It's been slow going, waiting for the NVC to finish reviewing our paperwork. We are down to the last few steps, but it's just a waiting game at this point. I was optimistic that perhaps F.B. might be here before March, but now that it's almost the middle of January... I'm not really sure. Who knows- perhaps things will start to move faster, but I'm not going to get my hopes up. I'll just say I hope he's able to come to the USA by Spring or Summer.

Where we are right now- email from our immigration lawyer:

The next step is for the National Visa Center to complete the processing of your case and then forward it to the Consulate in Manila.  Once the Consulate Receives the case, we will receive a notice with a date and time for FB to appear for his interview and instructions for FB to complete his medical examination. We will keep you posted as soon as we have new information.

I checked on our case via the USCIS website. You can see we are pretty much on the last step- click for a bigger version:

Here is our immigration process check sheet. (Strike through's are completed steps).

1. USCIS will send our lawyer a receipt notice sometime in the next few weeks confirming they received our I-130.

2. In approximately 3-5 months the USCIS will make a decision on the I-130 and will forward our file to the National Visa Center in New Hampshire.

3. The NVC will then send a packet with instructions to complete our I-864. (There will be a fee.)

4. Once the packet is returned to the NVC, they will review everything and within 45-90 days they will forward the packet to the U.S. consulate in Manila.

5. The Consulate will send a packet with instructions for F.B. to complete a medical examination & obtain a police clearance certificate prior to scheduling his visa interview.

NOTE: Our lawyers Peter J. Gonzales & Shanna Stanton have changed firms. They are no longer with Kahiga Tiagha. They are now with Green and Spiegel LLC, but still located in Philadelphia. 

Last summer I adopted my 3 beautiful girls Honey, Hazelnut & Clover from Star's Rat Rescue. They traveled all the way from South Dakota to Philadelphia.

SRR is currently planning another trip to PA tentatively set for Spring/Summer 2011 depending on how fast they are able to get drivers and coordinate everything. Anyone along the route in NE, IA, IL, IN, OH, PA or MD can adopt! There are still a lot of rats available for adoption. I'm adopting 2 boys and 2 girls from Star's Rat Rescue.

My boys!

And girls 11H & 11J I will also be adopting!


Here is SRR's plan for the 2011 Rat Train! If you can help fill any driving spots or want to adopt please contact SRR by email at: stars.rat.train@gmail.com

Phase 1

Winner, South Dakota to Joliet, IL
718 Miles - 11 hours 54 minutes
20 Rats

1. Winner, SD to Yankton, SD            149 mi  2 hours 56 mins - Filled! - Thanks Brittney!
2. Yankton, SD to Omaha (I-680), NE  160 mi  2 hour 41 mins - Filled! Thanks Brittney!
3. Omaha (I-680), NE to Adair, IA        82 mi   1 hour 18 mins - Filled! Thanks Barbara!
4. Adair, IA to Des Moines, IA             57 mi  55 mins  - Filled! Thanks Barbara!
5. Des Moines, IA to Williamsburg, IA  90 mi   1 hour 24 mins - Filled! Thanks Kristin!
6. Williamsburg, IA to Geneseo, IL      110 mi    1 hour 45 mins
7. Geneseo, IL to Joliet, IL                  116 mi    1 hours 56 mins - Filled! Thanks Mary!

~~Overnight Stay Needed in Joliet, IL or Chicago area. for 6 rats~~ - Filled! Thanks Pam!

Phase 2

Joliet, IL to Philadelphia, PA and Stevensville, MD
772 Miles - 13 hours 45 minutes
16 Rats

1. Joliet, IL to Chesterton, IN              59 mi   1 hour 17 mins - Filled! Thanks Pam!
2. Chesterton, IN to South Bend, IN    53 mi   58 mins - Filled! Thanks Pam!
3. South Bend, IN to Montpelier, OH    97 mi    1 hour 36 mins
4. Montpelier, OH to Fremont, OH        89 mi    1 hour 32 mins
5. Fremont, OH to Elyria, OH              62 mi    1 hour 7 mins
6. Elyria, OH to Boardman, OH           95 mi    1 hour 37 mins
7. Boardman, OH to Pittsburgh, PA      61 mi    1 hour 10 mins
8. Pittsburgh, PA to Somerset, PA       70 mi    1 hour 15 mins - Filled! - Thanks Samantha!
9. Somerset, PA to Harrisburg, PA      138 mi   2 hour 25 mins
10. Harrisburg, PA to Philadelphia, PA 107 mi   1 hour 55 mins - Filled! - Thanks Sarah!
11. Philadelphia, PA to Newark, DE      45 mi    56 mins - Filled! Thanks Jenn!
12. Newark, DE to Stevensville, MD      70 mi    1 hour 22 mins - Filled! Thanks Jenn!

