Recap - the happier stuff

So what's happening with our dossier you ask? Right now it's sitting in a FedEx sort facility in Frankfurt, Germany. It's been there for a couple of days now. The estimated delivery date is July 4th. That has got to be the most frequently checking tracking number ever issued by FedEx. I've almost got it memorized.

Since I last left you.... we took our entire dossier to a notary on a Saturday. We signed our lives away and made copies (of the papers - not our lives). Scanned and e-mailed everything to our agency for a fast review before hitting the road to Austin. There was one speedbump in that we were missing one form from the agency. Got that on Saturday... found a notary open before noon on a Sunday (that's a big deal in this town!). Hit the road Sunday afternoon for the state capitol.

Spent Sunday evening chatting with a yahoo group friend who lived in Uzbekistan for two years. We went through photo album after photo album and sipped tea from an authentic Uzbek tea set. I loved every minute of it. It truly made it seem more like a real place with real people than all of the websites I've been looking at. I can't wait to see it for myself.

Monday morning I headed out to the state's certification/apostille office. Mapquest lead me astray with a wrong way turn onto a one way street. Thankfully the building was on the corner and I just found a parking space and hoofed it the rest of the way. The process took just a few minutes. It was well worth the drive though when the woman "bundled" two documents that weren't supposed to be. I had listed them separately on the office's form and had not stapled them (everything else was stapled into bundles), but she bundled them because they were from the same notary. Not acceptable!!! I had her redo it and then our dossier had grown by about another six pieces of paper.

Tuesday I received the last packet from the adoption agency. Slipped that into the dossier and overnighted it to the courier in Washington D.C. (Caring Hands.... Highly recommend them!!!). By Wednesday our dossier was in our nation's capitol and headed to the Department of State the next morning. Friday afternoon it was back on its way to our house after getting an extra page of "official looking" stuff from the Dept. of State and an unintelligible stamp from the Uzbek embassy.

Monday afternoon it was back with FedEx and headed to our agency. Tuesday afternoon it was again with FedEx and on its way to Uzbekistan. That poor stack of paper must be getting dizzy after being whisked around the country so many times.

And now... we wait. I don't know how the referral process works from here exactly. I think it's going to involve some waiting. While I'm waiting... I think I'll check that FedEx tracking number again. It's been at least five minutes now.