We had a late night last night-- yet we all (11 kids and I) managed to get up by 7:00 in the morning and pile into the van for our road trip. After getting gas, we stopped for donuts. We barely beat the crowd-- but you should have seen their "WOW" faces as we ate our donuts and drank our milk. On top of him being cranky from lack of sleep, Dennis is going through a "whine till I get what I want" stage which made things a little embarrassing for me. Probably because I don't give into him when he is whining... and of course he doesn't like that I am not responding to his verbal cues the way he wants. Oh well. So... Dennis attempted to whine when it was Alex's turn for a drink each and everytime. And each and every of the three times, I reminded him that if he whined, his donut would be taken away and he would go sit in the car with me--- where he wouldn't have anything to whine about. Can't wait till he puts two and two together--- only six more months till he is four!
We got to Sacramento before noon and found parking right in front of the building with 20 minutes left on the meter. Caleb noticed the guy behind us had run out of time so he dropped in a quarter--- why not bless someone else like we were blessed? We quickly dropped off our documents-- then went to the cafeteria to eat lunch while they were being processed. Nearly, $500 later, we walked out MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!
On the drive home, I stopped for gas but noticed how high it was-- so I got back on the freeway to get off at the next off-ramp--- except there wasn't one--- for another 16 miles--- and the low fuel light had just beeped on. Oh snap!!! I nervously drove those miles pondering whether or not I should turn around. It wasn't a very good feeling I had--- for those seemingly endless 15 minutes. I know, I know--- pretty irresponsible since I don't even have a cell phone-- but we made it and the kids were none the wiser! Praise the Lord! And God was graceful too---- this place could have charged even more but I actually ended up saving $.34 a gallon.
The best part about the trip was coming home to an awesome message from Laurel at God's Waiting Children. Someone heading back to Ukraine on Monday can stop by our house and pick up our dossier and hand deliver it for us! What a blessing! This will not only save us the cost of shipping our dossier, but it will save me the headache of tracking it with FedEx all week! Plus, it saves us one week!
After this fun and interesting day, it got me to thinking--- there must be numerous crazy and adventurous Apostilling Roadtrip Stories out there! Do share!
9 comments:
Congrats on having a completed dossier! Only those who have been through the adoption process can truely appreciate what an accomplishment that is!
You're reminding me how grateful I am for a) one dollar Michigan apostilles, b) the location of the Office of the Great Seal halfway between my work and home.
Fortunately for us, we live in our state's capital city, so our "apostille roadtrips" were just into downtown!
How awesome that you are getting your dossier hand delivered and that someone lives close enough to pick it up!!! This adoption has His hands all over it!!!
Glad you made it home safe and sound after your BIG and successful road trip!!!
last time we thought oh we will just go and have a picnic at the capital and stop at the museum and lastly stop for apostille. so we had a lovely picnic on the capital grounds. spent a few hours in the museum. and then ventured out to find the apostille office. OOPS. it moved since the last time we were there. so we went to find it. and we did find it. I ran in leaving Eric in the car with the kids and I got there only to be told no its too late, we dont accept apostille documents after 4. yeah that would have been nice to know. they wanted me to come back another day. I got tears in my eyes and said we drove two hours just to get here. we live on Mille Lacs. I can not come tomorrow. They took mercy on me and said they would see if they could get it done. and they did get it done while I waited. I cant see why it was so hard as nearly ALL of our documents had the SAME notary. so they really only had to look up about 4 notaries.
Yay! I'm so glad it's done and that it can be hand-delivered soon...what a relief that must be!
I had a similar refuel situation that happened to me last week...got on the highway with plenty of gas, got stuck in heavy traffic, next exit was 10 miles away. My car has a nifty little sensor that tells you how many miles you have left before gas tank is empty (though I never trust it below 20 miles since I really don't want to run out of gas and the gauge seems a little wonky). All the way to the nearest exit, I prayed we wouldn't get stuck in the middle of the highway with no place to pull over. Miraculously, we made it to the gas station, but only after the "miles left" sensor had hit 0 miles...very scary!
Annie, I am so jealous! Boy that is cheap!
Oh Tami I would have been bawling too. So glad everything worked out.
Wow Amy I don't even want to now how many miles we actually had left. Too close a call in my book.
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