Ready

The last time I blogged, I was freaking out about how soon we might be travelling and I didn't think I was ready yet.  Well, I have since made a complete 180.  On Thursday of last week, I was driving to pick up L & N from Kindergarten and it hit me.  I knew our Article 5 was going to be picked up on the 12th.  Suddenly, I really wanted it to be picked up sooner so we could travel sooner.  Since then, I have been secretly hoping for an email saying that he picked it up early because he just happened to swing by and they had it, or something along those lines.  That hasn't happened.  Then this morning when I woke up, I was SO excited and I was thinking about what time it was in Crescent Moon and how he might already be picking it up and sending it to the headquarters so they could issue our Travel Approval!  Then, I saw the calendar and realized that today is only the 11th.  :-(  I'm glad that I'm finally excited to go, but I wish I didn't have another month of waiting!

In case I wasn't excited enough, my sister also had a dream about Z last week!  In her words, "She was do sweet and just knew English she was telling me how she couldn't see but the one thing she could was gods face and she was so loving hugging everyone it was so awesome:)"  

As for our visa, the embassy has recently outsourced visas to another office!!  I can't tell you how happy I am to know this!  I called them and we will have to wait until we have booked our flights & hotel because they won't even consider the application without that in hand.  It seems a bit risky, but at this point that seems trivial.  So, hopefully we can get our dates soon and start working on that.

I spent more time than I care to think about on the phone (international long distance at that!) the other day calling various places to try to get some answers about getting Z's passport.  Everyone basically confirmed what I had already guessed.  We will need to apply in person to the agency in Chicago and will hopefully be able to get it the same day (or at least 2-3 days).  It will cost a lot, but we already knew that was going to be the case.  The things I did learn and I am SO grateful that I learned are that I need a form filled out by D and notarized stating why he can't be there in person and that he gives permission for me to get Z's passport myself.  (That would have been a last minute round-trip plane ticket mistake!)  I also need to have a return trip to Germany already booked within 14 days or they won't consider us either.  I wasn't sure whether I wanted to risk booking the return flight before I had the passport in hand, but now I know I need to and can do it earlier to save a bit of money.  So, I would say the hours I spent on the phone (and whatever the subsequent bill will be) was time & money well spent.