Want to adopt a Rescue Rat?

If you live along/close to the train route and would like to adopt a rescue rat now, please go to Star's Rat Rescue and check out the available rats and then fill out the Pre-Adoption Questionnaire.

You can still adopt even if you are not along/close to this train route, SRR will have more routes in the future. Please follow the same instructions as above.

For other ways to Help Star's Rat Rescue, please see our note here.

I'll be keeping the list updated as we get new drivers & adopters added! 


(Please cross post or tweet about this if you can! Thanks!)

Poppy just passed away about 30 minutes ago... I set her in her carrier to rest for a little while, she didn't look any different, I feel so horrible now I wasn't holding her when she passed away... what an awful week this has been....

Pepper & Poppy

Poppy rat has always been healthy as a horse (as they say). She's my chubby curious girl who always explores my room. She's never had any health issues until last Wednesday right before her sister Pepper passed away.

I took Poppy to the vet Thursday evening after work. She had me stumped because she became ill so very quickly, with very little symptoms. She didn't have raspy wheezy breathing, no lumps or bumps. But her fur was puffed, she was making a slight whimper/clicking noise, and she was very lethargic and seemed to be in pain. The vet checked her out for awhile, he really listened to her chest for longer than normal. Unfortunately, Poppy has pneumonia...

My vet said sometimes you can't always hear wheezing or raspy breathing that sometimes a healthy rat will just suddenly fall very ill. He said she was in very poor shape. They had to give her IV fluids, She also got a Baytril injection, an injection of dexamethasone and a two week prescription of antibiotic Ciprofloxacin. He wants to see her for a recheck in two weeks- but warned me she's very poorly and to be prepared just in case...

She made it through last night but was still poorly this morning. She wouldn't take any of the Pedialyte in the oral syringe, but kept dribbling it out- so we just had to do plain water. I stopped after work today and picked up Coconut Water (It has more electrolytes than Gatorade!) & some more baby food to give her in the oral syringe, because she's still not drinking or eating on her own.

I also finally figured out a method with the oral syringe that works. I have to feed her very slowly so she won't dribble anything out down her chin. If I feed her slowly, she will lick and swallow what's in her mouth. I was able to get 3 syringes of coconut water and 1 full syringe of baby food into her. I'd been doing that every few hours but before that she was dribbling most of it down her chin. I'm really hoping and praying that with the antibiotic's, and the little bit of liquid/food I'm getting into her will help give her a little strength to help her fight this...

(If you're wondering why pet rats? Please read my article I wrote a few months ago, here.)

My Pepper rat passed away around 7:20pm. She has always been my runt, she had a lot of health issues- especially lung issues. (She was in cedar chips at the store I got her at.) She's been fighting for her life since I got her. She developed a mammary tumor a few months ago and I think that was giving her even more complications. Yesterday evening she started being not able to breathe and none of the treatments we usually give her seemed to work... I think it was just her time. She seemed a better this morning but this evening was bad again and gasping for breathe.... goodbye my Pepper... you were my spunky funny girl and I will miss you...

Poppy & Pepper

Pepper

And now my Poppy rat is ill? I'm not sure... she started this afternoon while I was at work (my Brother was checking in on Pepper and noticed Poppy not looking like herself.) Poppy is lethargic and making a chattering/clicking noise. I don't know if she is mourning or ill. I am going to call the vet in the morning. Everyone else seems fine. :-(

My cousin Jessica's laptop screen died a few weeks ago. With her new baby, she didn't have money to have it repaired at a store or money get a new one right now; so we did some searching on ebay and I was able to find her a brand new LCD screen for $79. Her warranty was expired. (If she had taken it somewhere they would have charged $199+ for a new screen plus repair fee's).

I've done repairs on my own laptop before. I've replaced the keyboard, replaced casing, etc. So I was pretty confident I could repair her LCD display after looking at her HP G60 service manual online. I also ordered her a new LCD inverter for $5 since it works together with the display. It took about 3 hours- (I kind of dropped one of the tiny screws in our dining room carpet lol! It took forever to find it!). HP had the LCD data cable running under the hinge, which is a really strange spot because as you open & close the laptop it wears down the wire. I moved it so it was over the hinge. Her laptop is working just fine now, I returned it to her this evening and she was very happy to have it back!

I also got a new cell phone on Ebay brand new. I love my Blackberry- but I hate how with Blackberry Curve it will freeze up and you'll get the hourglass and you'll have to pop out the battery to reset the phone. (It does it often!) I can't get any upgrade deals with T-mobile because I'm on a special $59.99 plan with 500 minutes unlimited nights & weekends and unlimited texting & data. That was the catch to sign up for the plan- I would have to pay full price for a new phone, no special price upgrades.

