Thursday, May 17, 2007

I'm now married to a U.S. Citizen!

We had a great day yesterday for Trevor & Ian's Naturalization Ceremony! I never expected it to be in such a beautiful courtroom inside such a fantastic federal building! The Federal Building in Milwaukee was constructed in 1892-1899, primarily for use as a post office. Something we found interesting was that, first of all, they had the usual security you see like at airports and government buildings, yet when my stepdad was in the men's room on the 1st floor he noticed the window was open which would totally allow someone to pass a bomb or something in through the window to someone. Hmmm, glad that didn't occur while we were there.

Secondly, the balcony you can see in the photos of Courtroom 390, once referred to as "the most distinctive courtroom in the United States", was actually used for women who would view trials back in the day before women could vote and all that. The judge remarked on how far we've come from those days and about the diversity of countries being sworn in yesterday. There was quite a list of maybe 20 countries or so and there were 74 people be sworn in. He told them not to abandon their heritage and traditions and to participate in their new government, that they should at least vote always but realize they didn't always have to agree with the government. I thought that was neat. He also chuckled when the USCIS Representative presented the candidates for Naturalization and said they were people of high moral character. He said that normally he doesn't see those types of people in his courtroom. Being a federal court and all, most felons could be lacking in this area.

Ok, just forgot to hit save before I tried posting a song here so I have to remember what else I had typed! Grrr!

Anyway, we had another funny moment when we were reading their Certificates of Naturalization because we had taken a couple of pictures with them holding their certificates and read the fine print later which said it was a violation of federal law to copy, print or photograph the certificate without lawful authority. Oops, breaking federal law in the first five minutes as citizens! I've had this song in my head for the last 24 hours now!

We also did stop for lunch at that Wow Cafe and Wingery I talked about in my last post about Citizenship and I didn't get to try a foofy drink although the Godiva White Chocolate Martini was calling my name. It was a little too early in the day, Emma was with us and no one else was drinking anything much more than soda. But, those chicken strips with Bombay Sauce (coconut curry), OMG, it was SOOOOO GOOD!! If I would have thought soon enough I'd ask if they sell it by the bottle though I suspect they don't because there was actual shreds of coconut sprinkled on top. It had mango in it and was sweeter rather than spicy...SO TASTY! I just loved it and with ti being fairly close to the Milwaukee Art Museum I see us making a return visit in the future for sure! It was such a beautiful day, the rain didn't come until our drive home...the weather reminded me of last year this time when we were in England, unfortunately more for Trevor's Dad George's funeral rather than a vacation. And the weird thing is, the 16th was sticking in my head, the fact that Trevor was being sworn in yesterday and it was the 16th I couldn't shake this feeling that the date had some significance, but I knew George passed away earlier in May and we were in England on the 16th. Well, last night in bed Trevor brought it to mind for me, he said that earlier that day it occured to him while we were driving home that this day last year it was in the 90's (temperature-wise) and we were in England and he had said that to me and Ian & Della in the car on the way home, but he said what he didn't mention, that he realized, was that the 16th was the day we scattered George's ashes at the Golf Club he belonged to. I got choked up, naturally, I was amazed to discover this! There have been these little moments throughout our relationship, relating to his parents, his mom's passing and our having Emma Rose...all for another blog on another day, but this was such a weird coincidence for me. I know George would have come to see his son sworn in as a U.S. Citizen too, he was here with Rose, Trevor's mom, when we got married, he was here alone after she passed away to see Emma brought into the world, here for her baptism and lastly, her first Christmas. He passed away just over a month prior to her 1st birthday. I knew that date of the 16th stuck with me for a reason. George was with us in spirit, his name actually did come up a couple of times yesterday as we were reminiscing.

Anyway, I wanted to share our experiences from yesterday, have a happy thursday, TGIF tomorrow! :)

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. What a wonderful day!

BTW< I was not trying to offend anyone with my post about little girls. I am very sorry. I was not even talking about violence it was just the idea of pointing out attention to anyone with clothing like that. I am so sorry if I offended you

Anonymous said...

Congratulations!!

Gosh, I can't recall seeing that building.. especially with all the detouring I've been doing around there just trying to get to the library and such! Sounds like it was a wonderful experience visually and emotionally.

Ash said...

Congratulations! That is such a huge thing, becoming a citizen in another country. Also, good lord, your child BLONDE! Reese witherspoon legally blonde blonde.Pretty.

Melissa said...

What a great day. Happy new citizen day (one day late, lol) Trevor! :)

Unknown said...

Aww! Congrats to the hubby! That's great! :)