Oh Sacramento!

In mid March my friend Brandyn and I finally finished our Dossiers!  This was a huge accomplishment for us.  We spent over a year compiling stacks of paperwork. One packet for the US, and one packet for Haiti (the Dossier is the Haiti packet).  Every paper needs to be notarized, State certified, and then authenticated by the Haitian consulate, before it can be translated and then finally sent off to Haiti.

We decided instead of mailing and waiting for the State certification that we would take a little road trip to Sacramento and get it done then and there! Thankfully we arrived with plenty of time to spare because we ended up needing every minute.  We soon discovered that each of us had 2 documents that had not been properly notarized.  We had to book it on foot to the UPS only to find that the notary's stamp was expiring within the nest few months.  This would not work for us.  Thankfully we found that we were both fast-walkers! We made our way from L and 10th to Q and 18th, got what we needed and headed back to the Secretary of State office.  Here we are- papers in hand,
exhausted but still smiling.  Rejoicing in the fact that we have moved one big step closer to bringing our children home!!!

That was trip one.  I honestly cant even remember why we had to go back again.  But we did, and this time we knew exactly where we were going and what we were doing. Ha! We arrived at the office confidently with papers in hand, only to realize our papers were never even stamped by the notary! Our notary was getting married the following week so we'll chalk it up to that.  But what was our excuse?! Somehow neither of us noticed.  So back to the UPS on Q and 18th, and back to the Secretary of State. You do what you gotta do.  We enjoyed a meal together and headed home. My heart has been beyond grateful for the gift of my dear friend Brandyn.  The Lord paired us perfectly together and it has been such a blessing for our family to be on this journey together .

Here we are looking a little more refreshed and ready to ship out our completed Dossier!

Sometime in the middle of waiting for our Dossiers to be translated, authenticated, shipped out, and legalized in Haiti we found the twins.  And once again I had to head up to Sacramento.  This time we made it a family trip of it.  We went up to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, headed over to visit our dear friend (who had been hospitalized for over two months) and his precious family.  Spent the night with another family friend and hit the State Capitol on the way home. 

I didn't know you could walk right into the State Capitol for a tour.  You can! And we did!

Got our documents for the twins!!

 

Our mini date at Estelle's

Not far behind was trip #4.  This time Brent and I made a date of it.  We got a call on a Tuesday morning, saying that one of our papers needed to be corrected.  I was in the theatre with the kids and Brent was having coffee with a friend. As soon as we were done we dropped the kids of with Grammy, hopped in the car and rolled out.  We found the most amazing little spot called Estelle's Patisserie Bakery and Espresso Bar. Had a quick drink and pastry and got it DONE!


And now last but not least.  I had the privilege of traveling with my friend Amber who is adopting from China.  They just finished their Dossier and she mentioned she was going to head up to Sacramento to get papers certified.  I blurted out, "I'm going with you!!" I was so excited for her and thought, hey I know how to get there, I know where to go if we hit any snags, and it'll be fun.  Well, she had no snags, and I actually missed our exit and got us turned around, but we did have FUN!

Yay!!

And this my friends is Estelle's pastry case. We had a perfect little lunch and bought little cakes to take home to our families!