Last week we took a family trip up to the American Embassy in London for our appointment to register Caleb's birth, apply for a passport, and apply for a Social Security number. Up until this point, Caleb had no official nationality, which was a tad bit disturbing, and we have therefore been unable to venture outside the borders of the United Kingdom.

In any case, let me start by saying that I have never been to an American Embassy, despite my international travels, so I was highly amused when almost every person we dealt with was British, including the guards checking passports before allowing people inside (who, I might add, before checking our passports told us that if we slipped him some money he'd make sure we got inside. Nice.)

Before leaving that day, we were given a Certificate of Birth Abroad, which I guess is another type of birth certificate - which makes three in total. This inevitably means that in the future I will probably always be confused when people in America want Caleb's birth certificate because I do not know which one will be more appropriate. We had been told before our appointment and by the first person upon arrival that we would be issued an emergency passport that day due to the fact that we are travelling to Italy on the 19th. This did not happen.

Today, however, Caleb's passport arrived in the mail!!! This means that I don't have to worry about busting any heads at the embassy next Monday to make sure that I have a passport for the following day. What a relief! His passport is so cute and I would scan it so you guys can see what a great passport photo he has, but with all the terrorism and organised crime these days nothing about that idea seems safe at all.

Now I just have to figure out how to get Caleb's visa so that he has permission to remain in this country. Otherwise they might deport him away after 6 months! :) (I asked about the form for the visa when I was at the American Embassy and the British guy helping us very rudely informed me that Americans can not decide who gets to stay in England and that I needed to talk to the British authority. He didn't seem very pro-Americans, which makes me wonder why he works at our Embassy!) This process is way too complicated.