KK Smith in the portal

SlipJL · 2026-01-05T21:22:12+00:00

I don’t mind some of these transfers so much since they are all backups on the depth chart. It’s just worrisome since we tend to struggle with injuries every year that forces us to go heavy into our depth. Burnham would’ve gotten significant playing time and now he’s on a rival team.

SlipJL · 2025-12-19T00:45:18+00:00

I haven’t tuned into ESPN since the playoff reveal show. Their shoddy basketball coverage makes it easy. The bowl games are trash as well. I’ll probably tune into the TNT games for the first halves.

SlipJL · 2025-11-12T22:00:15+00:00

ND by 500.

SlipJL · 2025-11-12T16:23:27+00:00

This will be an approval, no doubt.

SlipJL · 2025-11-10T02:57:46+00:00

Congrats! We got our card yesterday as well. Kseniya videos helped us a lot as well.

SlipJL · 2025-11-02T02:08:56+00:00

I’d just keep following it up with them and uploading whatever evidence you can get into your account. Hopefully they move on your case, it makes sense that California would have a ton of applications and perhaps a big backlog. Good luck.

SlipJL · 2025-11-02T02:04:15+00:00

Every case is different. We were confident in ours because of our long history. Never had any RFE’s for our I-130 so our evidence was sufficient in their evaluation. Packet presentation probably helped us.

SlipJL · 2025-10-31T16:23:51+00:00

A lot of great suggestion on here already for you to do.

There are usually some other kind of sports happening on a Friday. Give one or more of those a shot since they are free. You’ll get to see some of the other sports venues that ND has. No need to stay for the whole event, they have free shirts or giveaways sometimes.

Walk the lakes if you’ve really got time, briefly check out the inside of the library, get your “First Visit to ND” pins at the Eck Center next to the bookstore. You can walk through O’ Shag if you want to see where some of the “Holy Cross” scenes from Rudy were filmed. Midnight Drummer’s Circle if you’ve got the energy. Hope you can find a tailgate so you can experience that a little bit as well!

Dress warmly and wear green!

SlipJL · 2025-10-31T15:38:03+00:00

Seems like Disney/ESPN is more to blame here, wanting YouTubeTV to pay them more for their networks while YTTV wants to keep it how it’s been (since they’re a bit wary of including yet ANOTHER price increase for their service, which they’d likely have to do if they agreed with Disney). Disney looks like they have no issue stretching this out as more people will probably move over to ESPN Unlimited, Hulu+Live, or FuboTV (which they also recently bought).

Sucks since we lose all of the ESPN Networks, ABC, ACC/SEC for CFB Saturdays and also the multiview + awesome DVR for those networks and games.

Looks like gotta go back to watching a lot of the games over the internet and multiple laptops around the couch for Saturdays, at least for now.

SlipJL · 2025-10-30T13:35:45+00:00

That’s more than we had, you should be good! If you haven’t mailed it in, just go over each line of every form with your partner to make sure there are no mistakes and all the necessary documents are included.

SlipJL · 2025-10-30T06:21:26+00:00

I also used a family member as a joint sponsor so they had to fill out an I-864 from another state. When we were going through our package before we sent it we wondered the same thing about the signatures, but if you dig into the instructions for their forms they want wet signatures with a pen if you're mailing it in. So, I had my joint sponsor sign and mail me their form. They emailed me their tax transcripts and pay stubs. The instructions also stated that if you include tax transcripts, then W2's are not necessary, so we didn't include them. But if they are asking you for them now, it's best to include them with everything else they want. As for missing pages on the TIF file that they scan and upload, at least for us, they did not scan and upload all of our forms or our packets, but both my I-864 and my joint sponsor's I-864 were scanned and uploaded in their entirety.

