Naturalized...

Andrew and I became official naturalized US citizens today.....

It has been a long, long, loooooong road getting here! We moved to Atlanta in Oct 2001 right after Abbie was born and began the process of applying for a Green Card right away...after interviews and fingerprinting and doctors appointments and fees and form filling we finally got our green cards in Dec 2004 and then we basically had to wait five years and then start another form filling, fee paying, picture taking, fingerprint giving, interview making, test taking process in order to get our Citizenship and we finalized it all with our Oath Ceremony at the Federal Courthouse in Phoenix.....






















 
It was a pretty cool experience...we all sang the "Star Spangled Banner" and then more surprisingly "God Bless the USA" as in the country song....I was glad they had video screens with the words as I wasn't expecting that one:) A couple of people spoke and we all read out the Oath of Allegiance

yep...no ambiguity on that one is there:) I can't totally remember what order we did this all in, but we also pledged allegiance....

and listened to the Judge speak for a few minutes....

before we were officially declared US citizens and handed our Certificates of Naturalization!!!

Our great neighbors, Denise and Scot Aubrey and Susan, Scott Morgan (and Austin) came to be a part of the day (can't believe we didn't manage a photo with them all) and brought our kids (who I think were most excited to get a whole day off school!)

ok so just one minor observation....you see the design of the courthouse building behind us in these pictures???  It has the most ridiculous design you can imagine for a building in the desert. It is built like a massive greenhouse - all windows and the main building has no AC so it is sweltering in there and it's not even that hot yet!! Thankfully the individual courtrooms were air conditioned:)

 

We arrived home after another hour-ish of line waiting and form filling to find our neighbors had gone to town on our house.....I think some people may wonder if we are just a little too enthusiastic in preparing for July 4th:)

Aidan and Laura arrived with the hugest bunch of American flag balloons you over did see and good old fashioned apple pie and we enjoyed our first night as citizens together. What a day!! I hope my kids will remember this day and tell their kids about it in years to come:)