They're on Their Way!

[Boxlicker101]

"They" being my wife's daughter and her four offspring. They took off from Manila about six hours ago, on their way to the USA. Their first stop is Honolulu, which will be their port of entry, and they will clear customs there. Then, on to San Jose, and we will pick them up from there.

My wife has been waiting almost 16 years for the red tape to finally be cleared up, and I have been waiting almost as long. I even wrote a poem about what I considered to be the unconscionable delays. Four years ago, we bought the large house where we now live, in anticipation of their arrival.

Thre is another daughter, who was delayed because of her physical exam, but that has been cleared up too, and she should be joining us next month, I hope.

We will be supporting them, for a while, at least, but this is nothing new. We have been their sole support for over ten years. This year, at least, we will be able to list all five immigrants as exemptions on our income tax returns.

 

[impressive]

Congratulations, Box! Here's to a happy household. *cheers*

 

[Boxlicker101]

Congratulations, Box! Here's to a happy household. *cheers*

Thanks, Imp. It will cerertainly be a much bigger household. An added benefit might be that I will get more writing done. Currently, I spend most of the tme with my wife and that won't be necessary with so many others around. It will be more restful for her too, because she won't have so much work to do around the house. Hopefully, she will completely stop cooking.

 

[rgraham666]

Congrats, Box.

 

[glynndah]

Best wishes for a long and successful family reunion.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Thanks, Glynda and Rob. Unfortunately, the reunion has had a small delay. They were hassled so much at customs/immigration in Honolulu Airport they missed their connecting flight. Hawaiian Airlines put them up in a hotel overnight, and they will be arriving one day later than planned. Not a big deal, and maybe better in the long run.

They are actually enjoying the stay in the hotel, and it should help with the jet lag. They called us from the hotel with a go phone we sent them for that purpose.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Okay, they've arrived. They stayed here Saturday and Sunday night and today we got the two youngest enrolled in local schools and the older boy registered with Selective Service. I still expect to have more time to write, but so far I have been doing a lot of running around.

 

[DesertPirate]

Box, I hope it goes even better than you hoped.

 

[starrkers]

Congratulations on finally getting the family together, Box.

Hope it all runs smoothly

 

[Boxlicker101]

Thanks, DP and Starkers. It is starting to run smoothly. There are some busy times, getting the teo youngest kids into school, anjd we need to go to Social Security. Either that or fill out the forms and mail them in. I don't know if that would be good enough or not.

One advantage is that my wife doesn't cook all the time, because she is not a good cook. Tha daughter and the older of the two girls are both pretty good. Once we get the immediate things taken care of, it will be finding jobs for those old enough to hold jobs. This will mean driving them around because nobody has a drivers' license, but things will work themselves out.

By the way, it's not the whole family yet. there is still one daughter, who had a false positive on her physical exam, and has been delayed because of it. She might get here next month.