Passport nightmare

In June we all applied for 'no-fee' passports through the military. They are free, processed through the military, and only get us into Spain. In August we still hadn't received them, so we applied for regular passports through the State department. Last week the passports started showing up - everyone's except mine. One week before our flight I still had no passport, and calls to the State department indicated a big problem : they would not issue my new passport until the old one with my maiden name had been canceled. And that one had already been surrendered to the military for the no-fee passport. Calls to the military could not locate my passport since they are processed through an independent company. They had taken 10 weeks, but apparently for the first 5 weeks it sat on someone's desk not being processed at all. Suddenly there was talk of canceling our flight for a month until I could fly.

So yesterday we drove to the passport center in Philadelphia to get it straightened out. Apparently the military only had a photocopy of our marriage license, not a certified copy. If they sent a request for more paperwork, it either went to our old address or to my husband's old unit. Either way, we never got it. So the military couldn't process it without our original marriage license, which was with the State department, and the State department couldn't process it without the old passport, which was with the military. Ahhhh, bureaucrats! After a lot of waiting and checking with supervisors, the surprisingly nice lady at the passport center told me they would overnight the regular passport to me from New Hampshire. We keep checking the tracking number, and it is on its way here right now! My stomach and nerves will feel so much better when I have a passport in hand and I can actually get on a plane with my family! We fly in 4 days, so I would like to relax and enjoy my last few days in the States.