Hey everyone,
This is only my second time actually posting here, and I never really kept too clear of timeline of my sponsorship app, but I just wanted to let you guys know that my wife is an April applicant, and she landed in the last week of september! I'm actually surprised how quickly it went... however, we made a couple decisions that cost us a lot of time, which were simply out of inexperience with this sort of thing. The whole ordeal, for us, has basically been since we got married in October of last year. She went back home to Detroit in nov. of 09, to get her medicals and state police report and FBI report. Well her first set of prints were rejected by FBI, so we didn't get those until the end of MARCH! That was agonizing!!
Our mistake, I think, was to wait until we had the FBI report to send our paperwork in. I guess we must have just figured that it would be easier and safer to just send everything all at once in one package... in hindsight, we probably should have sent in the apps in October, and then just followed up with the fbi and other stuff later.
Anyway, it's all finally over and we're very happy and I would like to THANK every one of you guys on this board for unknowingly providing me with lots of advice, and stories that I found very encouraging. Sometimes I would browse this board and it would drive me INSANE, as it would fuel the nervous unsure feeling as I saw other people get their PR's... yet, at the same time, I know I couldn't have done it without this place! So again, thank you guys so very much!!
When she got the email that they were ready for her passport, we booked a flight for a few days later and she went right to detroit (her home, and luckily, the satellite office that processed her PR) and she was able to book an appointment and go in person and get her VISA same day and then drive across to windsor to land, right after!
Now she's got her Sask health card, SIN number and card, her car has been safety'd, all her belongings are here (actually have been for a long time, that's a whole other story), we're just waiting for PR card and for her to find a job! YES!!
She managed to spend just about the entire wait in Canada with me. We were always very honest and upfront with border guards, and always had any paperwork we could muster up in hand - we never had any problems.
Good luck though!! Happy and safe landing!!