Manc

Applied April
fingerprint appt in St Louis Aug 6th
interview in St Louis Sept 20th.

Poppy girl

Nice one

BellaE

Oath ceremony this morning in Philadelphia! I have to say it was quite nice, and I was more moved than I expected. We arrived at 8 AM for a 9 AM appointment. We were asked to wait downstairs until about 8:30, and then went up to a "ceremonial courtroom" on the 4th floor. At 9, they started checking us in (checking our invitation forms and taking our green cards, and allowing us to check that our naturalization certificates were correct.) There were 73 people being naturalized, so that took about 45 minutes. The ceremony itself didn't start until 10, and was over by 10:30. There was someone there with voter registration forms, so I filled one out straight away. I noticed that the people on either side of me were also British, but being British, we didn't speak to each other!
Anyway, I am happy to able to say,"My fellow Americans!" Now off to the Post office to apply for a passport. I feel sort of odd not having my green card in my wallet.

HisBetterHalf

Congrats!!

lansbury

Welcome to the dualies club BellaE

BeataB

Woohoo! Got my interview letter today, for September 26. At 7:45 am, which is perfect, as that's much less time for me to hang around being nervous.

HisBetterHalf

Husband became a naturalized citizen yesterday!!

It was a great, but exhausting day. The ceremony was downtown at the convention center - so I anticipated it would be bigger than usual, but I had no idea how big! 1509 people became new citizens - the largest group in Minnesota's history. So add in lots of family and friends for most of them and it was quite the crowd!

We arrived at the designated time (or a little later due to traffic) and husband shuffled through a looooooooong line to surrender his greencard while I waited in the ballroom. A good number of people were already there, and probably had been for quite some time, and yet it was still two hours before things got rolling!

100 nations were represented. After the singing of the National Anthem (which we were informed was from a melody to an old English drinking song and perhaps being drunk was the only good way to hit the high notes!), the judge read off the number of representatives from each country - starting with those with a single representative and so forth. There were 9 or 10 Brits, I believe - including a local DJ whose family/friends were seated behind me. When your country was named, you were to stand up, so DH did and waved his little American flag. Very cute.

The largest group was from Somalia and as such they were the last to be named - and the judge paused before naming them. You could tell there was confusion/frustration as they all thought they had been overlooked, but as the Twin Cities has the largest Somali population outside of Somalia, they should have known they'd be impossible to miss! So when the Judge finally said "Somalia" - 150+ Somalis (and their hundreds of friends/family) all jumped up and cheered. It was pretty funny and sweet.

The rest of the ceremony was pretty standard - - a marine took the oath on stage while everyone else did in the audience. We didn't get to watch the video from Obama as there was apparently no screen/visual set-up, but it was played over the PA and then of course, the incredibly cheesy version of "God Bless the USA" - during which a lone new-citizen stood up in the ballroom and waived his flag back and forth. It was cheesily beautiful, if that makes sense.

The whole thing was really well done - celebratory, fun, but still formal and serious when need be. I found myself watching the people in the crowd - the families, the children, the grandparents. It was really touching to see how proud and happy they were and made me realize how lucky we are. I confess it brought a few tears to my eyes.

After the ceremony, husband and I walked to "Brit's Pub" which is close to the convention center and where we had one of our first dates - he had a pint of Old Speckled Hen and I had a Strongbow. Husband may be American now, but he'll always be a Surrey-Boy to me!

Oh - - timeline in case anyone is wondering - 4 months from beginning to end:
May 4 - Mailed in N-400 application
May 6/7 - Notified it was received
July 5 - Biometrics
Aug 14 - Interview
Sept. 6 - Naturalization Ceremony

HisBetterHalf

The local English DJ whose family was seated near me did an interview about his process - - I thought I'd share it:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/dis.../citizen-mark/

Husband was upset I didn't introduce him (although I barely spoke to the guy) as he wanted to ask him some questions about the music biz. Oh well - I think everyone had other things on their minds!

lansbury

Congratulations. A good feeling to have reached the end of the road, to know you can come and go as you please, and to vote and have a say.

BellaE

congrats to your hubby! glad to hear the ceremony did not change his taste in beer.

fatbrit

'Bout bloody time!

BeataB

Got my interview tomorrow in Chicago. I can't tell if I am excited, nervous, or what. Husband was quizzing me on the test questions last night, and I appear to know them all, although I am worried that all the answers will fly out of my head once I get there!

rbackhouse

Sent application early Jan 2013
Fingerprinted 2/4/2013
Interview 3/18/2013 and I passed
Oath Ceremony TBD

BeataB

Wow, that was super-speedy! Congratulations! Hope you don't have to wait too long for your oath ceremony. Mine was crazy, in that I passed the test and then it turned out the oath ceremony was the next day. The short notice meant that my husband couldn't come but I was glad to get it all taken care of so fast.

Welshgator

Missed this thread so here's my timeline so far:

Posted n-400 on 4 Mar 2013 to Dallas Lockbox.
Received notification of receipt of n-400 through e-mail on 11 Mar 2013
Received Biometrics appt letter 18 March 2013
Scheduled for biometrics on 29 March 2013.