Passports

In the middle of April Chad noticed that his passport was about to expire. We were going to be moving to Canada at the end of May, so we thought we'd better get a move on and send it off for renewal. We knew the timing would probably be close as it ususally takes about 6 weeks for anything like that.... little did we know......

Here we are in the middle of July, and still no passport. There is a number I can call for an update to assess the progress of the passport. Normally when I call, I get a busy signal. A few times I do actually get through to the voice prompts, and am then told that the agents are all busy, and the queue is full. TWICE I have actually gotten further than that, to be told "there are more than 25 persons ahead of you." At this point I am so glad to have gotten through that I stay on the line for the next 45 minutes to an hour, to finally be greeted by a customer service rep who tells me "we're about 10 weeks behind the send off date, so if you sent it in April 15th, we wouldn't even have it open until July." So, here we are, in the middle of July, and there are currently 24 persons ahead of me in the queue.

My issue isn't actually that I wonder where the passport is (although that's a thought), we put our old address to send it to b/c we foolishly thought we'd get it back in time. So I just want to change the address of where they send it when they finally get through with it. An agent told me I have to keep calling until they are on the day they received it, and then get an application number from them. Then I have to FAX the new address to them. So, when I finally get through to them, and they are on the right day, I can't just tell them the new address, NO, I have to send a FAX with the info on it so someone can loose that and it won't get fixed and they'll send the passport to the old address anyways. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother......

In case you are wondering there are now 21 persons ahead of me in the queue.

Canada Takes it's Holidays Seriously

So today I realized we were short on some groceries, and thought Asher & I could go do some shopping. I realized after trying to go to the bank this morning that it's a bank holiday (I really should have rushed to the bank Friday before it closed, but I figured the bank would be open Saturday morning....), but I figured the grocery stores would probably be open.

First I went to the discount store, but the lights were all off, so I thought I'd try the Superstore, it's the only big grocery store in town, and I figured it would have shorter hours, but it should be open, right? Nope. Closed all day today.

My last option was Walmart. It's ALWAYS open..... or so I thought. The parking lot was totally empty, as was every other parking lot I passed along the way, so I gave up. I suppose we can make it one more day without milk, and peanut butter, and sugar....

It's difficult to figure all the little details out when you move! Hopefully tomorrow we'll have better luck.