We turned in our immigration paperwork to become Swiss residents on March 14th. At that point, they said it would take 6-8 weeks to complete the process and give us an answer on whether or not we could stay in Switzerland permanently. Now I am no math wizard but if my calculations are correct, 7 months add up to slightly more than 8 weeks. Call me crazy.
I was approved in May because of my work status, but we waited, waited, waited (you get the idea?) for Lucia and Sarah's approval to come. Did I mention we waited and waited on pins and needles?
Long story, short: we got word that they were approved a few weeks ago! So they can stay in the country, which is a good thing. Though the thought of me sipping red wine and eating french baguettes by myself does sound appealing from time to time, I grant you.
Here's the hitch: the girls had to submit their paperwork for their residency cards while in the US. "Couldn't we just go down to the immigration office in Geneva and have them stamp our passports there?" we asked. No! Too easy! You need to fly back to the US, send your passports to the Swiss consulate to be stamped, then come back to Switzerland and make it official. Um, okay. Not the ideal situation for sure.
But, we decided to make the best of it! Since they never specified where in the US we needed to go to submit the passports, we opted to make a mini vacation out of it. Emily, Sarah's sister, lives outside Pensacola, Florida and had just bought a new house and we have been eager to visit her. So we came to Florida and have been loving every minute of it.
Sarah and Lucia came early last weekend I arrived the following Saturday. Sarah's mom Jeanne also flew down from Seattle and we have been having a blast: again, more sun, sand and water! That seems to be a theme from our endless summer.
Emily has went out of her way to make us all happy and quite frankly, spoiling Lucia. She just happened to pick up a pool for Lucia that has a running waterfall, a kids table and chairs, sand toys and shovels, a turtle potty seat, and the list goes on. Grandma has done her best to spoil her too, so we fear she may never leave here.
We have been having a great time. We have the Gulfarium, a dolphin cruise, the zoo and carving pumpkins on our schedule as we wait for the passports to come back from the consulate. It is a tough job, but someone has to do it!
And as always, we play hard, then rest up to do it again. Did I mention that Emily has a room for Lucia with dragonflies on the walls? Again, she might not come back to Switzerland. But she can if she wants to now that the approvals are in place, so that is an improvement.
The airport warriors
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