Fingerprinting

When we arrived home from our California vacation, we had a letter telling us we needed to report to the Milwaukee USCIS office for fingerprinting on December 8, 2015 at 9am.  Dana's Mom came over to watch the kids so Dana and I went to Milwaukee on a fingerprinting "date".

We arrived just before 9am and passed through security screening at the USCIS office.  The waiting room was fairly full, but within 30 minutes we were processed.  Our friends Ross & Jenn Franke, who were assigned a fingerprinting date approximately 1 week later arrived and requested to do fingerprinting.  However, they were denied.  The USCIS official indicated that the whole process works best when you arrive on the assigned day for fingerprinting.  That is contrary to what you read on other adoption blogs and even to some of the advice that you can get if you call USCIS.  But apparently the system is streamlined to the point where showing up on the assigned day keeps things moving forward in the best possible fashion, at least in the eyes of the Milwaukee USCIS office.

Since we finished up fingerprinting quickly and the kids were welled cared for and happily engaged in making Christmas cookies with Grandma, we extended our date a bit by stopping in Johnson Creek to look at the outlet stores for a few items.  10:30 AM on an early December Tuesday is definitely the time to do your Christmas shopping as we were the only people in some stores.

After that, we stopped in Cottage Grove at the School Grounds Cafe - an old school that has been converted into a cafe/coffee shop/art gallery.  It's always caught our eye, but we never stopped.  We shared a hot cocoa and a sandwich before heading back to the house.  Who says fingerprinting and government paperwork can't be fun!