Adventures in Adopting

On Thursday our paperwork came back from the Dept of Immigration, approving Zach's adoption. As I said previously, as soon as that I-797 came back, I wanted to run down to the state capital to go directly to the Secretary of State to get the final paperwork authenticated, however on Thursday night we had a snow storm blow in...... Fridy morning came and the boys had a 2 hour school delay. OK, if they went to school after the delay, I was still going. If it turned into a cancellation, then I was staying home. Darn, cancelled. As I was doing the math, I was now going to have to wait until Wed to go - Monday is Martin Luther King day, Tuesday I work. That puts me at getting the paperwork sent off the the Chinese consulate on Thursday, they wouldn't receive it until Friday, and Monday is Chinese New Year so they will be closed from Friday until Tue or so. Hopefully they could get right to it when they get back to send it back to us - darned snow is ruining my plans. I just pulled pizza out of the oven for the boys' lunch, and Mike called around 11:30 and said they were closing down the plant since the weather was bad, he'd be home by noon and he would drive to the S of state office. Frantically we packed drinks, snacks and things to do for the boys and by the time Mike got home, we were ready to go. He said since we were going south, it wouldn't be long before we drove out of the snow. Off we started, first to get out I-797 notorized before we could take it to the S of state, then to get Mike a sweet tea from McDonalds for the drive....oops, I forgot to grab and extra bottle of windshield wiper fluid for the drive, and I was authenticating copies of the documents, maybe we should grab the originals just in case. Back home to get those 2 things and we are on the way now by 12:30. It's normally about a 3 1/2 hour drive, so we have plenty of time. On the drive it was Murphay's law all the way. Yes we drove out of the bad weather fairly quickly, but then the washer fluid sprayers kept freezing up, so we had to keep stopping for hot water to pour over them to thaw them out. A couple of potty breaks, Zach needed a snack, had to fill up the gas tank...... Lula (the GPS) estimates as we are getting close that it will be 4:50 by the time we reach the S of state. They close at 5. I called to let them know we had been driving for about 5 hours and we were coming, would they wait for us. The lady I spoke with simply said good luck, our office closes right at 5. Thank you, this may now turn into a wasted trip. At 5 till we were having a hard time with the directions, Lula told us too late about our turn an the streets are one way so getting back there was a problem. Mike finally got out of the car with our documents at a red light and off he RAN at full speed to the court house. He had to run 2 blocks just to get there on the slippery sidwalks and when he went through security, panting and ready to burst, he found that he went into the wrong side of the building. He was on the state capital side. Off he sprints about a block across to get to the right side. Then he had to turn to go a block down to the far corner, and downstairs to the basement. Just as he is getting there, the lady I spoke with earlier was on her way out of the office. Darn. But, as he has done through this whole process, God was watching out for us (they say he takes care of little children and fools, so I guess we are the fools, or maybe he just has a soft spot in his heart for Zach) The lady who runs that department had stayed behind just in case we made it through security in time and could get to her office. Mike got the documents all authenticated, and after thanking the lady profusely, came back to the car, triumphant. Of course he could not breath properly after breathing in all that cold air he ran through, but after sitting for a few minutes to rest, he got to revel in his role as our hero. This allowed me to send off the paperwork to the Chinese Consulate on Saturday, they should now get them Tuesday and have time to get them back to us before they take off for the New Year's holiday. We hope to have all our papers sent to the Adoption Agency for translation to Chinese by the end of the week. They have 9 days to check it over, translate it, and bind it, then it will be on it's way to China. We then should get our travel date in a few weeks, we are hoping to travel in March!!! We are so excited!!!