Hi Ack! - yes, finally, we had our interview and have received our visas - last cab off the rank for this thread?? I think we might have been
Not without it's drama though unfortunately - they had actually 'misplaced' our NZ police checks that had been sent there directly. The Consulate had even emailed us confirmation in March that they had indeed arrived and would be there waiting for our interview...well...somehow I was not surprised when they told us no, they were not there, and they were really rather doubtful they'd received them in the first place which kinda pissed me off truth be told...anyway, we filled out new police check request forms on the spot and whilst they kept our passports, they couldn't tell us 100% that we had been approved so that was a bit of an anti-climax!!! Later when we had access to our email we sent them a copy of the email between us regarding the police check etc and less than a week later we received our p/p's back all good to go. I'm thinking that that was mighty fast for the police clearances to be returned - either that, or they actually found them after all....no apologies for the mix-up of course ;-)
Boy am I glad it's over though, as I'm sure you can all relate...we had built it up so much that it really wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought, and even though we had to take two rather bored/fidgety children with us, I probably would have actually enjoyed the whole thing if not for the ruddy hold up, lol!
I was chuckling to myself as we (as well-advised) managed to enter the lifts last and take the first interview number ;-) May have even mentally given myself a high-five...
So, the tickets are booked and we fly out for NYC four weeks after you, Zootfish on the 4th of July
That's handy to know about the SSN thanks AJK - we'll need to get our hands on it as soon as we possibly can to try and get a lease signed in a decent school zone in time for the start of their school year, early September. I'm not sure how realistic that's going to be, but we're gonna give it our best shot! In the meantime we've leased an apartment for a month to stay in when we get there...am starting to get more than a bit excited, finally, after so long in limbo....