Whew.

Whew. The paperwork chasing day went roughly as planned on Tuesday. Hallelujah!!! Mom came to our house about 7:30AM and off we went. Well, off we went after I ate made some tea, grabbed a granola bar, packed a bite for Addie to eat, and checked and re-checked all the documents. Actually...our day had started at 3:00AM. Or maybe it never ended the day before. I'm really not sure. It's all a blur.

Jason came down with a nasty cold sometime Monday. He coughed and coughed all night that night....resulting in my getting very little sleep. Will decided Monday night that it was silly to go to sleep and at 10:30 (2 1/2 hours after being placed in bed) I went up for the second time to get him to settle down and go to sleep. He was so busy "talking to Brandon" (who lives several miles from here and must have excellent hearing as they were carrying on quite the conversation) that his light coming on was a real shock. The time that he goes to sleep doesn't typically bother me, but that night it did. After all, he was getting up at 3:00AM (though he didn't know it) to head off with Jason to buy a couple sheep. Normally we would have all piled in with Jason, but, the paperwork, you know... Finally, sometime around midnight Jason quit the comination cough/snore and I fell asleep. The alarm rang at 3:00 and Jason and Will headed out. Will left on cloud nine. I gave him strict instructions to talk all the time to keep Daddy awake, to which he replied, "That's kinda strange, to talk all day long." But he took me seriously and didn't nod off until about 6:45, according to reports. Addie woke up before they left (at 3:15) and then crawled back in bed with me. About five, I finally told her to lie still or go to her own bed. She chose to lie still....and promptly fell asleep. The alarm rang at 6:30 and the paper chase began.

Mom showed up and I finished my last minute stuff. I dropped her off at the court house about 8:15 with a stack of documents to be certified, and Addie and I headed on to the doctor's office. Evidently my frustration has been showing...when we pulled in the drive at the doctor's office, Addie pipes up from the backseat, "Well, Mom, I sure hope that doctor's here. I will be fwustwated if we have to go find her." Oops. My friend, the notary, was there, ready and waiting. We went into the office and first had to have my doctor's stuff notarized. (He'd tried and missed the notary at the bank by a couple minutes...and I told him to just wait til I brought in the notary.) Got that done and headed down to THE doctor. She wasn't in yet, but the receptionist reported that she hadn't called in sick. That was a good sign. She showed up, walked in the little office, and asked, "So. Where's this magic paper that I'm supposed to sign?" I think my mouth dropped open a tad, and then I got a little nervous. I told her that the girls up front were supposed to have it....and she responded that she didn't know anything about it. Grr. I guess the desk ladies hadn't been passing on my multitudes of messages?! She found the paper, we got it notarized, and we scooted out the door in a blur. The notary left for work, and I picked up the paperwork from doctor #3. Whew. All done. Back to the court house to get the stack in my hands certified....at which point I found a document in my folder that I had intended to have notarized when I met up with the notary at the doc office. No problem. I know where she works. I dropped off the complete docs and Addie and zipped out of town to chase down the notary. Got that done, headed back to the court house (I wonder why they know me by name?), paid my bill, and we headed off to Dayton. To their court house. Found it after getting lost only a couple times, took in the final two documents to be certified, and met the kindest chocolate (as Addie called him) man who didn't charge us for the certifications. There are such kind people in the world that we live in. Off we went to Columbus for apostilles. Got lost trying to find the secretary of state office (one would think that after multiple trips there, we could drive right to it), finally found it, and were done there by 12:30. Staples was the next stop where we made a little over 200 copies. The post office not-so-gently shoved all the precious documents into an overnight envelope and sent them on their way to the agency. They should get them today. Then...I find out if I made any mistakes.

Ahem. I just heard from our agency.

Ahem again. I got rather side tracked while writing this and am now getting back to it four days later. We'll see how good my memory is....

It's never a good sign when our agency calls rather than e-mails us. Never. Keep that in mind as I say that our agency called us on Thursday. This time it really wasn't too big of a deal, but I did make a very minor mistake. Though major or minor really doesn't matter to them....they still couldn't send our dossier on, no matter how minor. I messed up and sent them a copy of our fingerprint cards, rather than the originals. Oops. Just a quick trip to the post office was all it took to correct that mistake. So much better than if I had had to go back to the doctor's office...or something like that. Now if the dossier can just make it through the next stops without them turning up any more mistakes.....

The paper chase is done until further notice. We hope that 'further notice' never comes. That would mean that the judge reviewed it quickly and got us back there for a court session before the documents start to expire...which is 90 days from the date on the document. The only things that would expire in 90 days are the doctor reports, blood work, chest x-rays, and our police clearance reports + fingerprints. Not too bad, but, of course the documents that take the most time.

Now we wait. While waiting we will hammer out the kindergarten work (as best you can 'hammer' it out....when the brain is used up for the day there isn't much hammering going to happen). We will try to get this place cleaned up outside before the snow starts flying. We'll finish up field work...well, Jason and his brothers and dad will do that while I simply take supper to the field every evening. We will care for our 100 animals...gulp. (We just figured up yesterday that our newest addition of a little miniature horse made an even 100 animals on our little farm.) We will pray...and pray....and pray. We'll talk about and pray for little Jack Nickolay. We'll keep guessing on what size of clothes to take for him. We'll make sure that we are extremely familiar with his medical records so we can set the judge's mind at ease. (Word has it that the judges are really cracking down due to the lady from Tennessee sending her son back to Russia when the going got tough. Of course, the little guy was from the region that we are heading to, so this region especially is cracking down.) We'll dream of the day when Jack Nickolay is finally a member of our little family....officially.

I wasn't going to share this as it really has absolutely nothing to do with anything that you 'need' to know. Well, I guess I did mention our new little horse in passing.... Anyway, last Friday we decided was the day to pick up the mini horse that we had spoken for. Last time we saw him he was roughly the size of a cat. Literally. He was adorable. I guess I forgot how much animals grow in just a few months. Off I went (with my children and my mom...she gets dragged into everything) to pick up this horse in the back of the pick-up. Never mind the fact that there was a trailer sitting in our drive that would have made it pretty easy...but then we wouldn't have this story!! We got to the farm where the little guy (Pumper is his name) was and heave ho'd him into the bed of the pick-up. We dutifully tied him fast...you know, we used baler twine on each side of his too-big halter and fastened the other end to the bed of the pick-up. Ideally, it should have worked. We hadn't gone too far down the road when the little whipper-snapper slipped right out of his halter. Thankfully, I was perched in the back with him and was able to keep him in the pick-up til Mom finally got stopped. Then the fun began. What to do with this little guy. We finally concluded that our only option was to shove him in the cab. I didn't check with Jason first as I knew without asking that that option wouldn't be approved. Oh, I'm sure it was a sight. Two little ladies pulling and shoving a horse into the back seat of a pick-up with two little children exclaiming how happy they were that Pumper could sit up front with them. He behaved like a good little horse and we came the rest of the way home with a horse breathing down our necks. And, no, Jason really wasn't too impressed. He can't believe he married such a hillbilly. :) I can't either, but I sure am glad that he did!!!

I must get busy. School was supposed to start three minutes ago, and the child to be schooled is still snoring. Bad teacher. But sleep is important too, right?!

If I were to issue a prayer request....which I guess I kind of am, huh?!....I would ask that you pray specifically that the paperwork is good to go, and that the judge is in a good mood when she receives it. Thank you.

Blessings on your day~