Thread for outland Buffalo applicants!

[DCGelfling]

Eeeeee!  DH mailed our application today!  Now there's nothing left to do but wait.

Well, kind of.  I had to crop my photos myself, because Walgreens was happy to make sure my face was the right size, but wouldn't do the cutting.  I hope they're close enough, but the edges are a teeny tiny bit uneven.  I think when I go visit DH in May, I'll get proper photos done just in case.

[York Region]

Just checked yesterday and it still said "Application Received" -- checked again just now and it's finally changed to "In Process!"

So STOKED right now!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgXObaM9i2Q

Sorry to ask you again but when you press In process line what do u see?

[g-man]

Sorry to ask you again but when you press In process line what do u see?

Same thing it has said since the very first time I checked:

We received your application for permanent residence on October 27, 2011.
 
Medical results have been received.

[Kiri]

I would contact your phone provider I am sure they must be able to do something. I only sent pictures with both of us in it with friends and family etc...you don't want to overwhelm them with too many pictures. My husband was in NC that is so cool...been to SC too! I think your file is pretty complete there! As an example behind the picture I wrote Wedding the date who was in the picture. You would just need the medical and FBI! Why can't you scan or receive the bank statemens by e-mail? I didn't even think of sending credit card stuff...oh well my lawyers said it was good so...it must be!Hope you can send it out soon!

I did... but they can't get me anything.  It really is frustrating me.

Ahh gotcha on photos.  Just counted, we have of 34 us together (mind you, some of those are from the same event).  Yeah, I'll be writing on the back of them.  Yeah, I saved my PDFs from my emailed bank statements.. just have to print them and highlight the entries that are relevant.

We now have...


Hard Evidence:

Shared bank account in Canada
Shared hydro account
Occupant letter from landlord for apartment since September, and from May-September a letter from his parents (stamped by postal service as a notarization) stating we resided with them during that time.
(waiting on confirmation letter) Term Life Insurance his policy with me as beneficiary.

Soft Evidence:

Letters: A couple notarized letters and several letters from family and friends.  Total so far:  10 -- only 3 of these are from my family (my grandma, dad, and sister-in-law)  -- then we have 5 from friends, and 2 from his family so far (mom, uncle) -- the ones with notarizing is my grandma, my dad, a friend of ours, and his mom has gotten a postal stamp like notarization. -- we have 2 coming from friends, 2 coming from friends of the family that know us, and 3 from his family.. so that'll end us with a total of 17.
64 Photos - 34 of us together.. others are what we took of each other during those events, or with each other's pets or with each others family or friends or with a picture of us with gifts we got for each other.
Phone logs for voice from May 2011 to present, Text from November 2011 to present.
Skype receipts for the past year to show I've purchased it to use for communicating if we could not via phone (I used this before I got a Canada/US calling plan)
30 Email confirmation and/or Receipts for purchases through Steam(game service), Shirt.Woot(clothing), Discovery Store(BluRays for his birthday), Torrid (many clothing receipts where he got me clothes while here), Blizzard(gaming stuff), Amazon  -- maybe TMI, but specifics might be important?  
Bank statement printouts for proof of purchases of Grocery stores or Walmart, etc from my account and his (for shared household expenses during my time here)
Bank statement printouts for proof of purchases from 3 jewelry stores by him (we can't find receipts except for one necklace for Christmas we have the hard receipt for), other proofs of purchases from both accounts.
Receipts from his mom from the veterinarian where she paid to have my cat fixed, and also a receipt where she paid around $2000 worth of dental work for me.
Bank statements from his mom to prove purchases of travel insurance for me, plane ticket purchases, gifts, etc.
1 concert ticket where we went to see Within Temptation in September with my friends from Canada that I've known longer than him.
Bank Statement to show purchase of Segwun Steamboat tickets for 2 dates.
Bank Statements to show purchases of movie tickets (2 adults.. or 3 if we brought his brother), etc.
Facebook printout of wall and album with comments from friends/family.
(To be done) Letter from both of us stating how our relationship has been, what we're looking toward the future, etc.  Couple pages each.
Printed time-line roughly outlining our relationship month by month.
Email from grandma where she says things about our relationship to me personally, about how happy she is, etc.
Wire transfer email confirmation of $800something money transfer from my bank account to my CL's.
10 Emails between us ... most of it's blacked out because I don't want to expose personal stuff... so that's why there are only 10 salvageable that could be shared.
Reciepts for purchase both of our subscription for the past year to World of Warcraft, the game where we met and play together.