I'd been looking at the Motorola Charm for a little while so I did some searching on Ebay and was able to win a brand new one for $149. (T-mobile is charging $269 full price). It also came with a car charger, headset, 2 batteries, 2 back doors. It has a touch screen but it also has buttons like a Blackberry. It's also Android so I had to call T-mobile to switch over my data plan.


It's really a nice phone, I love all of the features, how it backs up my contacts into my Motoblur account online. How it streams all my networking sites into one window on the phone for quick updates.

What I hate though is the battery drains extremely fast! It came with a regular and extended battery and I have the extended battery in the phone. Even with a full charge and screen dimmed all the way, by the time I was heading home on the train after work at 4pm the battery so low (30%) it shut off my data service to save energy. I had to order another extended battery on Ebay and I'll carry that & the regular one for emergencies. I remember I had the same issue with my Motorola Razr before. I would have to keep a back up battery with me at all times.

Thank you everyone for entering my Holiday Blog Giveaway! I had 37 valid entries. (If you commented for the initial entry & you already followed me on GFC or Twitter you automatically gained an extra entry). I numbered and entered each entry into a Microsoft Word program and today I used Random.org to choose the winner!

And the winner is...



Stargirl! Congratulations! I will be contacting you by email soon so I can send you your prizes!

For New Years Eve dinner I made a Quiche Casserole. I took the idea from a Good Housekeeping January 2011 recipe but altered it a bit for our family.

I'm going to use the premade hash brown patties to line my casserole dish with next time. I tried making my own hash browns but failed because I didn't peel the potatoes beforehand and they turned greyish and not very pretty because of the skins, lol! So next year I'm using the premade hash brown patties!

Quiche Casserole

(Use a large rectangle casserole dish).

Ingredients:

8 Eggs
2 Egg Whites
2 cups Milk
Frozen Hash Brown Patties
1/4 teaspoon of Salt
Dash of Pepper
1 large Onion
1 Small package of chopped ham. (Around 4-6 Oz.)
1 Package of Bacon
4 Oz. Sharp Shredded Chedder Cheese
4 Oz. Shredded Sharp Swiss Cheese (I had to shred the swiss myself.)

Directions: Preheat Oven to 375 Degrees. It will take about 40 minutes to cook.

1. Line bottom of casserole dish with a little Olive Oil and lay hash brown patties so it covers the bottom of the dish completely.

2. Cook the package of bacon and set aside to cool. Chop onion finely and caramelize in a frying pan with a little olive oil. Also set aside.

3. In a large mixing bowl combine eggs, egg whites, milk, salt & pepper. Whisk well to combine. After whisking add in the chopped ham and shredded cheese. Crumple in the cooled bacon & onion. Mix well.

4. Pour the quiche mixture over the hash brown patties in the casserole dish. Cook for 40 minutes.

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

I hope everyone had a nice holiday! I had off from work on Friday so Thursday night I baked butter thumbprint cookies using this recipe. I made some with strawberry preserves and others with milk & dark chocolate Hershey kisses. The strawberry preserve ones turned out amazing! I want to make more sometime with strawberry and raspberry preserves.

My Anniversary & Christmas gifts arrived from my husband. He sent me a Hello Kitty wallet. I wanted one from a cheap stall in the Philippines but he got me a nice one from the Sanrio store over there. A little stuffed mouse and a jade bangle, but unfortunately my pretty bangle doesn't fit. :(


Decorated the rat cages this year for Christmas with some Dollar Store decorations. (All of the pictures are here.)

(The ratties got yogurt raisins and yogies for Christmas!)

Christmas eve I stopped up to visit my cousin Jessica & drop of Christmas gifts. Christmas Day went with the family to the Chinese Buffet. This was the first year we did that and I think we're going to every year now. We had a light dinner exchanged gifts and watched movies on Netflix. I signed up for the free 30 day trial but I think I'm going to keep it because it's only $7.99 a month and I don't really watch TV at all so it's nice to be able to watch movies on my laptop. Plus we can stream through the PS3 to our TV.

My parents got the cat and dog Santa outfits for Christmas. My Dad's dog was excited about it but our cat Tansy was pissed!

Tansy

Homer

Ivy (She's a big squish hehe!)

I got lot's of stuffed animals for Christmas, haha. I've always wanted sock monkey's! And I got a Panda Pillow Pet and a "Pillow Pet". Hehe! I also got a Kangaroo Keeper for my purse and some supersized Dr. Pepper lip balms. Ooooh and a huge bag of Starbucks ground Christmas Blend Coffee! (The best!)


Don't forget to enter my Holiday Giveaway! Deadline is December 31st, 2010!

May not have work tomorrow. A snow blizzard started this afternoon and it's supposed to snow into Monday. We may be getting 8-12 inches of snow. I really hope they close work because so far the trains are delayed by almost 40 minutes and some bus service has been suspended. The mayor of Philadelphia declared a snow emergency that will last until 1pm Monday. Let's hope this is the only major snow storm we get!

