Bureaucracy and Birthdays

This past week has seen us spending a lot of time doing paperwork.  My tourist visa is set to expire, so it was time to do something about it. We had been dreading doing it, since we know that paperwork in Peru can be tedious, to say the least.  But a couple of weeks ago we finally started the process.  I looked it up online and thought that I had assembled all of the required paperwork.  But it turns out that we needed a few extra documents because of technicalities.  For example, my passport has my married name, while my marriage certificate has my maiden name.  So they asked me for a document certifying that I am the same person.  Last Friday I went to the US embassy to get that done.  We returned to immigration hoping to complete the application, but were informed that we still needed one more stamp from a different office before we could turn everything in.  So that meant another trip into Lima, and another day of doing paperwork.  All the offices where we needed to do our paperwork are about an hour from our house, down in the center of Lima.  So each time we were required to present more papers, it meant another day spent traveling into town, standing in lines, and lots of waiting.  After going in to Lima three days in a row, we finally had all the required documents, and were able to turn in my application.  Now I am just waiting to be called back in to receive my residency so that I can live legally in the country.  What a relief to have that done.  We praise the Lord for helping us to get it all sorted out.  Now we plan on taking a little break from Peruvian bureaucracy before diving back in to try to get our Peruvian driver's licences.  That should be a whole new adventure. 

Since I don't have any pictures of our time spent standing in line, and since I always like to include a picture with my blog posts, I thought I would include some photos of Diego.  He celebrated his 9th birthday this past week.  We have a tradition in our family that I try to make and decorate whatever type of cake design the kids ask for.  I don't consider myself especially artsy or crafty, so this is the peak of my creativity.  But I enjoy doing it, because they have fun picking things out and challenging me to make them.  Diego loves playing soccer and for now his favorite team is Real Madrid from Spain.  So I made a soccer jersey cake and a soccer ball for him. 

A view of the cakes from the front

The back of the cakes

Diego blowing out his candles (with a little help from Josh)