Hess Adventures: Running Around Crazy

Monday night I got 9 out of the 13 documents for our Dossier ready to take downtown on Tuesday morning to get the state seal. Around 10:00pm Monday night I sent a friend who just adopted from China an email asking her about sending the documents to the Chinese Consulate. To her great rapid response she said in so many words...don't send directly to the consulate, use a courier. (THANKS ROBIN!!) She gave me the name that she used. After a little bit of research, I decided it was time for bed. Only this was on my mind as I laid in bed thinking about how much this is going to cost using a courier and is it really necessary. So about Midnight I decided that it was useless to be in bed with this on my mind. I turned the computer back on and researched the courier a little bit more. Putting together a "budget" of how much this was going to cost (if you know Mark, you will know that he would want to know "how much is this going to cost us" :) After putting it down on paper I realized that in April when I put together our "Adoption Budget" I budgeted $800 for Chinese Consulate however, even using a courier this HOPEFULLY will only cost around $500. So I did not feel so bad. Around 12:30 I was able to go to bed but not to sleep because then Olivia decided that she "needed" me 3 different times that night. Why that night...why not a night that I go to bed around 10:00????

On Tuesday after dropping Mahala off at school, Olivia, Adeline and myself went downtown to get the state seal on our 9 documents...only to find out that we needed a State Birth Certificates....County vs State...not sure why one is better than the other??? And that 3 of our other documents had something wrong with the notary. So out of the 9 we only got 4 with the state seal. We ran to the doctors off to fix 2 of the documents. Later that night we got the other one fixed.

Wednesday after dropping Mahala off at school, we ran downtown again. Parked the car, walked 2 blocks to get our STATE birth certificates (still don't know what is wrong with County), walked back to the government building, and got the 5 documents state sealed. As we were driving home, a LIGHT BULB came on...don't you hate that when after 2 days of CRAZY running around trying to get things done...and then common sense comes to you. I was trying to get these 9 documents done so I could send them to the consulate before they expire on October 22. (We are still waiting of our immigrations paper so that is why we were only sending 1/2 of the documents) So the light bulb as I'm driving said to me why not wait 'til October 1st and just maybe you will have your immigration paper, then you can send them all at one time and save about $100! I really wanted to scream at myself. I had RUSHED for 2 days now trying to get it all this done...and now these 9 documents with the state seal will sit in a folder until the 1st of October waiting for our immigration paper. And at that time we will return to the government building to get the remaining documents state sealed :) CRAZY...really wish the light bulb would have come on earlier!!!

So now we wait for September 16th to get our fingerprints. Hopefully they will be clear with no problems and we will get our immigrations by the 1st so that I can get that off to our courier to take to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago before the 22nd when our Marriage License expires...unless anyone is up for a shopping day trip to Chicago....do a little adoption business and then shop :)

Mahala turned 6 this week. Below is her hospital picture.