One year ago today F.B. & I were married in the Philippines! We started off as friends who met online which turned into a long distance relationship. We've been through good times & bad times together and last December 19th, 2009 after 6 years of being together we were finally married. Our long distance adventures are not over yet- as we are still currently working with our immigration lawyer on getting F.B. to the USA, hopefully by early 2011! ♥♥♥

Wanted to share some picture & video memories of our wedding day last year:

Wedding Videos: (The 1st video was made by my sister in law. It originally had the song 'Happy Together' but due to copyright laws I had to remove the music to upload it).





♥♥♥ Happy Anniversary F.B. I Love You ♥♥♥
To view more of our wedding & honeymoon photos you can view our Photobucket album here!

or here:

Wedding Photographer Photos

Our Wedding & Honeymoon

My cousin Jessica & I went to see The Nutcracker at the Philadelphia Academy of Music today!

We woke up quite early and hit Starbuck's before our train downtown. Finally tried the Gingerbread Latte. (Still love the Peppermint Mocha though!) Our train stopped at Suburban Station.

We had an idea of how to get to the Academy and there was a "map" on our printable tickets so we set off down 16th street. After we walked about 2 blocks we thought it might be better to stop in a nearby hotel and make sure we were going the right way. The security guard pointed us in the direction we wanted to go. After a little while we were still a bit confused we weren't running into the street we needed. We stopped in the The Art Institute of Philadelphia to ask at the front desk. The lady there gave us much better directions! We were only about 3 blocks away from Broad street! It was freezing out today too! Only around 36F! (2.22C).

The ballet was great! It was 2 hours long with an intermission. Everything was beautiful- photography wasn't allowed during the show but I got some pictures of the theater during intermission. The chandelier was gorgeous! It would actually raise up into the ceiling during the show and lower during intermission.

Philadelphia Academy of Music:






After the show we headed back to Suburban Station to catch the 1:35pm train because my other cousin Chrissy, Jessica's sister was visiting from Georgia with her husband and we wanted to meet them for an early dinner.

On the way back- City Hall in the distance:


Oooh we saw Tiffany & Co. on Walnut Street, but we didn't have time to go in and browse. I sooo want something from Tiffany's someday from their $100 & under section online, hehe.



We also saw Love Park across from Suburban Station but didn't get to visit this time around.


After we got back on the train we headed up to see my cousin & her husband. We went out to Chili's for dinner. Had a really long but nice day! And fun getting to play tourist in my own city again, lol!

Our work campus finally made the big downtown move. We are near 30th Street Station now. (Patty- all your NYC tourist stories- I have one! We were walking along & some guy was telling his wife or female friend, "Yeah they got rid of 30th Street Station years ago!" What the?! Obviously he hasn't been to Philadelphia in years because I've been through there every day this week for work!)

I am not liking commuting so far but I don't really have a choice. Driving home in Center City Philadelphia traffic would probably take longer than the hour I'm on the train. My biggest peeve is the train being late to or from work. Or switching tracks at the last minute. I guess eventually I'll get used to it. It's just I've been spoiled. I've been driving since I was 16, I've never really taken public transportation. My commute to work for the past 8 years was only a 10-15min drive! So having to commute an hour each way every day is something that's going to take awhile to get used to.

In other news- my back is so much better! The 1 week of bed rest and steroid's made everything heal up quickly. I'm still a bit stiff in the mornings and at night but I'm pretty back to my old self. And all the walking with commuting now has definitely healed & strengthened my back. I'm just happy to not be in pain anymore. I'm stubborn about going to doctors and I usually wait much longer than I should before I will go.

And because it's my 1 year anniversary tomorrow and Christmas is next week! I wanted to do a Holiday Giveaway for all my blog readers!

I will be giving away 2 Bath & Body Works products. Twisted Peppermint Handibac lotion and Winter Candy Apple Pocketbac Gel, 1 sample sized package of Starbuck's ground Christmas Blend coffee (I am in LOVE with this coffee people, it is so bold & rich!) and also a cute Christmasy pen!


This giveaway is open internationally & also to family & friends. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment telling me:

What is your favorite Christmas food, candy or drink?

For extra entries:

-Follow my blog on Google Friend Connect. (You can find the 'Followers' link under 'Contents' on the right hand sidebar. If you follow already you automatically get an extra entry if you answer the mandatory question). 

-Follow me on Twitter: @tunaynamahal82 (Include your user name in the comments. If you follow me already you automatically get an extra entry if you answer the mandatory question).

-Tweet about this giveaway (Include your link in the comments).

Giveaway Ends: December 31st, 2010.12AM EST.

And yes, I am pushing the Twitter thing. Why? Because if it helped me win a giveaway it might help you too. ;-)