Passport

Vacation.

Travel.

Two things that generally occur simultaneously (though they don't have to). Vacation can definitely occur without going far from home at all. In fact, my favorite vacation spot is less than 2 hours away at the lake. I've also travelled in instances that would be far cry from a "vacation"label. Doesn't mean those trips weren't wonderful. Probably better than a vacation. My two mission trips to Middlesbourogh, England come to mind, in addition to all sorts of mission trips throughout the state of Texas.

My family didn't do a lot of traveling growing up. Somehow, during my sophomore year of high school, my parents decided that we would take an every-other-year trip over Thanksgiving (odd choice of timing, I know). I was in full support of their decision. We hit up New York City, Los Angeles, and Disney World. (Believe it or not I think I enjoyed Disney more as a 21-year-old than I might of as a younger child).

And then, I got married.

And officially kicked off the guest list for Roman-family vacations (at least as far as funding is concerned).

Little did I know I was marrying into a world-traveling-kind-of-family.

YES!

Vacation/travel was a large part of Kyle's childhood/adolescence, and I hope it can be part of our children's too. We're off to a good start. In a few weeks we're headed out!

I've been excited for months, as well as scared to death about traveling with a baby. We will be traveling with Kyle's entire family, so I will have lots of help, but...still nervous.

Anyway, I discovered while still pregnant with Wes that he would need a passport for our little trip. And since passports applications take a while to be processed, we applied when he was just two weeks old. It turned out to be quite the ordeal.

First of all, both parents of a minor must be present. So Kyle had to take the day off work just to go to the passport office. Fun for me!

We had to have his birth certificate to apply, which you can't even send off for until a week after your baby's birth. So at the first available opportunity we requested it.

And then there's the picture.

THE picture.

Passport pictures aren't such a big deal for the rest of us (other than they're typically not especially attractive, at least in my experience). But photographing a two-week old for a passport photo is an undertaking.

Here are the specifications:
1. Baby must be looking at the camera (eyes open, not asleep).
2. Baby must have a pleasant expression (not crying).
3. Picture must be straight-on, baby's face not turned to the side.
4. No toys in the picture.
5. Parent's hands may not be in the picture.
6. Baby should be dressed in dark clothing.
7. Background must be white.
8. 2X2 in size.

At two weeks old I decided there was no way we would ever get such a photo at the passport office. The chances of us going when baby was not hungry/cranky/sleepy and cooperative were not good. So I decided to take the photo myself.

I ended up just putting Baby in his bouncy seat, covered with a white sheet that I draped by the corners and attached using chip clips and ribbon to nearby furniture. I wish I had taken a photo of the set-up. Two photo sessions, an outfit change, one feeding, and 50+ photos later, we finally found a winner. We had a few good ones surprisingly, so I just picked the cutest. Good thing we didn't brave the office.

And here's the final product:

Baby's first passport photo. Oddly, it's good for 5 years. Let's hope he looks very different by then!

Here's to world traveling!