During our March trip to France, we realized that our daughter's passport will be within six months of expiration during our summer trip to Europe. Since Charley and I were going to be away most of the month of May, we needed to get her passport renewed in April.
I wanted to share our experience in hopes that it will be helpful to other parents. This is the third time we have renewed her passport.
We have a passport office in our local post office, and Charley took her down on a Saturday morning about an hour before they closed. He had her current passport. I was working at home, and Charley called to tell me that both parents had to be there. I scooped up both our passports and drove down. When we finally got to the front of the line, we found out that in addition to our passports, we were supposed to have her birth certificate to prove we were really her parents. At that point, there was no way we could get home and back before the office closed.
Between all our schedules, it was about two weeks before we were all able to go again to the passport office during their open hours. We had a copy of the birth certificate, but this time we found out that we needed an original of the birth certificate-- which of course was in our safety deposit box, unfortunately still at a downtown bank.
In the past we were able to renew Kelly's passport with just one parent and the old passport. Now it seems the rules have changed due to problems with one parent fleeing the country with a child.
We finally completed the process at the end of April, and we were nervous enough about the timing that we paid to expedite. Of course the new passport came in about ten days!
Kathy
