Dossier part 2

Of course the POA had to have both of our signatures on it and Liam was in Ft. Leonardwood with the army. I drove up that weekend and we scrambled like mad to find a notary. Couldn't find one at the bank, post office of any other government office (go figure). My oh-so-smart hubby finally thought of a car dealership. So we wisked over to the nearest one and thankfully the nicest woman on the earth at that moment agreed to notarize it for free. So, again, first thing Monday morning (a week after my original plan), I walked into our State Office and was out within 10 minutes, state-certified POA in hand. Liam felt that we could wait to mail it the following day (really?), but I wasn't about to wait. We raced (do you feel the urgency with all of this?) to the nearest post office...it was only a distribution center...found a "real" post office and mailed off the final dossier. Yay!!!! At the same time we mailed off the I600-A paperwork to USCIS (the petition to parent an orphan which goes to the Department of Immigration). A bit expensive, because I insisted on doing it all overnight. Hey, I'm a bit anxious, here. This was 5/24.

On 5/26, I got an email saying that we needed to get colored copies of our passports to send with the dossier (I just sent in black and white copies) and that we also had to get Liam's certificate of US citizenship notarized by USCIS. Our nearest office is in Kansas City. We got the information on the Friday before Memorial Day. So bright-and-early Tuesday morning (6/1..Happy Birthday, Lindsey), we drove up to KC. It was a quick process, but gave me headaches trying to figure out how to go about it. Liam was surprised that we were in and out of the office within 10 minutes. His prior experience with immigration had left a bitter taste in his mouth and he was prepared (as always) for worst case scenario. Funny story, on the way to the USCIS office, we got lost (of course). We had to make an appt., so we were stressed to try to make it on time. It's in the industrial section of KC...in an office that does not look "official" in the slightest. We were running low on gas, added to a mile long traffic jam, and now we were running late. Whew! Luckily, we doubled back, found a gas station and arrived just in time for our appt. (not that it really mattered, as the office was empty, except for us. After we got his paperwork notarized, we were on the lookout for a post office. Found another distribution center instead. Raced around for a bit, before we found the correct place. We mailed off our Revised Dossier (over-night, of course) on 6/1/2010. We got notification that our Revised Dossier made it to Holt (in Oregon) on 6/3. Notification that our Dossier was in Ethiopia came on 6/23/10. Yay! The same day, we got word that they had lost our POA (blasted piece of paperwork). So, Melissa Sixkiller (LOVE HER) notarized us a new copy and, Liam, his dad (who was visiting with us from Ireland), and I raced over to our State Department (again!) to complete the process (again!). We sent this off on 5/25. It was Received at Holt on 6/29 (Liam finally put his foot down about the over-night mail). We received word that it was in Ethiopia on 7/16 (Happy Birthday, Nicki). Yay!!!!!!!