... hope I'm not forgetting anything, haha.  Any extra suggestions as I finalize this bad boy?

[cgagnon]

I did... but they can't get me anything.  It really is frustrating me.

Ahh gotcha on photos.  Just counted, we have of 34 us together (mind you, some of those are from the same event).  Yeah, I'll be writing on the back of them.  Yeah, I saved my PDFs from my emailed bank statements.. just have to print them and highlight the entries that are relevant.

We now have...


Hard Evidence:

Shared bank account in Canada
Shared hydro account
Occupant letter from landlord for apartment since September, and from May-September a letter from his parents (stamped by postal service as a notarization) stating we resided with them during that time.
(waiting on confirmation letter) Term Life Insurance his policy with me as beneficiary.

Soft Evidence:

Letters: A couple notarized letters and several letters from family and friends.  Total so far:  10 -- only 3 of these are from my family (my grandma, dad, and sister-in-law)  -- then we have 5 from friends, and 2 from his family so far (mom, uncle) -- the ones with notarizing is my grandma, my dad, a friend of ours, and his mom has gotten a postal stamp like notarization. -- we have 2 coming from friends, 2 coming from friends of the family that know us, and 3 from his family.. so that'll end us with a total of 17.
64 Photos - 34 of us together.. others are what we took of each other during those events, or with each other's pets or with each others family or friends or with a picture of us with gifts we got for each other.
Phone logs for voice from May 2011 to present, Text from November 2011 to present.
Skype receipts for the past year to show I've purchased it to use for communicating if we could not via phone (I used this before I got a Canada/US calling plan)
30 Email confirmation and/or Receipts for purchases through Steam(game service), Shirt.Woot(clothing), Discovery Store(BluRays for his birthday), Torrid (many clothing receipts where he got me clothes while here), Blizzard(gaming stuff), Amazon  -- maybe TMI, but specifics might be important?  
Bank statement printouts for proof of purchases of Grocery stores or Walmart, etc from my account and his (for shared household expenses during my time here)
Bank statement printouts for proof of purchases from 3 jewelry stores by him (we can't find receipts except for one necklace for Christmas we have the hard receipt for), other proofs of purchases from both accounts.
Receipts from his mom from the veterinarian where she paid to have my cat fixed, and also a receipt where she paid around $2000 worth of dental work for me.
Bank statements from his mom to prove purchases of travel insurance for me, plane ticket purchases, gifts, etc.
1 concert ticket where we went to see Within Temptation in September with my friends from Canada that I've known longer than him.
Bank Statement to show purchase of Segwun Steamboat tickets for 2 dates.
Bank Statements to show purchases of movie tickets (2 adults.. or 3 if we brought his brother), etc.
Facebook printout of wall and album with comments from friends/family.
(To be done) Letter from both of us stating how our relationship has been, what we're looking toward the future, etc.  Couple pages each.
Printed time-line roughly outlining our relationship month by month.
Email from grandma where she says things about our relationship to me personally, about how happy she is, etc.
Wire transfer email confirmation of $800something money transfer from my bank account to my CL's.
10 Emails between us ... most of it's blacked out because I don't want to expose personal stuff... so that's why there are only 10 salvageable that could be shared.
Reciepts for purchase both of our subscription for the past year to World of Warcraft, the game where we met and play together.

... hope I'm not forgetting anything, haha.  Any extra suggestions as I finalize this bad boy?

I wouid not send all pictures! You can add a few of you not in it but its great that you have 34! But wow that is a lot of information! My application did not have that much stuff! For sure they will have plenty!

[moochops]

fantastic news G-man congrats!

Looks like they are doing the user names begining with G this week <considers changing name to Goochops>

[GOGOGO]

Haha... love it Goochops! 