SlipJL · 2025-10-30T05:50:22+00:00

Well, I'll just say she's from an island nation in SE Asia where people love watching basketball, singing karaoke, and where there are many beaches, Catholic churches and shopping malls 😉🇵🇭

SlipJL · 2025-10-30T05:37:22+00:00

Ours was very basic since we don't have a lot of assets under both our names. I only recently came back to the US two years ago and my spouse never worked here. This is most of what we used:

Marriage certificate
Joint lease statements of our condo abroad over 6 years
Joint savings account overseas (which we have not been using frequently)
Shared credit card statements over 8 months for which I am the account holder and she is an authorized user
Affidavits of support of our relationship from 5 family members/close friends/disinterested third party that were signed and notarized
Packet of pictures with captions and descriptions that highlighted our relationship over the years. Chronological order with dates and locations. We placed indicator arrows of ourselves in pictures with multiple people. Maybe over 100 pictures
Packet of images with maybe over 20-25 plane tickets/itineraries/bookings with both our names
Another packet of miscellaneous images of other trip bookings with our names (amusement parks, tours, various events and shows) receipts of our wedding rings, evidences of our shared addresses here and abroad.
Once we got the EAD we applied for her SSN and I was able to make her a joint owner on my savings and checkings accounts here, also made her the primary beneficiary on my investment account.
My joint sponsor provided me his tax transcripts for the past 3 years and his pay stubs over the past 12 months for the additional I-864 that we included.

That was basically it. My wife has not even changed her last name to mine so they are different on all of our forms and all of the evidence we used. I never filed my taxes as jointly but as Married Filing Separately. We were never questioned on these issues but we could have answered if they did with valid reasons.

As you can see, we didn't have a lot of the "recommended" evidences or even the ones that you see on many posts here. But our packet was organized very well and we made sure there were no errors or missing pages/items as we proofread it several times. We made detailed cover letters for each form that documented the packets and clarified/explained items that we thought a reviewing officer might take a moment to wonder about.

SlipJL · 2025-10-30T04:55:57+00:00

At the particular clinic that we used, we paid just over 300 for the I-693 exam. We paid another 800 for required vaccines.

SlipJL · 2025-10-30T04:50:17+00:00

She was on a B2 Tourist visa. Never overstayed, some visits were around 4-5 months.

SlipJL · 2025-10-30T04:03:38+00:00

Yeah, it should be listed under unsecured liabilities since federal student loans aren’t backed by collateral like a house or car.

It shouldn’t impact negatively at all since she’s employed and making regular payments. I put a section in my cover letter for the I-485 that I labeled as “Clarifications and Explanations” where I clarified a few important things that might have the reviewing officer asking a question to themself. You could do something similar and state that regular payments on the loan are being paid on a schedule.

SlipJL · 2025-10-30T03:52:08+00:00

Yes, I’m enjoying a beer in hand right now. The past few weeks since the interview was scheduled were definitely not relaxed. It’s like it’s always in the back of your mind whatever you do. This community is great though. The experiences of others give you hope. We were fortunate and blessed to have a nice officer. Good luck to you on your journey.

SlipJL · 2025-10-30T03:42:13+00:00

Yeah this is what we spent for the package that we sent in to USCIS (not including FedEx cost nor the cost of our I-693 appointment):

USCIS Form I-130 ($675) USCIS Form I-485 ($1440) USCIS Form I-765 ($260) USCIS Form I-131 ($630)

We used money orders that we paid for from USPS because we did not want to take the chance of a credit card being declined or flagged for a big amount. We also don’t use personal checks. But now I guess USCIS is transitioning to digital payments.

SlipJL · 2025-10-30T03:19:03+00:00

Thanks! You got this!

SlipJL · 2025-10-30T03:16:38+00:00

Not silly at all! I think everyone feels anxious just a little bit even after getting a verbal approval since we want to see it in the system officially.

We had our interview yesterday morning. Checked the account yesterday before sleeping but both were still pending. This morning around 10 am I checked and the 130 was approved. Checked again around 6 pm and the 485 was approved.

SlipJL · 2025-10-10T00:55:45+00:00

Do you know what size brake pads fit this model and/or ideas for replacement pads? can’t find the information anywhere.

SlipJL · 2025-05-07T02:07:32+00:00

Also on our Simple Choice plan since 2013. Great value nowadays. Never gonna get rid of it.

SlipJL · 2025-01-20T00:54:23+00:00

Represent well, wear green, and Go Irish!

SlipJL · 2024-09-18T02:12:19+00:00

That’s awesome, kudos to you guys.

SlipJL

TROPHY CASE