Passport Crisis Averted

We are going to Cabo for a week in late September to attend a wedding of two of our friends. We've booked our flights (thank you American Airlines points!) and our hotel. Doesn't it look amazing! The big thing left to do was get our passports. Since I was off today, post conference holiday, and Abby was at school, it was the perfect day to get it done. It took all day and I'm not kidding when I say I thought Cabo might not happen!

Marcus and I said a few bad words to the terrorists today- they made the process hard since we have to protect our country so much.

Weeks ago, I completed and printed out the application online. We had planned to go to the post office with our driver's license and birth certificate. We'd take our official photos there. Easy! Marcus called the post office on Wednesday to make our appointment and they told him they are booked until August 19th. Uh oh! I called a couple of post offices this morning- one is full until October. Yea, that won't work!

Marcus googled around and found Just Passports. They process it all quickly for you, review your paperwork, and walk you through the process for $50. It was our only real option so we moved forward with an appointment with them this afternoon.

In gathering every thing up, we realized that Marcus' birth certificate was nowhere to be found. Ugh! And, the Just Passports location doesn't do photos. So, we both ran to Walgreen's for photos and then Marcus went to the Vital Stats office for a birth certificate.

In the meantime, my laptop wouldn't allow me to complete the Just Passports information in an online PDF, too old of a version. So, I had to jump on another computer, complete it and email it to Marcus to print at work, since our home printer is broken. Annoying! He also had to copy our birth certificates and his license. I took my license to Kinkos to copy since he couldn't take it to work- I was driving around all day!

We got to Just Passports and realized that my birth certificate is no longer valid- the "rules" changed a few months ago. It has worked for 35 years, but not anymore. So, we decided to use my passport from Europe when I was in college as my ID and just do a renewal. Only problem, I didn't have a copy of our marriage license showing my name change. Is this not insane!

Luckily, they found a way around it... my passport with birth name counted as my proof of citizenship and driver's license with my married name counts as my proof of marriage and name change. I thought I was going to scream.

Luckily, it is in the FedEx envelope now and should be completed and back in Austin by the end of the month. Three weeks to spare! Ridiculous!

I highly recommend you get your passports early- the process is complicated. Oh, and take a day off work for sure!