A paper chase day...

By 7:30 am we were off. Our first trip was to Shea’s birth town. The office of vital statistics was in a touristy section of town, and we did not get a chance to look around the more residential settings. We arrived at the office before it opened and waited in line to submit our papers. We were informed that his new birth certificate would be ready by 2pm…and probably not sooner. This worried Luda a bit because she was not sure we would finish all the needed business to complete the passport application requirements by the end of the day. Our current status was that Friday the 24^th would be the first possible day we would have his passport in hand. Luda had discovered that Monday and Tuesday the 27^th and 28^th government buildings are closed…so the second best option would be that we would get our passport on Wednesday the 29^th. (fyi after we get his passport and get ourselves back to the capitol we need two full business days of embassy and medical exam work before we can fly home.)

Since we had to kill time until 2 we drove to a nearby monastery with rock formations and churches built into the rock itself. Then we went on to a local palace of a former king and finally to a souvenier market and some rest time to have our packed lunches. I was antsy that we were “loosing time” in the race against the clock…but my personal photographer (mom) took many lovely photos of his home region that I’m sure he will someday find great meaning from.

By two oclock we went back to the office of vital stats and the door was locked….oh dear! By quarter after 2 we were let back in, but our certificate had not been started. By 2:45 we were on our way back to the town of the orphanage in a very speedy manner thanks to our driver artur….very speedy…white knuckle fast!

Our fist stop was to the notary office, and then to the social security office to get his tax ID number for the bank work we will have to do tomorrow. Then we raced again back to the orphanage to pick up Shea…which I had not realized was going to happen today. There is no written itinerary with this trip, and I had not been told about this part of the day, so it was a nice surprise. Unfortunately when we arrived at the orphanage the lawyer had forgotten to write up the form giving us permission to take him out for his photos. Luda called her and our resolution was that they would allow us to go without the form since she had forgotten to complete it, but we needed to take a nanny along with us. It all worked out, but this again caused some time to be lost in our race against the clock…counting down ultimately to the day we would get our passport back. Also because of the extra person there was certainly no way that we would all fit in our drivers car, so my parents had to stay at the orphanage grounds while we did our work.

We needed to take Shea to the passport office and then to get visa photos done. In the midst of our hecticness artur was sent on an errand to find us a new phone charging cord as ours didn’t work and we were unable to communicate with the team if needed. We completed all tasks at hand today, but by an hour that was too late. We are told Friday passport partying is not going to happen. They are fairly sure we will have it by Wednesday the 29^th, and of so we would be allowed to go by train back to the capital that night, or by plane in the morning…which ever has 4 open seats and a good deal.

Of course…these are best estimates and not written in stone, but it looks like Shea will be “sprung out of the joint” and joining us by Wednesday the 29th if all goes well. We arrived back to our apartment by 7:00pm and collapsed into a tired and hungry mess J

So that was our day…pretty factual I know….sorry about that. A few special moments…. On our outing, Shea was given the option of the nanny or mamma a few times, and I was the lucky winner…it felt good, and of course is a good bonding sign!

I’m cautiously optimistic that we will have a good little traveler when we leave. He is usually so activity oriented and I was afraid long bouts of sitting in one place would be a problem. What I found today is that we was so enthralled with being in a car and watching all the hustle and bustle of the city that is was hard to get a peep out of him…. His eyes were glued to his surroundings as he was nestled into my lap. Once we were back to the orphanage he proclaimed “that was a good trip”!

I will close for now… I was really really hoping for a Friday passport day to shorten our travel time and to get home as a family all under one roof….but looks like this was not meant to be. I think we will probably be right on track with the 2 wk estimate period which I am very thankful for. I do think and hope we will be home in time for july 4^th celebration fireworks, and danielle’s birthday on the 7^th. Oh and by the way did I mention Dan has to leave town on July 5^th for 8 days for work duties in florida??

Good grief, I’m just rollin’ with it! Thank you for your prayers and the comments that I have gotten along the way. We appreciate all of your support….Mamma Liz