So Sam told me in 2020 that he wanted to start traveling with Students during the summer. There is a company called EF tours and there are hundreds of tours and places to pick from. He told me that in the summer of 2020 he was planning on taking kids to Europe. He said they with every 6 students, an adult could go free. He had already told another teacher that he could go if he got 12, so that meant if there were 18 kids going, I would be able to go free. Well he at one point had 15 students but some dropped out. In the end, there were 9 that were committed. That meant the other teacher was not going to go, but I really wanted to go. We found out that I could pay an expedited rate and go. So that is what I started planning for. We also did not know exactly what time his family reunion was, but the timing worked out great. I also didnt know what we were going to do with our kids, but as you read in the last post, my parents stepped up big time and helped out.
So I knew we were going to be traveling in July 2022, so I wanted to start my passport application in time. I was going to do it before the new year but things got busy and I ended up going the first of January to get it taken care of. I thought I had until July to get it done but found out that I only had until the first of April, I was cutting it close but felt like I was going to be okay.
A backstory, when I was 18, our family went to Chile to pick up my sister from her mission and then Peru to see Machu Pichu. It was a super awesome trip, but I had to have passport to go. My mom took care of most everything, I got a picture taken but she did the rest and I obtained a passport. So that passport was expired but they said it would be easy to apply for a new one. I went to our county offices and brought my expired passport and the birth certificate that I had. Everything was submitted and seemed like I had it all in order. I chose the regular processing time of 8-10 weeks...Sam had submitted his last year and got his within 3 weeks; so I thought it was going to be okay.
Well at the beginning of March I got a letter from the passport agency that my birth certificate could not be used to obtain my passport. I had an abstract of birth that had been issued a year after my birth and not my actual birth certificate. I had used this abstract of birth to get my star license and my mom said that is what she had used in 2004 when we went to Chile. I was also told that I could use my expired passport to obtain a new passport so what I had sent in should have been enough. So I wrote a letter in response to their letter and asked them to use the expired passport to issue the new one and I sent it.
At this time, I felt like I needed to try and obtain my original birth certificate; I went online to the California birth registry and found out that it could take up to 85 business days or 17 weeks to get the birth certificate. I was dumbfounded but clicked okay. The next day I was able to talk to someone from the passport agency and they said that what I had provided could not be used to get my new passport. They said they had the expired passport but the abstract of birth that was used in 2004 could not be used now; they had had some changes in the way they process. I was super bummed and thought I was not going to get to go after all of the work. I called the California birth registry and tried to talk to someone about expediting the birth certificate. They said that there were only two counties in California where you might be able to get the certificate faster...Los Angelo's and San Diego...I was born in San Diego so I was able to order it and guess what, it came three days later. I was then able to overnight it to the passport agency and they were able to process it. I got it in the mail two weeks later...just a few days before the deadline the tour group had set. I was so grateful that it worked out...
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