Sorry for the silence

Hey Everyone, Welcome Back! Sorry for the silence. For a quick recap/defense arguement. Beginning the end of June we were held in the U.S. slightly against our will for 6 weeks. Techniquely speaking we came home to renew our visa's. We were very confident that nothing would go wrong, so we sent them off to D.C. through a passport service, and headed to the beach with my family. Upon returning to Charlotte, we learned that we were denied for "jurisdiction issues". Meaning since Joe's last residence was Virginia and mine was North Carolina, so on paper we look like a married couple that don't live in the same state. So the next week we made the 7 hour drive to DC to turn them in, in person...because we were told if we turned them in ourselves they had to service us. So we drove up and drove right back. Not in our case. After waiting our 4 days we drove back to D.C. to find out we were still denied for the same reason and now they want an FBI fingerprint clearance form. My first question was how do we get that? After too many details to explain and two weeks of waiting we finally recieved our FBI clearance...A sheet with a non special stamp that said "no arrests on record". Duh, I could have told them that. Anyway we went back to good friends at the car rental company to pick up our 3rd car in 3 weeks, and headed to Atlanta. Why Atlanta this time? While we waited for the FBI papers we changed Joe's residency to NC. So now we were both listed as from the same address as our "perminent" address. Atlanta was such a different experience. The people were nicer, the experience was easier and their was a one day turn around! So crossing our fingers and saying our prayers we went back the next afternoon, AND WERE HANDED VISA's!!!! To those of you were able see it was wonderful, and we wish we could have seen everyone! So now we are back in the normalcy of Latin Life in Sao Paulo.