Applying at the border? Who knew?

So a brief update to what's going on with my applications journey:

1. I sent off the requests for FBI criminal history and Virginia criminal history on Friday 7/17. They were both delivered earlier this week ( VA on 7/20 and FBI on 7/22). As of today the payments have not been processed, so I can only assume that they haven't been picked up from their post office boxes yet (let alone processed). ALSO, I am slightly nervous because I've read about people who have sent their FBI request in with only one fingerprint card and their request ends up being denied due to the prints being smudged or unreadable. Others have suggested submitting 3-4 cards with the applications for criminal history to avoid having the request denied because of smudged/ unreadable prints. The logic behind this is that if one card has a bad fingerprint they can possibly get it from one of the other submitted cards. So, now I am considering getting more fingerprint cards made and sending off a new request to the FBI, just in case my original request gets rejected. After all, the current waiting period is 2-4 months to get the FBI request processed. I would really hate to wait all that time just to get a rejection letter, have to submit a new request, and end up waiting another 2- 4  months. So.... yeah still thinking about what to do; take my chances or be proactive?

2. I have submitted a few questions about the Criminal Rehabilitation and Permanent Residency processes on a couple of immigration forums  ( Applying for Permanent Residence and Criminal Rehabilitation - RoadtoCanada  and Criminal Rehabilitation and Permanent Residency Applications - Canadavisa.com ). I've been told a couple of different things by forum members. A)  You can send both applications together. This may or may not increase processing time by months/years. B) You can complete the application for Criminal Rehabilitation and physically take it to a border crossing for processing/ approval. This can take as little as three days for approval. WHAT?! SERIOUSLY?! 3 DAYS?!

Everything I have read up to this point says that it can take months to years to get approval for Criminal Rehabilitation (when it's mailed in). Even if it took 3 months to get approval, I would gladly make the 10 hour drive to the border for that!! So, my husband and I are attempting to find out from Canadian Border Services if this is actually still possible (I say "still possible" because the most recent approval story I read about was from a year ago). 

So that's where we are now. Not much has changed or progressed, but just wanted to give you a little update.

Oh, I almost forgot. I decided to post dates/prices for everything we have done on each post just to give you all an idea of what things may cost for the application process. I will do this each time we complete a new task and all costs will be in USD (America dollar).

ITEM                                COST         DATE           DATE RECEIVED

FBI Background Check -- $18.00 ---- 7/17/2015 ---- 7/22/2015

VA Police State Check -- $20.00 ----  7/17/2015 ---- 7/20/2015

Fingerprints --------------- $5.00 -----   7/17/2015

Postage -------------------- $11.50 ----   7/17/2015

Current total = $54.50

Thanks for reading! I hope that you find this and future entries helpful!