Looks like they are doing the user names begining with G this week <considers changing name to Goochops>

[Kiri]

I wouid not send all pictures! You can add a few of you not in it but its great that you have 34! But wow that is a lot of information! My application did not have that much stuff! For sure they will have plenty!

Sounds good, thank you!

[QCSunshine]

Ahh gotcha on photos.  Just counted, we have of 34 us together (mind you, some of those are from the same event).  Yeah, I'll be writing on the back of them.  Yeah, I saved my PDFs from my emailed bank statements.. just have to print them and highlight the entries that are relevant.


64 Photos - 34 of us together.. others are what we took of each other during those events, or with each other's pets or with each others family or friends or with a picture of us with gifts we got for each other.
Phone logs for voice from May 2011 to present, Text from November 2011 to present.
Skype receipts for the past year to show I've purchased it to use for communicating if we could not via phone (I used this before I got a Canada/US calling plan)

10 Emails between us ... most of it's blacked out because I don't want to expose personal stuff... so that's why there are only 10 salvageable that could be shared.

Just popped on here to see what was going on... I'm an old-timer I guess, but I wish everyone the best.

Anyhow, I saw the above comment and wanted to respond. I would go ahead and send most or all of those photos (but maybe taking out any duplicates from the same event that don't add any new information, if there are any of those). We sent in about 100 pictures, BUT they were digital and I copy/pasted them into a Publisher document. There were multiple photos on each page (with notes/dates/etc for each) and arranged chronologically. I think there were only 10 or 11 letter-size pages of photos in total.

Emails/letters/written communication.... If you have just a bit more of something in these lines, I would try to add it in. We sent in emails, cards and letters from the beginning of our relationship to the point where we sent off the application. I printed/copied a representative sample spread out about equally throughout our dating/marriage.

Yes, it was hard to decide to share that stuff with a complete stranger, but I wanted to err on the side of open communication. We only put emails that we felt comfortable including, but they were personal (as well as appropriate). I figured the people reviewing the file would want to see that our relationship was one where we communicated personally. So...whoever read our file (and approved it) knows our nicknames for each other, how we sign off emails to each other, how we talked about what we ate for dinner, and how cheesy we can be with each other. They got copies of our anniversary cards and other hand-written cards/notes.

Yep. It's personal. But I didn't share anything I wasn't okay with sharing with whoever was going to decide if we had a real relationship. And it was worth it to me to feel like I did everything I could to provide the "evidence" that would clearly communicate the authenticity of our relationship. I'm an extrovert, so maybe I didn't struggle too much with this idea, but for me, I wanted to do everything I could to get our application approved, including sharing personal details because I thought it would help give a better idea about our relationship.

Good luck in your process, whatever you decide!

[g-man]

fantastic news G-man congrats!

Looks like they are doing the user names begining with G this week <considers changing name to Goochops>

haha, do it!

[bbiery]

Y u no give me birthday present Buffalo!!

Hoping to have this done with by May at least please.

[GOGOGO]

We did similarly to photos, arranged them in a word document (3 x 4, total 12 on a page, pictures are good enough to show the faces clearly), total 10 pages including those taken during our travels, events with family and friends, wedding and honeymoon.  Thought it's more environmentally (and wallet) friendly than printing individual pictures traditionally.

We didn't feel comfortable sharing any personal email at all, so we ended up sending nothing.  We didn't send in any phone log either (because it's ridiculously big), though we mentioned in the application that we spoke several times a day via phone calls, emails, online chats, webcams.

But we did send in proofs of our travels (yes, we're big on that): flight tickets and itineraies, boarding passes, hotel bookings, if they're still available, passport stamps, plus the pictures.  We mentioned 23 places that we travelled together in the application so figured out we had to put some effort into this proof.

We sent in about 100 pictures, BUT they were digital and I copy/pasted them into a Publisher document. There were multiple photos on each page (with notes/dates/etc for each) and arranged chronologically. I think there were only 10 or 11 letter-size pages of photos in total.

[GOGOGO]

Isn't it a great relief to have it out of  your hands?  Good job!  

Eeeeee!  DH mailed our application today!  Now there's nothing left to do but wait.

