Well, my passport adventure has ended, and not nearly as badly as I had anticipated. Okay, let me start from the beginning. Our family (as in, Ryan, Jared and I) are going to visit my brother and his wife down in Arizona in April. We decided this before Christmas, and it never even occured to me at that time that Jared would need a passport. Of course, it soon dawned on me that he did - kids can no longer be added to their parents' passports. Thus began my adventure. I printed off the application pages, filled them out, got his picture taken, and had our guarantor do her thing. I packaged everything into an envelope, including Jared's birth certificate. Everything was in order and ready to go. Now I know that lines in government buildings can be terrifying, but I've usually had pretty good luck along those lines. However, thing were different this time. I went on a Thursday afternoon, around 3:15PM. The line wasn't super-bad, but the commissioner told me that they closed at 4:30 (oh right, government office!) and with the amount of people that were in line, she wasn't handing out anymore numbers and probably wouldn't at all the rest of the day. I decided I wasn't going to wait to find out. I headed off to the post office, to see if I could apply there - you can at some post offices. But not at any in Saskatoon. So I told the post lady that I wanted to send my application express. She said that she's heard that with the delays, doing it be mail could take up to 4 months. Crap. So I canned that idea and instead went back to the passport office on Friday, only I came around 10:00 in the morning. I went up to the passport floor, only to be told to go back downstairs and get a number. I would then have to wait either down there or on the second floor until my number was called (about a 2 1/2 hour wait) and then go to the passport office floor, only to wait for another hour, at least. Uh, right. I had a nine-month old with me, who could wait for an hour, but needed a nap, and would need lunch in there somewhere, etc. So I left. And started cooking up an idea - I have a friend who works for the feds and I remembered her telling me that she had to work on Monday, Saskatchewan's Family Day, because it was a provincial holiday. So I figured that the passport office would be open also, and I would go at 8:30, when it opened, to be first in line. And it was open, but there were already about 30 people ahead of me in line!!! And I couldn't stay, because we had plans in the morning. So I left...again. On my way out, I asked the commissioner what time they opened. He said 8:30, but they let people in to line up around 7:15 or 7:30. WHAT?! Sigh. Okay. Tuesday's plan was to arrive at the office at 7:30. Needless to say, we only got there around 8:00 and I thought for sure I was hooped and I would either have to leave again, or be there with a screaming baby who needed a nap and food. Well, the Lord blessed me today, because I was out of the building by 9:00!!! I was only there an hour, and it only took half an hour once the office actually opened. But I was sure glad I got there when I did, because the line when I left was LOOONG. Plus, it's only going to take about 3 - 3 1/2 weeks. I had read on the website that some places were experiencing an additional 25 days in getting passports out. So that would have put us right on the line, if not over. So I was scared about that. But it will be fine. And as for Ryan and my passports, we are 99% sure that they expire early next year. We got new ones for Australia, which was in 2003, and we are both pretty sure that we applied early in 2003, not in late 2002. I am going to get them out of the safety deposit box tomorrow, just to make sure...