Born in the USA... NOT!

We went to Jacksonville (which is about 2 1/2 hours East of Tallahassee) last Friday to have my fingerprints taken at the Homeland Security office... No, I'm not a suspected terrorist... LOL... but I'm applying for my US Citizenship... I should've done it years ago... I was born in the Philippines and moved here when I was barely 15... My green card expires next year and now that I'm not busy with school and wedding planning, I have the much needed time to travel back and forth to Jacksonville... It's a long tedious process... You must not be an illegal alien... You must have lived in the US for 5 years (well, I'm going on 10 next year... Green cards expire within 10 years of being issued)... You must fill out a ton of paperwork... You must have not committed any crimes whatsoever and be a model citizen... blah... blah... blah... The whole process takes an average of 6 months from the time you submitted your application to the time you take your Oath to become a citizen... In between those, you have to travel to Jacksonville (since this is the nearest city that has an INS office... which I don't know why the Capital City of Florida--Tallahassee doesn't have one!!!)...

My parents are both citizens as well as my brothers... My sister Kathryn and I were over the age of 18 when my parents became citizens, so we have to process ours on our own... Well, not entirely, because my parents went with Rob and I last Friday! Kathryn, on the other hand, renewed her Green card since she's in her last year of nursing school and she's busy as heck and won't have time for all that... I'm just real anxious to get my citizenship so that I can travel to Europe without a visa requirement for every country!!!

We were planning on honeymooning in Europe... but then it occurred to me that I have to get my visas from each country... And since we plan on going to the UK, The Netherlands, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Belgium... That would've been 8 visas??? Talk about a lot of paperwork and headache... So... I'm really really excited about this... since Rob and I have an agreement that we are to take our second honeymoon in Europe in the next 2 years before we start having children... And that means, the sooner we go to Europe, the sooner we can have kids!!! haha...

Anyways, this weekend was just a relaxing weekend... We worked on the yard and cleaned the house on Saturday, then Sunday we had mom, dad, Spencer, and my brother Kevin over for dinner... I made my specialty Spaghetti! Then mom, dad, and Spencer were off on their RV trip on Monday... They're traveling all over the South Eastern states... I think they're in Louisiana right now... The last time we spoke to them, they were somewhere in Mobile, Alabama! *sigh* I wish we could go!!! But that's okay... since I think we're going to Destin again this weekend... but this time with my parents!