Certification - DONE!! Authentication - In Progress

Yesterday I had called the notary to see if our documents were ready yet and they said that it would be either today or tomorrow.  I had been told on Friday that it would be Monday or Tuesday.  :-\  I explained that D had already taken today off work to drive them to Köln, so we really needed them ASAP!  The lady said the certification office was very busy and there wasn't anything they could do but that she would know by 9:30 today and that I should call at 9:45 to talk to her.  On my way home from dropping DJ & L off at school, I really felt a calm that they would be in this morning.  I called at 9:48 and someone else answered the phone.  All she knew was that the documents weren't there and she had no idea when they might show up.  Well, my bubble of hope popped.  I started cleaning the desk to keep my head distracted from my thoughts because it looked hopeless.  D  took today off, but he has work trips for basically the next week.  I can maybe handle going to the Crescent Moon embassy by myself in the morning, but Köln is too far away to get there & back in the morning and DJ can't miss school. The thought of having to wait a whole week because of a 1 day delay was just too much for me to handle!  I even made D try to call the certification place a couple of times to see if they could hurry up.  They never answered.  After about 45 minutes, my phone rang.  It was the lady who knew what she was doing from the Notar.  She said our documents were ready to pick up!  She knew how important this was and even offered to stay in the office over her lunch break if we needed her to.  Talk about sweet!!  That's seriously unheard of here in Germany!  D was able to get them before noon, so she still got to enjoy her lunch break.  D took the documents to the Federal Office in Köln and will hopefully have no problems getting them Authenticated for us today.  I will update again when he gets home.  :-)