Your Papers, Please (or "The Second Time's a Charm")

The six YARCs (Youngest Available Riecken Children) drove with Erika down to my office today and picked me up.  We were off to play the fun game called "wait in line at the government service center".

It took us 90 minutes to process all six of the kids' passport applications, plus one for Erika.  Mine doesn't expire for six months, and we don't know what to do there.


The total for this little excursion?  US$801.48


The breakdown went something like this:

Item	Price	Qty	Ext Price
Pictures	$18.24	2	$36.48
Passport Processing Fee	$25.00	7	175.00
New Passport Fee	$80.00	6	$480.00
Passport Replacement Fee (Erika)	$110.00	1	$110.00
Total			$801.48

I guess we're committed now.

I should note that Erika did stop at Walgreens to get pictures taken.  The pictures were taken while sitting in a chair with a black back.  The shortest two kids had the top bar of the chair back going behind their heads (in violation of the photo requirements).  Rather than have this field trip again, we simply paid to have the pictures taken there at the government center.  Ugh.

Practice makes perfect though, as we (read Erika) had all of the paperwork in order, with birth certificates and photos, as well as all the paperwork filled out.

The kids, for what it's worth, were remarkably well behaved.

We're committed now, financially.... we can also go and visit Canada now.