christmases apart from Carlos, I had to be excited to finally spend our FIRST Christmas as a married couple and our first Christmas as a family of three. Obviously those things were a big deal but as Christmas approached, they kept getting overshadowed by sadness of all that we'd be missing. See, I am from a large, lively, mostly Italian-American family (mom's side), virtually all of which lives in Chicago, and except for one year with my Guatemalan family in New York, I have never in my 29 years spent a Christmas without them!! This means that Christmas has always involved multiple family events, piles of Italian beef, Italian sausage, mostaccioli, multiple pies, multiple Christmas trees, Christmas movies playing loudly on TVs all over the house, louder relatives having a good time, AND real cannoli to top it all off. Then let's add the fact that Carlos is from a Mexican ...

I go 6 months without posting and now I do two posts in two days. This isn't likely to be a regular occurrence, but the holiday weekend gave me some time to ponder and write. This weekend the New York Daily News published an article about three wonderful bloggers I've come to know well through our shared struggle in balancing immigration and international relocation for the sake of a marriage: Emily Cruz ( The Real Housewife of Ciudad Juarez ), Giselle Stern Hernandez ( The Deportee's Wife ) and Cheryl Arredondo ( Us, After America ). The moment the article went online, the comments section predictably filled with the usual hate and ignorance that you see any time one of our stories is published. I became well-acquainted with this rhetoric one year ago when my family's story published in the Chicago Tribune. The best advice is to not even bother reading the comments section, and I normally follow that advice because truly, nothing healthy or productive can come of ...