Happenings

One thing I love about being right here by some of the kids is that I get to take part in their every day lives.  Beck attends Pre-K at a Lutheran Church (with a female pastor, I might add!) so I went with Sarah and Jack to watch his Christmas program.  So cute!

 Beck really got into doing sign language during "Silent Night."  Adorable!

 And belting out "We Wish You a Merry Christmas!"

 We made Christmas cookies

 Jack is always happy!

 Rich and I went to the reopened Dallas Farmer's Market a few weeks ago.  This stuff was not actually at the market, though, but at a little produce store down the street.  Pretty!

 Walking around downtown

 My girl and me

I guess it's official--I received my TX driver's license and my voter registration in the mail!  Going to the DMV was quite the experience. We were there for FOUR hours.  Yes, four hours.  I am just not used to the big city, I guess!  I had read all the regulations on line and discovered that we didn't have to take a written or a driving test if we had a valid, unexpired license from another state, and we brought lots of documentation of identity and residence.  Sweet!  So we finally get called and we go up to the desk and OMG it was such a hassle!  I brought my SS card and my passport for ID and the clerk said she didn't know if she could take them because my SS card has my given middle name on it and my passport has my maiden name for my middle name.  She said I needed to get it changed so they would match. I just flat out lied spontaneously and said, "Oh, I used my SS card to get my passport and they said it was fine."  She did ask another staff member, who luckily backed me up. Whew. Then I needed two documents to prove our residency. Unfortunately, I somehow managed to bring an unsigned copy of our apartment lease. What the heck.  So that was immediately no good.  Thankfully I am somewhat overzealous at times and I had brought extra documentation in case we needed it.  One of the rules was that if you have a car, you have to bring your registration but it can also be used to establish residency.  We hadn't received our tags, etc., yet, but I took the bill of sale which had our address on it and they accepted that.  Then I had brought our paperwork from healthcare.gov where we'd been accepted for insurance and it had our address on it. She kinda sneered at me and said, "I don't know if we can even take THIS."  I am so thankful for the other staff member (who was actually the one assisting Rich) who was more senior and kept overriding my clerk. She said that was fine. Then they realized I was in the system from when I lived in Texas before but my name had changed.  Good grief, then she wanted my marriage certificate. Did I have it with me?  I said no, it's been so long I didn't think my old license was even relevant any more.  Once again, the other clerk saved my skin and said it was fine. Then I had to sign some sort of affirmation that I was sponsoring Rich because it was only my name in the address line on the health care document, even though both our names were inside.

The whole time I was there, I kept wondering HOW IN THE WORLD people who don't speak good English or who are not well educated or have any other kind of issues could make it through this gauntlet!  Crazy! There were several individuals who were obviously from other countries there at the same time as us and I just felt sorry for them.  Hopefully they got through it all!

Of course, we are in Texas, where pretty much anyone can get a gun and I wonder why getting a driver's license is so much harder!  LOL

PS I was sad to "surrender" my Alaska license!