Citizenship!!!

"Hey, that wasn't so bad!"

Nugget is officially a U.S. Citizen!  What a process and judging by other peoples reactions - we breezed through.

First, Lovebug and I both read over the U.S. consulate website to make sure we had everything they required and more.  Apparently some of the folks ahead of us had not read through all the requirements -there are many- and as one might guess they don't accept copies only originals.  Before making the appointment I made sure I had all the required documents and even emailed the consulate to make sure a copy of one of the documents was OK.  Thank God, they said it was fine because the original is deeply buried in our over stuffed storage unit in Michigan.

Secondly, we brought cash because you just never know and good thing we did as the credit card machine was not working.

Three days before I received an email stating that I needed to bring a prepaid self addressed DHL envelope and well everyone in front of us seemed to have missed that email.  Ironically, I got the email as I was walking out the door heading to the DHL store.  Several spouses were out running to the DHL store nearby.

Throughout the whole process leading up to the appointment I will admit my bit of concern about having Nugget's passport photo taken.  Why they put in a picture of a 7 week old baffles me since the passport book is good for five years???  Regardless, we went to the neighborhood photo shop and he was all set up to take passport pictures of babies.  Yes!  Surprisingly, Nugget did well and it only took a few shots before the photographer snapped a decent one.  The standards are still the same for babies as they are for adult U.S. passport pictures - hence my worry as they can be so particular.  The picture above was taken right after our official photo shoot - beaming with success and a bit of relief on my part.

After providing all the documents and paperwork and forking over about 160 euros.....Nugget is officially a U.S. citizen!!!  Now her passport needs to arrive before we leave for Michigan at the end of June....should only take 4 weeks.