The Amazing Race

It seems like the last week and a half has been a race to complete paperwork and the final push was on Friday! We pretty much had collected all our paperwork and just needed to pick up our state verification letters in Albany, get them county sealed and then everything could be apostilled by the state secretary ... doesn't seem to hard right ... well that part was relatively easy ... it was the mad race to BOSTON after I finished in Albany that got a little crazy and a little stressful!!! I think I logged 500 miles or so on the Saturn just on Friday!!

I started by leaving our house in Newburgh at 8am to venture to Albany .. this was the easy part ... all the paperwork was collected, sealed and stamped by 11am!!! For about 2 seconds I considered a shopping trip to LL Bean (I was in the area afterall) but decided to just head to Massachusetts ... just in case!

On my way out of New York, I heard from the office in Boston who was sending the state verification letters for our 2 Social Workers... "we sent those letters out on August 28th ... yes, we sent them directly to WHFC... no, we couldn't send them via Fed Ex ... but still regular mail and a week later they should be there"! WHFC has no idea where these letters are .. they don't have them ... or at least that's why they say!! Really ... does the US Postal service lose mail often???

Anyway, since we need these letters I figured it would be better to be safe than sorry so I called the office in Boston and asked if it would be possible to get TWO new verification letters for the social workers .. I'll pay for them again if need be ... I decide to drive to Boston on the Friday before Labor Day (thank you Mom for being the co-pilot)...we make our way down to Causeway Street ... for those of you in Massachusetts ... the office we needed to go to was just across from THE GARDEN .. you know where the Celtics play! Have you ever tried to park down there ... oh yeah.. right ... we did find a parking garage and just left the car ... got the 2 letters (THANK YOU TOM!!!) and then took the T (subway to the New Yorkers) and went over by the State House to the office that does the apostilles! My Mom called while I was driving from New York to get there hours and how many documents you can walk in with!!! The magic number is 3 so thankfully I had only 2!!! We got there and just for a second ... the woman behind the counter didn't like how the letters had been notarized... I started to say "ARE YOU KIDDING ME" but she changed her mind and said ..."ah close enough" ... THANK YOU.. THANK YOU .. THANK YOU is all I could say!! We left the building hopped back on the T .. found the ticket for the parking garage and then we were headed out of Boston at 4pm!!!

It was a crazy day .. oh and I forgot to mention how I dribbled iced coffee down my white t-shrit and had to change in the Blackstone Valley Mall parking lot ... but the short is WE MADE IT ... the paperwork has ALL BEEN COLLECTED and will arrive at WHFC bright and early on Tuesday morning and then it's off to Russia and hopefully we will have a court date soon!!!