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A US Vacation with the Family

As most of you long time readers already know - since receiving my waiver just over a year ago I only travel to the US alone and only on business.

Well, not anymore. We've just arrived home from our first family vacation to the US since receiving my I-194. The process was surprisingly pretty painless but also probably completely up to the discretion of the inspecting border officer. At the airport pre-clearance I immediately produced my waiver and told the officer that we were headed on a family vacation (my first one with waiver). I currently have an I-94 which is good for multiple entry until February 4th 2008. He did his usual checks: Scanned all of our passports; clarified something with a colleague (not sure if it was about us or about what he was having for lunch); and then quickly let us pass.

This time around - no secondary screening! He probably did that to save the trouble of keeping my 2 overly excited children in line. We arrived at the airport 3 hours prior to departure to ensure we didn't face any interruptions. Although there was a lot of wait time at the gate, we were still happy to not be rushed. And yes, we had a terrific vacation in warm and sunny Florida :)
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