James Brown, please meet us at the airport

go to kazakhstan, see a reindeer. who knew?

right after Sam was chosen by the USA, just outside the consulate

Sam and dad in front of the president’s residence in Almaty

Strange suggestion, we know, but we want to recreate the scene from Rocky 4 when James Brown sings “I-live-in-Amer-ica” right before Apollo Creed fights the Russian. We want that as Sam comes off the plane. (Not really, and please do not attempt to re-create this in any way).

The point is Sam is now one of the elect. He was chosen by the United States of America, not by any works of his own, to be called an American citizen. His visa interview went so great, so fast, and was so refreshing after some of the interviews we’ve been through.

Altogether we were at the consulate for about 30 minutes, and the visa interview only took about 10 minutes. It was really more of them telling us what was going to happen next and what documents we would need along the way. We also got the famed “sealed envelope” to carry home with us. We celebrated by paying about $18 for some ice cream and a shake at Baskin Robbins, and we could not have been more excited about it.

So everything we came here for has been done, everyone we need permission from to get out of here and into American has given it, and plane tickets have been purchased. We leave here tomorrow night around 3am headed for Frankfurt, then on to Dallas where we arrive at 2:30pm Sunday.

Thank you to everyone who has walked with us through some or all of this. We will be posting some about other things and people as we close out this season in the next few days or weeks, but thank you. We know that we could not have done this without so many of you.