Just a quick word to the wise if you are planning to travel this spring. We are going to Ireland in May, but our kids have the chance to visit their uncle, who lives in Rome, for a week at spring break, so we applied for their new passports in January. Understand, these are not first timers. This will be the third passport for each of them. I’ve been on the phone with the passport office in New Orleans three times today. The gist of the matter is that a normal application is currently taking a bare minimum of eight weeks to process. The reason given for the delay is, of course, “heavy work load”. Don’t believe the four weeks on the application form, or the six weeks on the website. It’s a minimum of eight weeks. Ours have already been in for eight weeks, and they have been sitting in the print queue for nine days, with no sign they will shift anytime soon. We should be ok for Ireland, but it looks like no Roman holiday is in the offing. In any case, apply today, and pay the extra money for expedited service if there is any doubt in your mind (although I don’t know how fast that will be either).