Thursday, August 28, 2014

Oslo Trip

We are eager to travel back to Texas and introduce Alexander to his amazing family and our wonderful friends and in order to do that he obviously has to have a passport. Now, getting a passport in general is no easy feat. But getting a passport for an infant born to foreign national parents is very complicated!

For starters, we needed a birth certificate. In the states, at least as far as I understand, you fill out the birth certificate in the hospital immediately following birth. Arthur and I realized, however, that when we left the hospital not a single person asked for his name! So we wondered how we were going to get a birth certificate.

A week after he was born we received a letter in the mail titled "spørsmål om navneval". This letter required us to choose a name and then submit that name for approval to the Norwegian government...yes, you read that correctly. Long story short, we finally figured out a solution that the government could tolerate (he has two first names and no middle name...whatever...I can live with that) and a very plain birth certificate was mailed to us shortly thereafter.

Now that we had a birth certificate, we needed a passport photo...

Let's just get one thing straight...my son is MUCH cuter than this picture. However, the strict requirements for a passport picture don't leave a lot of room for personality!

We prepared all our other paperwork and headed to Oslo. We left on a Thursday afternoon and Alexander had his first taxi ride!

Alexander in the back seat of the taxi

And he was seriously the BEST baby on the airplane. I bet the mom with the screaming child at the back of the plane was jealous...I'm sure our time will come!

Family selfie on the plane

We all woke up refreshed and ready for our Friday morning appointment at the embassy.

No cameras were allowed in the embassy but this is our SUCCESS! selfie! It all went very smoothly, except for a last minute run back to the hotel for the most important piece of paperwork that SOMEBODY forgot to pack...but other than that...yes, very smoothly! That's the embassy in the background

Alexander enjoyed chilling in the big bed,

watching a movie with mom,

and snuggling and sightseeing with dad.

Thanks for a great weekend Oslo! Hope to see you again very soon!

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