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Friday, December 23, 2011

Spanish Consulate, zoo, and the police (I couldn’t think of a snappy title that pulled it all together)

Have you heard of Ley de Memoria Histórica (the Law of Historical Memory)? Well I hadn’t either. Until, that is, my cousin emailed me about it. Basically it’s a temporary Spanish law that allows grandchildren of Spanish citizens to recover their Spanish citizenship without a residency requirement. Well shoot, who wouldn’t want dual citizenship – that could come in handy in so many ways. So la familia and I trooped to the quaint Spanish Consulate in San Francisco and I filled out the required form. (Most of the following are cell phone pics, by the way.)SAMSUNGSAMSUNG

Nice! The appointment was granted for the end of June, so we’ll see if I get to be the latest citizen of the U.S. and the EU (European Union). It would be kind of ironic if *I* was the one in the family with dual citizenship seeing as how the girls were born in China and TubaDad spends more time working in international countries than anyone else I know.

Anyhow, after the consulate, it was a purdy blue-sky day in the city, so we looked around and decided to go to the zoo. What a beautiful day with the animals. The bonus was that the zoo was all decked out for the holidays, so we got to go ice skating (on plastic ice) and see Santa’s reindeer.
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The girls saw their favorite peacock and talked to him (her?) as they always do and even followed him around for awhile.IMG_0951LRIMG_0946LRIMG_0962LR

Then we had a nice dinner and headed home.

That’s when the day kind of went to crap. We were in heavy traffic on the freeway when someone bashed us from behind. Scared me to death – I heard the brakes squealing for what seemed like a minute (although it must have been just seconds) before the crash. We slowly moved over to the shoulder to find that she didn’t have registration or insurance with her and someone had also hit her from behind and had taken off. Lovely... Called the cops and were told to sit tight – on that scary shoulder in the dark with cars whizzing by, ugh!!! That was definitely the worst part for me. We waited for about 20 minutes, then took care of everything with the police and drove home.

We are all ok, the girls are fine, we have new car seats, and the van is in the repair shop until the end of next week. 385886_239770246096984_100001920300341_597481_2006351673_n-2LRI have to say that I blessed that huge tank-like minivan and those massive, bulky five-point carseats we have the girls in. We are uber-protected in that rig even if it gets a little crumpled. Anyhow, we’re driving a rental SUV that is quite sporty, but has doors that swing out (how do you do that with kids?) and I CANNOT WAIT until we have our minivan back! If you had told me 10 years ago that those words would cross my lips I would never, ever have believed you...

Have a wonderful Christmas eve tomorrow, and always wear those seatbelts. I know, I’m always preaching about seatbelts, but they really are invaluable. Remember TubaDad’s taxi accident? (I’m including that link because I had forgotten all about the EMT story at the end and it made me smile.)

11 comments:

  1. The girls favorite peacock is a he (the males are the ones with the pretty tail feathers, the females are quite boring looking)

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  2. Sadly, China does not recognize dual citizenship. That's one of the reasons our children must have their citizenship completed before the last of their post-placements. (Not an issue now because of the child citizenship act and now the Hague) but once they become US citizens, they are no longer Chinese citizens.

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  3. If I recall correctly female peacocks are not very attractive. I think your girls talked to a male ;)

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  4. Jennifer, I'll have to research that! We've been telling the girls they had both because of what we were told back when we adopted ('06). Thanks for letting me know. I've updated the post.

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  5. Our kids have dual citizenship (US-Canadian) as do I. I keep telling Shaun that one day, I'm taking them to vacation in Cuba, just because I can, and we'll have the passport stamp and he won't. ;o)

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  6. Plastic ice? What a blast! Have a wonderful Christmas!

    Alyzabeth's Mommy

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  7. I am so glad that you are all okay. What a scary time for you.
    It's funny, I tell J. all the time that I want to use Peacocks as learning tools for Chick. I want to tell her that the boys are all fanciful and colorful to attract the girls and that the girls don't have to be all fancy. It's the same with ducks. Girls are brown and plain and the boys have to do all the work in attracting them. Good lessons.

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  8. Anonymous12/24/2011

    I am so glad you are all okay. I've been rear-ended by a kid racing down the highway while I was stopped waiting for a car ahead of me to move and it is scarey.

    What is in the pink bag one of the girls is carrying?

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  9. Your peacock friend is a gentleman, the ladies are dressed in drab brown. SCARY about the accident! Glad you're all okay. Have a fantastic Christmas!

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  10. So thankful everyone is ok! What an awful thing for you to have to go through.

    The citizenship thing is quite funny when you put it the way you did. Heh...happy dual citizenship!

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  11. Glad everyone is ok after the mishap. Merry christmas to all of you and Happy New year. Really enjoy reading your blog.

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