After the first initial shock of my grave mistake kicked in, we kicked into hyper mode to figure out how to renew them in time. We called the San Francisco Passport Agency... hmmm, we need an appointment, plan on taking ALL DAY, pay through the nose, and we have to provide travel documents proving the Girls' are leaving within 2 weeks. Well it looks like we have EXACTLY 3 weeks, maybe enough time to shift to Plan B....
The next day we pulled both Girls out of school at lunch time; met in Reno at the Post Office; made copies of our drivers licenses; had pictures taken; filled out all the paperwork; etc.... ~$410 and an hour... we had both passport applications in transit with approximately a 3 week turn around time. It turns out you can pay some hefty "extra" fees to have your application "fast tracked" or "expedited". While they don't guarantee a 3 week turnaround time, it sounded like it shouldn't take more time than that. Talk about cutting it close?!? It must be a Presto thing, because I think my Dad normally does this all the time. ;)
Anyhow, the good news is the passports showed up 3 days ago this past Saturday of a 3 day holiday weekend.... 12 days after we sent them in. This is once instance where a government agency definitely exceeded all expectations. Yeah for the State Department. Phew....
So it looks like things are back on track and the biggest thing is for all of us to keep cranking on learning French. DuoLingo is awesome!!
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