Well, kind of.  I had to crop my photos myself, because Walgreens was happy to make sure my face was the right size, but wouldn't do the cutting.  I hope they're close enough, but the edges are a teeny tiny bit uneven.  I think when I go visit DH in May, I'll get proper photos done just in case.

[homi2285]

CONGRAT GOGOGO!!!

I'm so worried right now.. What's going on with July batch ( like mine) and the May batch ?

My  US OPT will end in mid-June. I'm planning to apply for Canadian visitor visa in mid May and move to Canada to be with my husband in visitor visa if I still haven't heard back about the PR by then. 

Could anyone let me know if that would be a good idea?  thanks in advance.

Thanks all for your kind words, nice picture, good suggestions and PM.  Hope to hear good news soon from you too!

And who says they don't listen and act?  

EDIT:

e-CAS still showing "In progress"...
We received your application for permanent residence on September 27, 2011.
We started processing your application on February 1, 2012.

Nothing else. No "Medical Received".

By the way, I'm non-US citizen.  They did not ask me to attend interview.   

[Kiri]

Just popped on here to see what was going on... I'm an old-timer I guess, but I wish everyone the best.

Anyhow, I saw the above comment and wanted to respond. I would go ahead and send most or all of those photos (but maybe taking out any duplicates from the same event that don't add any new information, if there are any of those). We sent in about 100 pictures, BUT they were digital and I copy/pasted them into a Publisher document. There were multiple photos on each page (with notes/dates/etc for each) and arranged chronologically. I think there were only 10 or 11 letter-size pages of photos in total.

Emails/letters/written communication.... If you have just a bit more of something in these lines, I would try to add it in. We sent in emails, cards and letters from the beginning of our relationship to the point where we sent off the application. I printed/copied a representative sample spread out about equally throughout our dating/marriage.

Yes, it was hard to decide to share that stuff with a complete stranger, but I wanted to err on the side of open communication. We only put emails that we felt comfortable including, but they were personal (as well as appropriate). I figured the people reviewing the file would want to see that our relationship was one where we communicated personally. So...whoever read our file (and approved it) knows our nicknames for each other, how we sign off emails to each other, how we talked about what we ate for dinner, and how cheesy we can be with each other. They got copies of our anniversary cards and other hand-written cards/notes.

Yep. It's personal. But I didn't share anything I wasn't okay with sharing with whoever was going to decide if we had a real relationship. And it was worth it to me to feel like I did everything I could to provide the "evidence" that would clearly communicate the authenticity of our relationship. I'm an extrovert, so maybe I didn't struggle too much with this idea, but for me, I wanted to do everything I could to get our application approved, including sharing personal details because I thought it would help give a better idea about our relationship.

Good luck in your process, whatever you decide!

Oh dear Lord I'm having a mini freak out inside.  I'm totally extroverted.. lovey dovey and all.. but he's sooo introverted.  He's not one to write letters and stuff.  Our means of written communication was texting.. and my phone company can't get me the records -- but I still have it all in my phone.  Could I take a photo of my phone log and put it on the computer, circle the entry that is his name with the number beside it and that count?  It's the total amount for the entire time we've been talking.  Never deleted it.  Other than that... I honestly have nothing on the written front.  The OTHER reason for this is because seeing as I work from home and he was a student, we spent our free time "with" one another on World of Warcraft and on Ventrillo (voice chat thing that's free and lots of people are on, but you can go to private 'rooms' to talk)... we talked on this HOURS upon HOURS EVERYDAY - in fact, the first time we ever met each other was on Ventrilo when our mutual friend invited me on because I was going to do something in game with him and his friends.  Tons of communication... we were glued to each other on that.  ..downside?  It can't document time personally spent talking with someone.. it can't even log time spent on it period by users.    Other chatting was MSN though... I don't know if I can get logs there.


I think I will do that about the photos.


EDIT:  Scratch the Ventrilo logs!  I got them!!!  It shows the time we got on and all that... wooohoo.  The old admin emailed me them.

Also, I do have MSN logs from the 3 weeks I went back to SC in mid-November-Dec 3.. however, it's 66 pages worth -- that's a bit much to be sending.  Any suggestions?